Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid newspaper, The Sun, loves a good back-to-basics campaign. Now one appears to be under way at News Corpitself. As the UK hacking scandal rumbles on, Mr Murdoch’s media empire needs to protect the bits that are not toxic (almost all of it) from the bit that is (the UK newspapers). News Corp confirmed yesterday that it was considering splitting into two separately listed companies. Spin-offs are mostly done to realise immediate shareholder value. But, given the nature of the hacking scandal and the poor state of the newspaper business, this spin-off is more about long-term recovery than financial engineering.
鲁珀特•默多克(Rupert Murdoch)旗下的英国小报《太阳报》(The Sun)喜欢彻底的“回归根本”(back-to-basics)运动。现在，新闻集团(News Corp)自己似乎也在发起这种运动。随着英国窃听丑闻愈演愈烈，默多克的媒体帝国有必要保护旗下的“无毒”业务（几乎全部业务）免受“有毒”业务（英国报纸）的影响。新闻集团昨日证实称，它正考虑分拆为两家独立的上市公司。大部分时候，企业分拆是为了能立即实现股东价值。但是，鉴于窃听丑闻的性质和报纸业务的低迷状态，这一分拆更多是着眼于新闻集团的长期复苏，而不是出于财务上的考虑。