News Corp.'s Robert Thompson Talks Trash Traffic

Robert Thompson

News Corp chief executive Robert Thomson has criticized “trash traffic” on “so-called contemporary content sites” such as BuzzFeed, saying advertisers preferred “gilt by association, not guilt”.

Thomson, who oversees Rupert Murdoch’s publishing empire including the Wall Street Journal, said the “cybersands were shifting” with advertisers beginning to move away from the “trendy” to the “enduring”.

News Corp recently saw a 52% year-on-year fall in its third-quarter profits as its newspaper advertising revenue continued to decline.

Thomson said: “A lot of advertisers are a little confused about where they should be advertising. It’s almost an argument between the fashionable and the functionable.

“If you look at a lot of so-called contemporary content sites, you know who they are, I don’t have to name and shame them – like BuzzFeed for instance – the amount of trash traffic on those sites is significant.