News Corp. Acquires Intermix Media


News Corp. is acquiring Intermix Media for
approximately $580 million. News Corp. said the acquisition will
nearly double its Web traffic to more than 45 million unique
monthly visitors.


The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of this year.


Perhaps Intermix best known property is MySpace.com, a social networking site, which is the fifth-ranked Web domain in terms of page views, according to comScore Media Metrix. MySpace integrates profiles, blogs, instant messaging,
e-mail, music downloads, photo galleries, classified listings, events,
groups, chat rooms and user forums.


Last month, the Los Angeles-based Intermix paid $7.5 million to settle
charges with the state of New York that the company secretly installed
spyware on end users computers.

In a related deal, News Corp. announced that it entered into a voting
agreement with VantagePoint Venture Partners, the largest stockholder of
Intermix.


The agreement provides that VantagePoint will vote its shares, representing
approximately 22.4 percent of the outstanding shares of Intermix, in favor
of the transaction.


Intermix also announced that it exercised
its option to acquire the 47 percent of MySpace.com that it does not already
own. Combined with MySpace.com, the Intermix network of more than 30 sites
is the largest multi-category online entertainment network with more than 27
million unique monthly users.


The entire Intermix set of sites will become part of News Corp.’s newly
formed Fox Interactive Media unit announced
Friday. The new business unit will manage interactive assets from Fox
Divisions, including foxsports.com, foxnews.com and fox.com, as well as the
Web sites of Fox owned and operated TV stations.


“Intermix is an important acquisition for News Corp., instantly doubling the
number of visitors to our sites and providing an ideal foundation on which
to meaningfully increase our Internet presence,” News Corp.’s Chairman and
CEO Rupert Murdoch said in a statement.

“Intermix brands, such as
MySpace.com, are some of the Web’s hottest properties and resonate with the
same audiences that are most attracted to Fox’s news, sports and
entertainment offerings.”


In June, MySpace.com served more than eight percent of all ads on the
Internet, putting it in the company of Yahoo, Google and AOL. It has also
become a popular music destination, with more than 350,000 bands and artists
using the site to launch new albums and allow users to sample and share
songs.


Intermix CEO Richard Rosenblatt and MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe will
continue in their roles following the completion of the acquisition.
Rosenblatt and DeWolfe will join Fox Interactive Media.

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