mX ‘on firm ground’ despite closure of News Ltd’s London free title
The end of last week saw further upheavals for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in London and the US.
In a move that will raise questions over News Ltd’s commitment to its Australian freesheet mX, it announced its intention to close its loss-making The London Paper after just under three years.
And the LA Times reported over the weekend that News Corp’s chief digital officer Jonathan Miller has held talks with the New York Times, the Washington Post, Hearst Corp and Tribune Corp over forming a consortium to charge for news online and on mobile devices.
However, one long time observer of News Corp both in Australia and the UK has predicted that mX will survive the upheavals.
Not only does it have no competition, it’s also cleverly syndicated in three different cities. Essentially produced and subbed in Melbourne, with a bit of local so-called news fed in for Sydney and Brisbane versions. Would make the bottom line look okay, I would have thought…
@JasonWhittaker – more than okay as I understand it.
There’s an excellent feature on Commuters in the current issue of B&T (21 Aug 09) which has some good quotes about mX from agency experts.
I wonder how long London Lite will keep going once it has a solo afternoon slot all to itself …
Still, at least DMGT does not need to worry now about protecting the Eveninsk Standardski
I remember there was a competitor to mX in Melbourne years ago but it went by the wayside.
I don’t mind mX, it’s a good bit of fluff to read on the train/bus on the way home. They seem to sell plenty of advertising so I would think it should be sustainable still in Aus?