Content sharing - will it work?

News Corp (NYSE: NWS) is setting up a new unit designed to share content from all of News Corp.‘s global sources.

The News Corp. editorial portal will be headed by John Moody, who has been EVP for News Editorial at Fox News. Moody will report directly to Murdoch.

The new post calls for Moody to work with news chiefs across all News Corporation properties to find ways to pool reporting resources and cut costs. Before coming to Fox, Moody spent 14 years at Time magazine and last held the post as the newsweekly’s NY bureau chief.

In principle this type of resource and excellence sharing is very smart (even more so in recessionary times)but in practice will it work?

On the surface it looks like Moody has one helluva job infront of him to persuade News Corps. editorial/content titans to use each others content. My own personal experience of these types of very sensible schemes is that everyone says yes of course we will be share but in reality they dont. Happy to have you use my content but dont expect me to use yours.

But things are very different today.

For a start the technology enables sharing and the multi platforms nature of media actually encourages it.

Also Moody has the distinct advantage of being able to offer strong and reputable brands whose content would enhance and strenthen partner content offerings.

Oh and lets not forget that Moody reports directly to Murdoch - thats a really big stick!

I think this is sensible but more importantly I think it will work to the advantage of all participating content parties and I see no reason why the consumer experience shouldnt be enhanced to boot.

On a cautionary note lets hope this isnt really all about cost cutting and will unfortunately do nothing but advance further reduction in quality content production

Lets see.