News Corp Gets That New-Time Religion

Murdoch buys Beliefnet, the largest faith website in the US
By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 5, 2007 9:17 AM CST
News Corp Gets That New-Time Religion
News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendi Deng leave a news conference following the News Corp. annual meeting, Friday Oct. 19, 2007 in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)   (Associated Press)

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has inked an eight-figure deal to buy Beliefnet, the US' most popular religion website, as a platform to promote the company's religious books and programming, the Wall Street Journal reports. Details of the transaction weren't released, but the site will become a part of News Corp's film and television division, Fox Entertainment Group, rather than the interactive media division.

Fox doesn't plan to integrate Beliefnet with MySpace, News Corp's other big web property, but the religion website will take on the advertising structure that Fox developed for social networking. Beliefnet currently has 3 million unique visitors a month, and 11 million registered for its newsletter. As for the site's new owner, the Guardian reports that Murdoch describes himself as a "practicing Christian" who attends church "quite a bit." (More Rupert Murdoch stories.)

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