FB News

New role for James Murdoch with digital advertising firm

By Tess De La Mare

Only a month after he was promoted co-chief operating officer at 21st Century Fox, James Murdoch has added the role of board member of an advertising start-up to his résumé.

Murdoch, who built his career in his father's media empire, has joined the board of US-based True (X) Media – a digital advertising platform that promises to provide interactive advertising to its clients.

True (X), which was launched in 2007, creates advertisements that dominate web browsers, forcing users to interact with the pop-up before they can close it – supposedly guaranteeing advertisers a full 30 seconds of their target audiences’ attention.

Murdoch witnessed the decline in value of print advertising during his time at News Corp, now exclusively the publishing arm of the family business, and also experienced the struggles of his newspapers to monetise their websites. 

He was forced to resign as chairman of News International, News Corp's British newspaper arm, following the phone hacking affair, when it was revealed that staff at The News of the World had hacked the phones of celebrities, politicians and even murder victims, but moved into overseeing the family's broadcast and cable networks, which are heavily dependent on advertising revenue. 

Joe Marchese, True (X)'s chief executive, told the New York Times: "We've grown enough now that we need industry expertise in the boardroom, this was about making the board more functional."

In addition to Murdoch, Mich Mathews and Jonathan Miller, Microsoft's former chief marketing officer and an ex-News Corp executive respectively, have also joined the True (X) board.

Marchese said in a statement that Murdoch, Mathews and Miller’s combined experience would help the company evolve in the areas of digital media and advertising. 

Top Stories