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Can Jon Richmond Put News Corp. on the Internet Fast Track? The non-Webhead has to jump-start the Murdochs' lagging news, sports, and entertainment sites and find a way to make them pay off There is no trace of Web experience in the bio of Jon Richmond, the executive tapped by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to head its U.S. Internet subsidiary. "I am not a Webhead at all, actually," admits Richmond. But at 42, he is a veteran at taking on complex challenges in the entertainment biz and plunging into new markets -- prerequisites for his new job. In a former life he was a Wall Street lawyer who helped Walt Disney Co. fend off unwanted takeover advances in the mid-'80s and then joined the company to help it turn around EuroDisney. More recently, he was president of Fox Interactive, the games subsidiary of Murdoch's Fox Entertainment Group Inc. that he helped build from scratch starting four years ago. Now, his challenge is to boost News Corp.'s nascent Web presence -- fast. Despite News Corp.'s heft in the media world -- $13 billion in revenues a year, with print and broadcast interests spanning the globe -- it has had its share of Web miscues and, until recently, hadn't articulated much of a strategy. But Richmond's appointment comes as the company's Web efforts move into higher gear on a number of fronts. Richmond's most pressing task will be to improve the news, sports, and entertainment sites that are offshoots of News Corp.'s Fox TV network and then figure out how to make money off them. But at the same time, he plans to pour money into creating content that can end up as Fox TV shows or movies and not just use the Web to promote offline content.
In the U.S., News Corp. is also placing a bet on interactive television as a future linchpin of the Web. It has a 44% stake in TV Guide Inc., which owns TV Guide magazine and an interactive programming guide business. On Oct. 4, TV Guide agreed to be acquired by rival Gemstar International Inc. Despite News Corp.'s diminished stake -- roughly 20% of the combined company -- it still stands to gain: Together the companies' patents and marketing savvy almost guarantee that their interactive programming guides will be the first thing to pop up on the Web-like TV screens of the future. James Murdoch believes Gemstar/TV Guide could evolve into "the Yahoo! of TV" -- a place where all viewers will go to find their way around, communicate, and make purchases.
Richmond has a tough task ahead. Right now, none of Fox's sites are doing that well in the Media Metrix rankings -- the Web equivalent of TV ratings -- compared with stalwart TV network sites such as MSNBC, CNN, and ESPN. For instance, Foxnews.com had 963,000 unique visitors in August to MSNBC's 6.7 million visitors. But under Murdoch, News Digital has begun ramping up its offerings. That includes an expanded Fox.com entertainment site that's being rolled out over the next three to six months. Richmond sees some surface similarities between the game business and the Web -- interactivity being the most obvious. Fox Interactive has had some success creating games based on several of its 20th Century Fox hits, such as Die Hard. Richmond says the Interactive unit's revenues have been growing at 70% a year -- even though, at more than $100 million annually, they're still a small slice of the overall pie at Fox. Of Richmond, Murdoch says: "He is a neat guy with a lot of experience taking branded entertainment products and finding new markets for them." "THE FOX ATTITUDE." Under Richmond, Fox created the successful game Croc, which is now being developed into a TV show. Similarly, Richmond intends to focus on developing new brands from original Web content. They would have what he calls "the Fox attitude" and could be promoted on and reconfigured for News Corp.'s wide base of media assets. "It will be kind of an incubator for ideas that may eventually migrate to film or TV," he says. An L.A. native, Richmond graduated from UCLA law school and joined a Wall Street firm that had the Disney file. After getting to know Disney chief Michael Eisner and his late deputy Frank Wells, Richmond was lured to the Magic Kingdom, where he spent 10 years, rising to senior vice-president at Walt Disney Attractions, its theme park unit. Four years ago he was tapped by Bill Mechanic, the 20th Century Fox studio boss whom he knew from Disney, to start the Fox games business. Online, Fox and Disney could not be more different. While Disney has invested aggressively in Infoseek and in building its Go Network portal, Fox has tread cautiously and is now targeting so-called vertical portals -- or "vortals" -- themed around entertainment or news content. "To us, a horizontal portal is a commodity," says Richmond. "Of course we could have been in earlier, but I really don't think we've lost anything." He may be new to the Web game, but Richmond is already sounding like an old pro. Siklos is Business Week's Media editor. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ |
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News Digital Media's Jon Richmond WEB POINTERS Click here to visit sites mentioned in the story: News Corp. Fox Fox News TV Guide TheStreet.com Juno Six Degrees PlanetRx Media Metrix e-Loan State Street Research Infoseek Go Network MSNBC CNN ESPN | ||||||||||||
