Sometimes rivers dry up

Global media baron Rupert Murdoch says his $1 billion hunt for internet assets was strategic spending, not panic buying in the face of a gloomy outlook for newspapers.He said it was a "very careful strategy" to go for the largest sites for people under 30 years old.

The News Corp chief this month shareholders that newspaper profits were good overall and that the company would continue to reinvest in its newspapers and improve their performance.

But he indicated to UK Press Gazette that newspaper classifieds no longer provided "rivers of gold" for their owners.

"Sometimes rivers dry up," he said.

"This is a generational thing ... certainly I don't know anybody under 30 who has ever looked at a classified advertisement in a newspaper."

A classic quote from the master of media as reported by The Age