“Beliefnet, an online spiritual network that caters to many different religions, has been purchased by Fox Entertainment Group, an arm of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. yesterday in an effort to tap the faith market in a country where 88 per cent of the population says that they pray regularly.”
New York — Fox Entertainment Group (FEG), a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., announced Tuesday it has agreed to acquire a leading religious Web site “Beliefnet,” which claims to be the largest “online faith and spirituality destination.”
“Beliefnet will become part of Fox Digital Media, which also runs News Corp.’s MySpace social networking site.”
“Beliefnet has garnered respect for its commitment to quality, editorial strength and unbiased approach to faith and spirituality from a broad range of consumers, religious and political leaders, journalists and advertisers,” Fox Digital Media President Don Fawcett said.
The move is one in a string of acquisitions and expansions News Corp. has made since acquiring MySpace in 2005. “This balances out some of News Corp.’s other properties that cater to youth and media,” said analyst Jeremiah Owyang.
The purchase expands the media mogul’s marketing and advertising reach into a demographic that provides the company with a balance to its other online properties such as MySpace.
Fox plans to “leverage these characteristics across a broader media canvas and provide programming, production, advertising sales, technology and marketing expertise,” he said.
“News Corp is perhaps best-known for its newspapers, with titles such as The Sun and the New York Post, and mass entertainment through the 20th Century Fox film studio.”
Beliefnet, founded in 1999 attracts 3.1 million monthly visitors, offers users information and devotional tools on nearly every major religion, including Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Scientology, Mormonism and pagan and Earth-based religions.
Appealing to a Christian audience is big business in the United States, where films such as Walt Disney’s The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe are marketed, at least partly, at a Christian audience. Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of Christ earned $611 million (£295 million) worldwide despite an uncompromising narrative, of which $370 million was taken in the United States.
Beliefnet describes itself as the “largest online community” for spirituality and sends out daily e-mail newsletters to 11 million addresses. It aims to be independent of any religious organization or movement and provides content aimed at more than merely a Christian audience.
Founded by former U.S. News & World Report editor Steve Waldman — has gone through a financial roller-coaster ride that included a bankruptcy filing in 2002. Investors include Softbank Capital and Blue Chip Venture Fund.
The deal puts Beliefnet under the sprawling umbrella of News Corp., owner of turn-up-the-volume social networker MySpace and Fox Entertainment, which spawned Homer Simpson, who worships at the altar of cheeseburgers.
Waldman said in a video posted on the company’s website that he had received several approaches from large media companies, which “have come to realize that there is a thirst for information and services about spirituality,” although he said that he was “in no rush to sell.”
However, the media group also owns a handful of faith-based businesses, including Zondervan, the largest Christian publisher in the United States, and Fox Faith, which makes faith-based films.
Their presence in the company’s portfolio helped to persuade Waldman to sell. He described News Corp as owning a number of “high-quality companies that produce religious and spiritual content.”
With the acquisition, Beliefnet will be absorbed into News Corp.’s Fox Entertainment Group, owner of the Hollywood film studio, rather than its Fox Interactive Media division, which is the group that includes MySpace, the social networking website.
Interest in faith and spirituality has surged in recent years, leading to a strong and continually expanding market, according to statistics from the Pew Internet Project. More than 82 million Americans and some 64 percent of all Internet users turn to the Internet for faith-related matters, News Corp. said.
Citing comScore/Media Metrix statistics from 2006, the Beliefnet Network claims more than 3.1 million unique monthly visitors to its sites and 13 minutes per average site visit.
The site skews about three-to-one female versus male. On Tuesday, the lead item on the home page was a story about whether the new movie The Golden Compass has anti-Christian themes. Beliefnet also has launched a social network in which users identify themselves as Buddhist, Pagan, Seventh-Day Adventist, or another denomination.
Trends tracker MarketResearch.com expects the demand for religious and spirituality-oriented content such as books, DVDs and software to top US$8 billion.
Dan Fawcett, president of Fox Digital Media, said that the company hoped to grow Beliefnet “across a broader media canvas”. Beliefnet is trying to develop its social networking technology aimed at the website’s users and in future the effort could see it sharing techniques with MySpace.
“This is a bit unexpected, but News Corp. has said it will continue to expand its online portfolio and this is a valuable content site,” said Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.
News Corp.’s latest purchase will give the company a platform from which it can launch and distribute content generated by its other subsidiaries with a faith-based focus, such as HarperCollin’s Zondervan and HarperOne publishing houses. The media conglomerate also now has a knowledge base from which it can draw on very specific demographics.
“Beliefnet has garnered respect for its commitment to quality, editorial strength, and unbiased approach to faith and spirituality from a broad range of consumers, religious and political leaders, journalists and advertisers,” Fawcett, said in a statement.
“It has an audience that selected advertisers are interested in tapping. A more cynical or skeptical view might see alignment between the political and ideological interests of News Corp. and Murdoch and a segment of the Beliefnet community — conservative Christians,” Sterling said in a statement.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.