News Corp.'s Internet push

When I interviewed Scout Media CEO Jim Heckman last month about the sale of his Seattle online sports network to News Corp., he said the deal was one of many that Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate was planning.

Heckman wasn't kidding. Yesterday, News Corp. purchased IGN Entertainment -- operator of the GameSpy.com and Rottentomatoes.com Web sites -- for $650 million.

It also recently gobbled up Intermix Media -- owner of the popular MySpace.com social networking Web site -- for $580 million. And it is targeting an undisclosed search engine as part of a planned $2 billion Internet spending spree.

The three recent acquisitions share one thing in common: they are all consumer Web sites that are wildly popular with the coveted 18 to 34 year old demographic.

This Bloomberg News story provides a good overview of News Corp.'s recent acquisitions and includes an interesting tidbit about how much the company paid for Scout Media. It put the price tag at about $60 million, which is what I speculated in this earlier post.

And here is The New York Times story, which also put the figure on Scout at $60 million.