In an earnings call today, News Corp. officially stated it plans to sell MySpace. During the call, COO Chase Carey said that “now is the right time” to attempt to place the social network “under a new owner.”
MySpace has undergone drastic changes in the past year, including a ground-up redesign, total repositioning as a media company rather than a social network per se, renegotiation of its advertising deal with Google (a key part of the site’s revenue), and a staff shuffling that saw more than one key executive relocating to a new venture.
Moreover, almost half of MySpace’s staff was served pink slips at the beginning of 2011, further reducing overhead.
Yet in spite of these changes, News Corp. said in today’s call that the parent company isn’t entirely pleased with the results. Ad revenues are lower than they once were, and “results at MySpace have been below our expectations,” a company rep said.
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