News Corp. is in preliminary talks to hand over MySpace’s reins to music video upstart Vevo in exchange for a stake in a new venture, according to Bloomberg.
A representative for Vevo declined to comment on the matter. We’ve reached out to MySpace as well.
We’ve been hearing the death knell of MySpace for a while. In January, it confirmed that parent company News Corp. was looking for a way to unload the social web property and reduced its staff by 47%.
Despite a redesign and a slew of new entertainment initiatives, the site is still suffering: Its worldwide traffic fell 29% to 62.6 million visitors in February from 88 million in October 2010, according to Bloomberg.
With News Corp. looking to other avenues for music content — namely, Beyond Oblivion, a yet-to-be-launched music service that scored $77 million in funding in a round led by News Corp. and global charity foundation Wellcome Trust — we’ve all been wondering for a while now: If MySpace goes under, will it be the day the music dies?
Well, if this deal is actually a possibility — and not just another unsubstantiated whisper — it could bring MySpace back from the brink.
It started off as a social network — the most popular in the U.S. until Facebook eclipsed it — and then started moving more into the entertainment realm, encompassing everything from television to music to film. Still, what MySpace has always done best has been music.
Search for a band. Any band. What comes up near the top of the search results? Its MySpac e page. Despite all the...
