In an interview with FOX Business Network’s Alexis Glick, News Corporation (NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch says that the fate of newspapers depends on Kindle-like technology, that he doesn’t regret staying out of the NBC deal, that President Obama is “caught in a trap” with recovery tactics and that “we have to do something” about free news content on the site.
Here are some excerpts from the interview: Courtesy of Fox Business News
On whether paying for content with Kindle-like tablets will work:
“If it doesn’t, newspapers will go out of business. All newspapers. There’s just not enough advertising to go around.”
On Google paying for content they take from print media:
“I don’t know if they can afford to do that. If they were to pay everybody for everything they took, from every newspaper in the world and every magazine they wouldn’t have any profits left.”
“They have devised a brilliant search engine that scrapes all the material published in the world and on the back of that they sell search, but they don’t pay for the raw material. We have to do something about that.”
“The news industry spends a fortune in collecting its news… and it needs to be paid for it, and there’s not enough advertising to go around.”
On getting in on the NBC/Comcast deal:
“I thought it was interesting, but at that stage, Comcast was way, way too far down there. I was late into the scene but even so I don’t regret it. I would have to had to sell off NBC which would have been difficult. And MSNBC which would not have been difficult.”
On how News Corp is fairing in the recession:
“Our company is coming through this very well. We are competing strongly. We have interests internationally which are doing well. We’re in good shape.”
“Times remain uncertain, our business is doing well. I think we have to stick to our knitting, develop them; build our cable channels. Maybe build more.”
On Cable Channels:
“That seems to be the gold standard, cable channels at the moment. And film, and the Wall Street Journal.”
On how the Obama administration is dealing with the recession:
“We have a huge deficit now. We’re printing money borrowing money. We can’t do any more of either without having a run on the dollar…which would cause a deeper recession. The President and the administration are caught in a trap, somewhat of their own making. They certainly can’t do a second stimulus.”
On how the business and economic environment has changed:
“I think it means business is going to be very difficult and hard. People are going to be holding onto their things, they are going to have to adjust to this government. It’s pretty certain taxes are going up, health charges are going up. I don’t think you are going to see a lot of formation of new business, unfortunately, because that is what would kill the unemployment problem.”
On the economic forecast:
“I think our problem in this country is we are going to have higher unemployment for at least two or three years if not more. At a level that will bring real social problems. It’s not a pretty outlook but we’ll get through it. We’ll bounce back.”
