By Kenneth Li 22 minutes ago
NEW YORK (Reuters) -
.Fox Networks, a year-old online
advertising network owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, will
announce on Tuesday it has bought control of European video ad
network Utarget as part of a move to expand in Europe and Asia.
The little-known division of Fox International Channels is
being viewed as a potential linchpin for global growth for Fox
Interactive Media's MySpace group as it seeks to generate more
ad dollars from its estimated 110 million monthly unique
visitors around the world.
.Fox sells unsold ad inventory across a network of sites
owned by Fox and third-party sites to advertisers outside the
United States. The division will be renamed Utarget.Fox.
Financial details of .Fox's purchase of a majority stake in
Utarget were not available. A company source said the deal's
size was estimated to be in the low-eight-figure level.
Utarget operates an online video ad network comprised of
more than 630 Web sites and generates most of its revenue in
Britain. It also has an office in Germany, the company said.
Its online video ad product lets advertisers run video ads
in a separate window displayed beneath the page being viewed.
.Fox's expansion addresses how News Corp, the most globally
distributed of big media conglomerates, aims to grow its online
reach outside the United States at a time when interest in
viewing videos online has exploded.
"At News Corp we always try to make sure that no two
divisions are actually doing the exact same thing," Hernan
Lopez, chief operating officer of Fox International Channels,
said in a phone interview.
The Utarget deal comes after U.S.-based Fox Interactive
Media (FIM) reorganized staff last week in anticipation of a
possible revenue target shortfall. The reshuffling, long in the
works, will also see the launch of FIM's long-anticipated U.S.
online advertising network, called the FIM Audience Network.
Lopez said .Fox has been in discussions with FIM on how the
two News Corp divisions will work together. The discussions
include the possibility of FIM properties such as MySpace using
Utarget's video advertising technologies.
.Fox is also interested in borrowing technology to build
discrete audiences out of more than 100 million users worldwide
using a FIM-developed technology called HyperTargeting.
(Editing by Braden Reddall)
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