Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/1999/01/13/news_corp_mogul_talks_down/

News Corp mogul talks down the Web

Follows hard on heels of launch of The Guardian's new site

By Tim Richardson

Posted in On-Prem, 13th January 1999 14:56 GMT

Media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch, has publicly distanced himself from new media and the Internet. Speaking in Singapore yesterday, the boss of News Corporation said he didn't believe he was being left behind in the race to colonise the Web and that there was plenty of time to get involved should the right opportunities present themselves. He added that the explosion of new media would not be "the death knell of the old" citing other media revolutions such as TV, which failed to wipe out more established media. But he did concede that: "The Internet will destroy more businesses than it will create in the sense that it will wipe out the middlemen." And commenting on the over-inflated price of Internet stocks he said: "We certainly won't be making take-overs of large, or already overcapitalised companies." Expect something big -- very big -- to happen very, very soon. ®