New News Corp ad network to court financial sites

By Kenneth Li

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp's NWSa.N .Fox Networks is launching an international online ad network Monday focused on financial news and advice, with help from the Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

About 30 web site publishers are part of the network, called Worthnet.Fox, including Dow Jones's Wall Street Journal, Barron's and MarketWatch. News Corp bought Dow Jones last December.

The network is designed to target a growing class of executives who spend time in myriad global regions, as economic borders dissolve amid international expansion.

"The economy has grown around the world and has helped create a new global affluent individual," Hernan Lopez, chief operating officer of Fox International Channels, said in an interview. For example, the site would target "the head of world financial companies that expands his operations in India and wants a local manager that has experience in more international companies."

.Fox Networks, an online advertising network that helps market unsold advertising space on web sites outside of the United States, is a division of News Corp's Fox International Channels.

Relatively unknown in the U.S. until April, .Fox is taking a more prominent role within Rupert Murdoch's empire as it seeks ways to work with the media mogul's vast portfolio of companies.

In April, .Fox purchased European online video ad network Utarget for an undisclosed sum and announced it would start finding ways to work with one of News Corp's most closely watched divisions -- Fox Interactive Media, which oversees the world's largest social network, MySpace.

The launch of Worthnet.Fox appears to be part of News Corp's intentions to expand Dow Jones's international presence as rivals, including Thomson Reuters (TRIL.L) (TRI.TO), consolidate.