News Corp.'s sale of MySpace could be inevitable. In a Wednesday earnings call, chief operating officer Chase Carney said "now is the right time" for the media empire to sell the once top social-networking site.
"With a new structure in place, now is the right time to consider strategic options for this business," Carney said in a Paid Conent report.
The news doesn't come as much of a surprise. A few weeks ago, News Corp. said it was considering selling MySpace.
"News Corp. is assessing a number of possibilities including a sale, a merger, and a spinout," said a spokesperson for News Corp. "The process has just started."
That news was delivered to employees by CEO Mike Jones less than a week after MySpace delivered pink slips to nearly half (47 percent) of its employees.
News Corp.'s earnings report was largely positive, however, the Digital Media Group, the part of the company that owns MySpace, disclosed a "$275 million pre-tax charge" that it spent on "organizational restructuring" for the social-networking site. The filing also said that MySpace shares had appreciated 16 percent from this time last year, up to $0.29 from $0.25 12 months ago.
But that improvement might not be enough.
"We have seen some encouraging traffic metrics in the last several weeks," Carney said. "However, we recognize that the plan to allow MySpace to reach its full potential may be best under a new ownership structure."
It's unclear who the buyer would be, the price the site would fetch, or if News Corp. has even decided definitively to sell MySpace.
"The interest to date has ranged from A to Z, financial players, industry players, foreign to domestic. It could be a sale it could be a new investor coming in, it could be us staying in with restructured management," Carney said.