News Corporation slumps to 4.3bn loss

News Corporation has slumped to $6.4bn (4.3bn) quarterly loss as advertising revenues fell in the grim economic environment.

News Corporation has slumped to a $6.4bn (£4.3bn) quarterly loss as advertising revenues fell in the “grim” economic environment.

The BSkyB and News International owner’s loss for the three months to 31 December compares with a $832m (£566m) profit in the same period last year.

Group revenues dipped to $7.9bn (£5.4bn) from $8.6bn (£5.8bn) a year earlier with television revenues, down to $18m (£12.3m) from $245m (£166.9m), and newspaper revenues, down from $196m (£133.5m) to $179m (£122m), among the hardest hit.

Rupert Murdoch (pictured), chairman and chief executive of the media giant, says it will implement “rigorous cost-cutting” and reduce head count as a result of a “more severe and likely longer lasting” downturn that expected.

Earlier this week, it emerged that News International, which publishes The Sun and News of the World, was considering a series of editorial job cuts across its tabloid and broadsheet newspapers in the next two weeks.

The newspaper group has made two major marketing hires in recent weeks. It named former Sainsbury’s and L’Oreal marketing director Jeremy Schwartz as its first chief marketing officer and hired Carat managing director Neil Jones as director of commercial strategy last month.