Answering questions from investors on a conference call Tuesday, Murdoch explained why News Corp. and its Fox subsidiary, had not made deals with Internet portals to distribute the company’s branded content, saying that consumer behavior doesn’t indicate that portals are effective.
"We're not sure the portal model is the way of the future at all," Murdoch said. "We think people are going straight to the sites."
Murdoch argued that portals don’t necessarily translate into traffic, citing the disappointing returns for Yahoo’s employment site HotJobs.com, which reaped no discernable advantage from its portal-based approach.
To illustrate an example of a site that did well despite not having a portal affiliation, Murdoch pointed to The Times newspaper in London, which is owned by News Corp. According to Murdoch, the site is far smaller than the BBC's, but its 6 million monthly visitors don’t need to go through a portal site to find Times content.
“I don't think you have to say you have to go to Fox online to find The Times online," Murdoch said.
