Commentary

Delisting On Google: What Would This Mean For News Corp.'s TV Content?

by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 25, 2009

News Corp's Rupert Murdoch is focused on keeping his newspaper businesses going strong -- but Google seems to be in the way. Is it also in the way of Murdoch's TV properties?

Murdoch is Wall Street Journal or New York Post. So he is mulling the idea of delisting all newspaper content and sites on Google.

But what if Murdoch went a step further? What is if he removed any search results on Google for any News Corp. content -- such as with its TV shows?

Let's say New Corp. were to delist content and sites on Google for "American Idol" on Fox, or "Nip/Tuck" on FX, or "The O'Reilly Report" on Fox News.

What would that mean? News Corp.'s bigger entertainment brands probably don't have to worry. Their respective "awareness" levels are already high. Devoted fans already directly go to News Corp.'s respective TV program Web areas.

But removal would hurt when it comes to attracting new fans. Doing a search on "Idol" brings up 18 million search links. That would seem to have some value. Sure, Google isn't directing viewers to "tune-in" to an "Idol"-carrying TV station. Google isn't in the TV electronic program guide business -- yet.

The Internet is still primarily about "reading," which directly affects the newspaper business. Murdoch's saber-rattling started with his consideration of an exclusive deal with the much smaller search engine, Bing, from Microsoft.

When searching "American Idol" on Google, sponsor link advertising appears from camera manufacturer Canon, software company ALOT, and Gifts.com, a site that features "Idol" games, DVDs, and other products.

The question is, what can Google bring to all News Corp. TV shows, especially those programs still looking for an audience? Fox's recently cancelled show, "Dollhouse" offered up 2.7 million search items via Google. Is that worth something?

I'm not sure Google is the answer -- but TV still needs a lot more promotion than it currently gets.

google, tv

2 comments about "Delisting On Google: What Would This Mean For News Corp.'s TV Content?".

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Jonathan Mirow from BroadbandVideo, Inc., November 25, 2009 at 6:21 p.m.
I hope he takes his stuff off Google - you know why? Because the internet is like a really big body of water (great analogy) - you scoop some out, the stuff behind it rushes in to fill the void, nobody misses the stuff that isn't there anymore. I think this will be a profound lesson...hey, there's always charging for newspaper content (not).
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Howie Goldfarb from Blue Star Strategic Marketing, November 26, 2009 at 1:36 p.m.

People will still find all the News Corp content that is available even if nothing shows up in the google search results. Most followers of his content already have his sites bookmarked. I go directly to most content sites for my news and entertainment. I search for maybe 2%. The remaining 8% is found via an aggregator like Yahoo's homes page or the Huffington Post. Plus I myself converted to Bing from Google for most searching, not because I prefer Microsoft, but more because I am anti-monopolies and thus use Firefox and Open Office for the same reasons.