Looking to clearly separate its slower-moving print business with its faster-moving media and entertainment, News Corp. will separate into two publicly traded companies: News Corp. and Fox
Group.
Rupert Murdoch will be chairman of the new News Corp. as well as chairman and CEO of Fox Group. Chase Carey will be president and chief operating officer of Fox Group. James Murdoch
will continue as deputy chief operating officer of the company.
The Fox Group will include all filmed and television station assets, including Fox Filmed Entertainment, the Fox network, its
TV stations, and all of Fox' cable TV assets. The Fox Network was launched more than 25 years ago.
Along with this, News Corp announced that Dow Jones Editor in Chief and Managing Editor of
The Wall Street Journal Robert Thomson will become the chief executive officer of the new proposed publishing entity.
Separately, News Corp. will shutter its 2-year-old digital
newspaper The Daily. In January, the paper said it had 100,000 paid subscribers. "Unfortunately, our experience was that we could not find a large enough audience quickly enough to convince
us the business model was sustainable in the long-term," stated Rupert Murdoch. "Therefore, we will take the very best of what we have learned at The Daily and apply it to all our
properties."
I believe this is a precursor to many large organizations "splitting" their organizations into smaller units because they have become too big and economies of scale have become dis-economies of scale. The banks splitting up will (should be) on the horizon as well.