News Corp in talks over MySpace sale
NEWS Corp has held early-stage talks with US music video site Vevo over exchanging its ownership of beleaguered Myspace for a stake in a new venture.
Rupert Murdoch’s firm has hired Allen & Co to advise it on a sale or spin-off of the former social network, now branded as an entertainment site.
It is understood representatives for News Corp had initially contacted Vevo to see if they would be interested in purchasing all of Myspace a few weeks ago but were rebuffed.
Since then, a joint venture has been proposed which could see News Corp spin off its stake into some sort of joint venture.
One of the firm’s most valuable assets is Myspace Music, a joint venture between Myspace and the four major music label owners including Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Music.
Vevo is currently only available in the US and Canada, but the firm said this month it will be up and running in the UK “imminently”.
The firm, run by a record label, has just under 60m video viewers per month in the US.
According to recent statistics, Myspace lost a staggering 10m users in just a month at the start of this year. Last year it lost 50m users after being squeezed by Facebook, which has more than 500m users. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp bought the company for $530m (£377m) in 2005.