NEWS Corp's Fox Interactive Media will fall short of Chairman Rupert Murdoch's target for revenue of US$1 billion this fiscal year, and announced a reorganization of the unit designed to drive growth.
"The numbers were a stretch and they'll come in slightly under," said Michael Barrett, who will step down as chief revenue officer at Fox Interactive after a two-month transition period. "It wasn't one smoking gun. It was a series of things that were a little late to come to market."
Fox Interactive, the unit that runs the MySpace social-networking Website, will create a new division for advertising by combining its ad technology operations with the sales department.
Murdoch said last August he would be surprised if the unit's revenue for the year ending June 30 "did not exceed a billion dollars with margins well above 20 percent."
Sales will probably miss by about US$100 million, the Wall Street Journal reported. Spokeswoman Ann Burkart declined to confirm the figure, saying Fox Interactive anticipates it will be close to its projection, Bloomberg News said.
Adam Bain, formerly an executive for technology, will run the new Audience Network group. The division will sell ads for Fox Interactive Web sites such as MySpace.