Murdoch: Google’s dominance is a danger for media owners

“They keep employing people, testing new ideas, trying things, putting out new free applications, relying on advertising for income. Which makes them unbelievably, unbelievably competitive with what Microsoft would charge for the same thing.”

Rupert Murdoch talked to Terry McCrann, a journalist of a daily newspaper Herald Sun, when in Australia to deliver a lecture series for ABC radio.

As McCrann writes, News Corp.’s chairman is clearly captivated by that strange beast Google, which emerged from a garage in suburban Menlo Park in California to in barely half-a-dozen years colonise just about every computer screen in the world.

He sees it as bringing down the Microsoft monolith, which has ruled the computer world. Microsoft’s dominance has gone. Google is the dominant player today.

And it got into advertising by accident, he says with evident bemusement. Started by two idealists in a backyard, in the past five years “it’s gone from 400 revenue to 20 billion!” he says with his eyebrows shooting up and a wide grin spreading across his face. To translate: from $US400 million to $US20 billion.

Google’s dominance, he believes, is a danger to media owners like him. We want to see Microsoft still strong. To get Yahoo, to at least have a base of perhaps 20-25 per cent of the search business. To hold on to it. To try to be a competitive factor.

“So when it comes up for our sites, to let out the search business, I would prefer two bidders,” he says dryly. “Not one.”

Read the full interview: Rupert Murdoch skates from the global financial meltdown; China and India; the US presidential election – Barack Obama and Sarah Palin; and on to the fine print of his – and everyone else’s – media empire; to the futures of his sons Lachlan and James.

Learn more on a series of Murdoch’s lectures on an Australian radio: transcripts, podcasts. Topics: Aussie rules: bring back the pioneer; Who’s afraid of new technology?; The future of newspapers; Fortune favours the smart; The global middle class roars; The 21st century.

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