Report: Rupert Murdoch “Ready To Sue” Google

Although a few months have passed since the last big flareup, News Corp. may still be willing to go to war with Google.  A fresh report indicates that Rupert Murdoch is indeed prepared to take the search giant to court, and has been talking to Microsoft about an exclusive deal, too.

Gabriel Sherman recently published a long profile of Murdoch for New York magazine, and within the profile, quoted someone he described as "a senior media executive."  This person said with regards to the CEO and chairman of News Corp., "He's pretty tightly wound up over Google and has been ready to sue them.  He doesn't trust them at all."

Then there was another interesting tidbit: apparently the Chief Digital Officer of News Corp., Jonathan Miller, "has also been in talks with Microsoft about possibly pulling all of News Corp.'s content from Google and signing an exclusive distribution deal with Bing."

Unfortunately, potential timetables weren't outlined; there's no telling whether Murdoch is willing to spend years negotiating with Google, or if he'll unleash the lawyers next week.

Still, it sounds like Murdoch's statements about blocking Google weren't just so much bluster or a bluff.  A showdown over whether or not online news should be free remains possible.

MySpace’s CEO Out

Owen Van Natta, who only joined MySpace in April of last year, will no longer serve as its CEO.  Reports indicate that he's in fact been fired, and MySpace has at least confirmed that Jason Hirschhorn and Mike Jones, who reported to Van Natta, are becoming co-presidents.

This series of developments comes as a big surprise.  Just one week ago, rumor had it that Hirschhorn might leave MySpace due to tension with Van Natta.  But according to Kara Swisher, News Corp. Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller then became involved, and after talking to all three men, wound up sacking the CEO.

So let's discuss MySpace's new co-presidents.  Before becoming MySpace's chief product officer, Hirschhorn filled executive positions at both Sling Media and MTV.  Jones founded Userplane prior to becoming MySpace's chief operating officer, and also worked for AOL following an acquisition.

Both men have done well at MySpace, too.  Miller stated with respect to Van Natta's semi-replacements (remember the difference in titles), "Mike and Jason have demonstrated true leadership in their operational and product guidance, respectively, and I have the utmost confidence in both of them to lead MySpace into its next chapter."

Hirschhorn and Jones said, "We joined MySpace last April with very a specific set of goals in mind, and are anxious to continue working together to make those goals a reality.  This business is now pointed in the right direction, and we have a great team of employees that will continue to push MySpace closer to its potential as the place where people go to be discovered and to discover great content."

Google and AP Together Again

After a seven-week-long hiatus, Google is now hosting content from the Associated Press again. The two have had a deal in place in the past, but AP content quietly went missing from Google, and that very fact became a topic of wide discussion last week. Now the deal appears to be renewed to some uncertain extent.

The statement Google has given on the matter says, "We have a licensing agreement with the Associated Press that permits us to host its content on Google properties such as Google News. The licensing agreement is the subject of ongoing discussion so we won’t be commenting further at this time."

An AP spokesman is quoted as saying, "We have nothing to add to Google’s statement."

If you've followed the online news industry much, we probably don't have to tell you that Google and the AP have had a somewhat complicated, if not rocky relationship.

Last week, Yahoo reached its own deal with the AP. Financial terms of that agreement were not disclosed.

This week, the AP promoted editor and correspondent Ted Anthony to Assistant Managing Editor. He is said to have been involved in the development of the news organization's social media practices.

Have You Read This?

> Mark Cuban Takes Murdoch-esque Stance on Google

> News Corp. Blocks Content from News Aggregation Site

> Do You Have the "Right" to Link?

> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

> Murdoch's War with the Aggregators

> Is it Really Crazy to Block Google?

Online TV Shows May Get More Ad-Heavy

For the most part, online video has been much less ad-heavy than television programming. It is this very fact that has likely been a large part of the medium's popularity. Things may be changing, however.

According to Advertising Age, Nielsen is planning on making data available about the viewing of commercials that run in particular shows , whether they are viewed on TV or online. The data would start being available in September, and the publication says it will become the basis for ad negotiations next February.

"But here's the catch: For Nielsen to be able to provide the commercial rating, shows seen online will have to have the same group of commercials that run on TV," says AdAge's Brian Steinberg. "If this system were adopted en masse -- and it's not clear that it would be -- online viewing might be crammed just as full of commercials as the more traditional TV-watching experience."

"Indeed, viewing programs on Hulu, the online video site owned by NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney, means encountering significantly fewer ads than one would see watching TV. And Disney's ABC.com has met with some success by running ABC shows with just a few ads, often from a single advertiser," he adds. "But many TV executives say these methods don't bring much, if any, profit -- and therefore cannot continue."

Online video has enjoyed tremendous growth over the last several years. In December, 178 million Americans watched 33 billion videos online, according to data from comScore. About 40% of that was at Google sites (like YouTube). The second largest amount of market share went to Hulu, at just 3%.

YouTube isn't necessarily the place people go to watch full episodes of television shows. Hulu is. If videos at sites like Hulu become more ad-heavy, the market share gap could just increase even greater. It could also have an impact on both paid TV show downloads and piracy.
 

Have You Read This?

> Google To Get More Interactive With Mobile Video Ads

> IAB Releases Ad Unit Guidelines Updates

> YouTube Videos In Adsense Could Drive Clicks

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