Murdoch unloads Beliefnet, MySpace co-president exits

Written by Karl Frisch

Published

David Kaplan of paidContent reported Friday that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp is selling Beliefnet to BN media:

Beliefnet, the multi-faith-based news and discussion site, has laid off a “great number” of staffers today in advance of News Corp.'s sale of the company to BN Media, paidContent has learned. An announcement is expected this afternoon. Representatives from News Corp (NSDQ: NWS). and Beliefnet did not return calls seeking comment.

Last May, AllThingsD reported that News Corp., which acquired the site in 2007, was shopping it around. Back in October, Steve Waldman, who cofounded the site in 1999 and stayed as president and editor-in-chief after the sale, left the company to take a post with the FCC. The exact number of the Beliefnet staffers being let go wasn't clear, nor was the sale price. We will update when we have more details.

This news follows reports last week News Corp owned MySpace's co-president resigned. Charles Cooper of the CBS News TechTalk blog wrote last week:

In April 2009, former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta was hired to replace MySpace's founding CEO Chris DeWolfe. Then last February, MySpace canned Van Natta and promoted insiders Mike Jones and Jason Hirschhorn to co-presidents. Now, Hirschorn is making his exit from the company, leaving Jones to carry the ball as a solo act.

We've repeatedly noted that Murdoch is a mess when it comes to the internets. Perhaps he should just stick to propping up unprofitable newspapers and political television programming disguised as cable news.

Previously: