Speaking recently in an interview on Fox Business Channel, News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch had this to say about the latest product to come out of Cupertino: “All media is going to go into the iPad, whether it’s music, or books, or newspapers, or movies, you’ll be able to get on your iPad. It will be pretty small to start with.”
However, it was clear that he was speaking of the iPad as the first in a new class of devices: “But there will be more iPads: there is competition coming from people (sic) like Samsung and LG. Hewlett-Packard will have one in a few months. They will all be coming out with readers, not like Kindle, but in color, and they will get better and better. If you see a newspaper photograph – not at the moment, but in time it will happen – you’ll be able to touch it and it will become a video. These sort of things will happen, not this year perhaps.”
Asked about traditional newspaper advertising, which has experienced a steep decline as readers turn to the Internet, Mr. Murdoch responded: “I don’t think the advertising model for newspapers is dead. Our Wall Street Journal advertising is up this year. [Newspapers] were all down last year. We have started to recover quite strongly. Brands are where the money is at. You can’t promote a brand on the Internet through search.”