Murdoch 'More Pessimistic' About Economy

Downturn worse than expected by Rupe, who won't fight for Yahoo

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted Mar 11, 2008 4:35 AM CDT

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Murdoch 'More Pessimistic' About Economy — Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer News Corporation, USA, speaks during a panel session on the second day of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum, in this file photo. Murdoch said yesterday that he had become "a lot more pessimistic" about the direction the US economy was... (Associated Press)

The last month has made media boss Rupert Murdoch "a lot more pessimistic" about the outlook for the US economy, Reuters reports. Ad revenue is below expectations at his TV stations and newspapers and he expects "a temporary downturn for a year or so" at Dow Jones, the News Corp. boss told a media conference yesterday. It's the strongest public statement yet among top media leaders concerning fears about a pending advertising recession.

Murdoch tempered his bearish predictions for advertising by noting that News Corp. is insulated against a downturn, having reduced reliance on ad revenue from 41% to 23%. He repeated his ambition to make Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal the world's leading news source. Murdoch also made it plain that he wasn't interested in fighting Microsoft to acquire Yahoo. (More Rupert Murdoch stories.)

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