News Corp buys stake in online video provider

by James Livesley, Media Week 29-Jan-07, 16:07

News Corp, the owner of BSkyB, MySpace and News International, has invested in ROO Group, a provider of video for websites, content providers and advertisers.

The agreement means News Corp will receive up to 5% of the current fully diluted shares, meaning all shares including staff options.
The Rupert Murdoch-owned company will also receive up to an additional 5% share of the firm, if News Corp achieves certain revenue-based milestones in its usage of ROO’s products and services.

ROO already has a working relationship with News Corp, providing content and content syndication for newspapers such as The Times and The Australian and through content syndication partnerships with Fox News Channel and Sky News.

ROO has also worked with other UK media companies. In December Media Week revealed that IPC had launched a streaming video channel on Nuts.co.uk, for which ROO was to provide software and streamed videos including music videos, movie trailers, entertainment news and games previews.
Earlier this month it signed a similar deal with portal Lycos for its online video channel to deliver updated videos and archive content, covering news, music, movies, travel and sports clips.