News Corp.’s MySpace could open itself to programming from other content companies, Fox Interactive Media president Peter Levinsohn said Wednesday.
In addition, Fox Entertainment Group has hired a president for digital media, Dan Fawcett, filling the post vacated by Ross Levinsohn in November.
Speaking at the Bear Stearns Media Conference in Palm Beach, Fla., Levinsohn said that his company is “in very active negotiations with all the media companies” in regards to bringing non-News Corp. content to its MySpace property. Currently, only such Fox shows as “24” and “Prison Break” are available on the social networking portal.
Levinsohn also said a multinetwork video site that would be a rival to YouTube would be in MySpace’s interests. “There’s certainly an opportunity for the media companies to get together,” Levinsohn said. “MySpace will be a huge beneficiary of that.”
In recent months, there has been increasing speculation that multiple media companies could band together to establish an online video platform that could rival YouTube, which is enmeshed in negotiations to license their content. Fox has taken recent steps to put its own programming on MySpace as well as the sites of its affiliates.
