News Corp.'s Intermix buy gets antitrust OK

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has been given the green light by U.S. antitrust authorities to go ahead with its acquisition of Intermix Media.

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday said it would not raise any objection to News Corp.'s acquisition of Intermix Media for $580 million, in a deal that was announced July 18.

Intermix, which will merge with News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media, owns the popular social networking site MySpace. Users can personalize their home pages with photos and music, and list favorite activities, books, music and films.

Intermix reported a first-quarter revenue of $26.7 million for the three months ended June 30, 2005. The company's network segment revenue rose to $12.6 million this year, from $6.2 million in the same period last year, an increase of 106 percent.

The Intermix takeover is another sign of News Corp.'s accelerated move into the online sector. Fox Interactive Media was set up this summer as an Internet division to include all of News Corp.'s Web propertes.

Earlier this month, it was reported that News Corp. was considering acquiring Web search provider Blinkx, and has budgeted up to $2 billion for investments and strategic acquisitions. Fox Interactive Media has already bought sports Web site operator Scout Media for an undisclosed sum, and has launched a $90 million takeover bid for Australian online property-listing site RealEstate.com.au.

Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from London.

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