• Fortune, Thursday, July 24, 2008 11 AM

News Corp. President Peter Chernin on Tuesday noted that advertisers haven't fully embraced the opportunities online, particularly in video and mobile. In an interview with Fortune's Richard Siklos, Chernin said advertisers continue to have a television mindset, noting that one recently told a MySpace rep to come back to him when the social network has a "Super Bowl-level" event.

The News Corp. president said the advertiser failed to realize that the MySpace homepage has as many viewers every day as the Super Bowl has once a year. Of course, MySpace users aren't paying as much attention to the ads, (this is News Corp.'s No. 1 problem with the growing site) but given its massive audience, Chernin noted there are greater opportunities for advertisers than they realize.

For one thing, MySpace ads are cheap; indeed, one of the News Corp. company's greatest problems lies in finding a decent price for ads on the social network. "What drives ad prices is scarcity," Chernin said. "The place that is most promising is probably in video. By definition there's more scarcity in video, and there's even more scarcity in premium video." Mobile, he added, is also attractive because, it "is by far the most penetrated device on earth," with an "enormous distribution platform." Chernin noted that consumers won't watch full-length movies on their phones, but "It's going to be interesting to see people develop uniquely mobile content." The process, he said, should take another two years to develop into a healthy market.

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