News Corp. Dumps Digital Education Business

While other publishers have jettisoned newspapers to focus on educational publishing and testing businesses, News Corp. is headed in the opposite direction. The publisher announced that it is selling its Amplify Insight and Learning business, which focuses on digital education services, to its current management team, backed by a group of private investors.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

As part of the transaction News Corp. has laid off roughly 500 of Amplify’s total 900 employees, according to multiple press reports.

Amplify was formed around a core business, Wireless Generation, acquired by News Corp. for $390 million in 2010. Since then, it has achieved a fair amount of traction, selling analytics and testing services to over 200,000 teachers across the U.S., reaching 3 million students.

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However, it apparently failed to meet News Corp.’s target for the bottom line, despite improved financial performance in recent quarters.

Amplify previously announced that it would stop marketing its educational tablets to new customers, although it will continue to provide services to existing customers.

As noted, News Corp. is heading in the opposite direction from some of its peers. In August and September, Pearson announced that it would sell off its news publishing businesses, including The Financial Times and The Economist, to focus on its core education publishing and testing business. 

The Washington Post Company made a similar move in 2013 with the sale of its flagship newspaper to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, allowing the rest of the company (renamed Graham Holdings) to focus on its Kaplan educational testing business, as well as cable TV.

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