Murdoch's Fox convenes media summit to fix advertising industry
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Network Group, TV and cable division of 21st Century Fox, is to convene a day-long media summit where advertisers and ad buyers will mingle with studio executives to discuss solutions to some of its most intractable problems.
Murdoch convenes media summit to fix advertising industry
Up for discussion at its 20th Century Fox studio will be the need to devise a new financial model for high value video programming as well as viewers increasingly jump ship to online streaming services. Other key issues for attendees to grapple will include how long form ad supported comedies and dramas can continue to run under the current model.
An invite obtained by Variety lays out the basis for the gathering, positioning it as a way to ‘evolve the way storytellers and brands work together to build a sustainable advertising supported storytelling platform.’
Fox has struggled to find common ground with the likes of CBS and NBCUniversal against the growing threat of on-demand video which threatens to upend the business model of the whole industry and in an effort to get back on the front foot will be wheeling out its big guns including Peter Rice, president of 21st Century Fox and chief executive of Fox Networks Group.
Fox is focused on the sale of a large slice of its business to Walt Disney in a $52.4bn deal but before then it must carry on business as usual including its annual ‘upfront’ sale of ad inventory.
Last November NBCUniversal held its own media summit to improve content, transparency and measurement.