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News Corp Gets That New-Time Religion

Murdoch buys Beliefnet, the largest faith website in the US

By Jason Farago, Newser Staff

Posted Dec 5, 2007 9:17 AM CST

(Newser) – Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has inked an eight-figure deal to buy Beliefnet, the US' most popular religion website, as a platform to promote the company's religious books and programming, the Wall Street Journal reports. Details of the transaction weren't released, but the site will become a part of News Corp's film and television division, Fox Entertainment Group, rather than the interactive media division.

Fox doesn't plan to integrate Beliefnet with MySpace, News Corp's other big web property, but the religion website will take on the advertising structure that Fox developed for social networking. Beliefnet currently has 3 million unique visitors a month, and 11 million registered for its newsletter. As for the site's new owner, the Guardian reports that Murdoch describes himself as a "practicing Christian" who attends church "quite a bit."

News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendi Deng leave a news conference following the News Corp. annual meeting, Friday Oct. 19, 2007 in New York. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) (Associated Press)

Rupert Murdoch arrives at the News Corp. building in New York Wednesday morning Aug. 1, 2007. (Associated Press)

News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch smiles during a talk at Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco in this Oct. 17, 2007 file photo. (Associated Press)

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News Corp Gets That New-Time Religion

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News Corp Gets That New-Time Religion

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OTHER STORIES ON OUR RADAR

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MOST POPULAR STORIES

[ By Views ]

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More Newser Stories

No Yahoo! for News Corp., Says Murdoch

Media mogul won't trade bids with Microsoft over Internet behemoth

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Justin Timberlake, Ad Group Buy MySpace for $35M

News Corp takes massive loss on social networking also-ran

MySpace Likely to Be Sold This Week

It could go for a relative pittance, thanks to Facebook

Even MySpace Founders No Longer Using Site

Site's decline blamed in part on Rupert Murdoch's loss of interest

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