News Corp. will be a 10.8 percent minority stakeholder in Healtheon/WebMD, the company said. The financial terms of the partnership include $700 million in branding services, $400 million domestically and $300 million internationally, provided by News Corp. over 10 years; $100 million purchase of Healtheon/WebMD stock at $50 per share; a $100 million cash investment by News Corp. in an international joint venture; and a $62.5 million five-year licensing agreement for syndication of WebMD daily broadcast content.
The deal also calls for a transfer to Healtheon/WebMD of a 50 percent interest in The Health Network, a health-focused cable network, and 100 percent ownership of thehealthnetwork.com.
"Today we announced an ideal partnership to help us achieve our goal of establishing a multimedia, multirevenue generating business in the trillion-dollar healthcare industry," Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of News Corp. said in a statement.
In a reversal of the usual trend to place traditional media content on Web sites, Murdoch plans to distribute Healtheon/WebMD content across New Corp.'s television and print outlets, according to the company.
Formed by the $5.4 billion merger of Healtheon, WebMD and two other U.S. companies, Atlanta-based Healtheon/WebMD competes in the $1 trillion U.S. health-care industry with drkoop.com, Mediconsult.com and Medscape by providing medical information on the Internet.
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