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February 09, 2007
Murdoch Questions YouTube Growth Cap

As News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch continues to cite MySpace as an "international phenomenon," he doesn't seem to have much to say about his video-sharing competitors.

A day after iMedia reported IAC/InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller's distrust of YouTube, Murdoch seems to have jumped on the anti-YouTube bandwagon stating at the McGraw Hill 2007 Media Summit that he had difficulty seeing how YouTube can monetize its site.

"If you interrupt the flow of videos with commercials, [YouTube viewers] are going to go with [MySpace] or somewhere else," Murdoch said.

Or at least that is what Murdoch hopes will happen with MySpace through the offering of its own video player. He went on to mention the possibility of a deal with Cingular Wireless, now AT&T, where MySpace would be accessible on AT&T mobile phones at a price of around $3.

Cingular and MTVN struck a similar deal in July of last year, offering MTVN programming on Cingular-equipped phones.

Murdoch also cited several ideas for cross-platform integration and referred to mobile marketing as the "platform that is coming." Murdoch also believes there are three times as many cell phones as computers, for which he says he hopes to find content to sell.

There was also mention of integrating MySpace with News Corp. newspaper entities.

CNET News reports Murdoch stating that in order to meet the needs of new users, News Corp. is preparing to spend as much as $70 million on hardware and servers.

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