The always entertaining News Corp. chief executive Robert Thomson described the company’s strategy with AI firms as “a woo and a sue.”
“We’d like you to be our partner. But if you’re stealing our stuff, we are going to sue you … we’re coming for you. I mean, we can see you doing it. We’ll get round to you eventually. So there’ll be a discount for those who hand themselves, and there’ll be a penalty for those that resist.”
He said News Corp. should have more deals to announce relatively soon. The Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal parent inked a major content agreement with OpenAI in 2024.
“It’s fair to say we’re at an advanced stage with other negotiations, and you won’t have too long stay tuned. You won’t have too long to wait. What we are also finding is that more of these vertical specialists are coming to us, because the data and the information and the news that they input has to be reliable, and it’s hard to beat the Times of London or The Australian or Dow Jones.”
Thomson also urged investors to check out the California Post, its new Los Angeles paper.
“If you haven’t been reading the California Post, you’re out of touch, you’re out of date. So download the app,” he told the Morgan Stanley media conference at the tail end of a Q&A.
The app downloads “are twice what we thought” they’d be, he said, promising initial metrics on the company’s next earnings call.
The West Coast edition of the New York Post launched last month.
“The California Post captured the spirit of California in a new sense. It was a desert, but we’re now the Desert Flower,” Thomson said.
English (US) ·