International media titan Rupert Murdoch yesterday met the heir apparent of Samsung Electronics during a rare visit to Korea, a move which drew keen attention from industry watchers.

Murdoch, chairman of News Corp., and Lee Jae-yong are thought to have discussed cooperation under which the media giant could supply content to Samsung's mobile phones, TVs and other electronics devices, market watchers said.

The Korean company is the world's No. 2 handset maker and top TV maker.

News Corp. is one of the world's largest media conglomerates, owning the Wall Street Journal, Fox broadcast television and a number of print, broadcasting and entertainment outlets. "I guess the two may have talked about contents (cooperation)," Kevin Lee, an analyst at Woori Investment & Securities, said.

News Corp., a major media firm, needs strong backing from hardware manufacturers. And Samsung focuses on contents to increase its hardware sales," he said. News Corp. currently delivers content from its media outlets like The Wall Street Journal to the iPhone and the BlackBerry via applications. Samsung has also recently launched an application store as part of its efforts to boost its weak smartphone sales.

For News Corp.'s part, the media giant seeks to cash in on the growing mobile applications market to offset part of its stalled advertising revenue. The company has recently started to charge mobile users for its Wall Street Journal news delivered via iPhone and the BlackBerry, which were previously available for free.

Murdoch reportedly planned to visit Samsung's headquarters in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, and meet Lee and Choi Gee-sung, president of Samsung's TV and handset unit.

A Samsung spokesperson declined to comment on the meeting, saying it is an "unofficial schedule."

This was not the first meeting between the two business moguls. Lee met Murdoch at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2007 and at the Sun Valley Conference, a secret annual gathering of top executives held in July.

The two may have discussed collaboration on Samsung's broadband TVs, industry watchers said.

In July, Samsung agreed to team up with Blockbuster Inc. to offer the U.S. firm's video-on-demand service on Samsung's televisions, home theater systems and Blu-ray disc players. News Corp. also runs video-streaming service Hulu.com, a popular Web destination featuring movies and TV shows from Fox, ABC, Disney, and other contents providers.

Murdoch planned to leave for China yesterday to attend the World Media Summit that kicks off today. This was his first visit to Korea in more than a decade.

The visit was closely watched by the media industry to see whether his company is interested in entering Korea's broadcasting industry. The National Assembly recently passed media bills which would ease the ownership rules of broadcasting firms for foreigners as well as newspaper firms and large businesses.

Speculation has it that News Corp. may partner with the Chosun Ilbo, Korea's No.1 newspaper, to launch a broadcasting channel. News Corp. attempted to make inroads into the local broadcasting sector in the early 2000s, but its attempt failed in the face of opposition from media unions and others.

(hjjin@heraldm.com)

By Jin Hyun-joo

2009.10.08