• Ad Age, Friday, December 9, 2005 11:30 AM

Explaining that News Corp. is basically "a pretty simple company," Peter Chernin, its CEO, told a group of investors attending a Credit Suisse First Boston Media Week Conference panel that, "We are trying to make content and then we want to be able to get it to viewers' homes... without gatekeepers, without intermediaries." It's a typically bold Murdochian gambit: Own "everything," from content to distribution. Why share the wealth? For his company, Chernin said, the rapid deployment of broadband was nothing but good news. The recognition that the Internet was driving so much distribution of content is what led to News Corp.'s recent acquisition of MySpace, widely viewed as a brilliant tactical move. "People are giving us data about what their favorite movies are, what their favorite television shows are, where they live," and so forth, Chernin said. "MySpace represents "an unbelievable treasure of data about the most highly valued... demographic for advertisers."

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