Murdoch buys into online lads' mags

Rupert Murdoch has been shopping again this time blowing $650m on gaming and entertainment outfit IGN Entertainment.

The deal gives Murdoch's giant News Corp access to 28m punters (mostly young blokes) who log into IGN's network of sites that cover video games and other entertainment stuff such as films, music, sports, cars and "babes".

Based in San Francisco, IGN operates a number of sites including GameSpy, AskMen.com, Rotten Tomatoes, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, 3D Gamers, Direct2Drive, GameStats.com and IGN FilmForce.

On deal completion, IGN will fold into News Corps's Fox Interactive Media Unit, giving Murdoch's rapidly expanding online empire access to 70m users a month flicking through 12bn pages of content a month.

Said Murdoch in a statement: "With the acquisition of IGN and its 28m unique users, we have gone a long way toward achieving two of our key strategic objectives in our efforts to become a leading and profitable internet presence.

"By acquiring IGN and its compelling sites, we now have top entertainment sites to go along with FOXSports.com, as well as our myriad news sites, headlined by FOXNews.com."

Earlier this summer Murdoch picked up web community Intermix Media for $580 m, and followed-up by adding insider sports news network Scout Media for $60m. ®