In his latest tweet, he mentions the phone hacking scandal, and of course copyright stealing:

Between those, however, he made the more headline-grabbing statement:

Reuters is reporting that inside sources have told them that Microsoft has put their long talked about Web TV program on hold. The program would essentially be Netflix but also give viewers access to live programming and currently airing television series. They reported that Microsoft pulled out after realizing that the licensing costs were too high.

“They built Microsoft TV, they demoed it for us, they asked for rate cards but then said ‘ooh ah, that’s expensive,’” one senior media executive who had been involved in the talks said.

Early versions of the service featured Kinect-like functionality that let users change channels with voice and motion control.

Microsoft is still bringing video and news content through their Xbox 360 console. They announced at CES that News Corp would be bringing Fox Broadcast, Fox News, IGN and The Wall Street Journal to their Xbox Live service.

Media company sources are hoping that Microsoft will come back to negotiate content deals later as the proposed service would be a money maker for all parties involved, especially the studios.

In a statement to Joystiq, Microsoft had this to say on the supposed deal breakdown:

“We don’t comment on rumors and speculation. Microsoft is committed to working with the world’s leading TV and entertainment providers to bring their offerings to Xbox and transform the TV experience with the power of Kinect. We are continuing to launch the more than 40 new entertainment partners we have already announced, including a wide range of live and on-demand TV on Xbox. Moving forward, you can expect to see more of the world’s leading entertainment providers coming to Xbox.”

The publication announced that it will come pre-loaded on the Android-powered Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and other tablets, including the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7, after that.

Devices will also get the app with an update to the software.

A message on The Daily’s site says:

The Daily comes loaded on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, with more tablets to come. If you own one of these devices you’ll find The Daily in your apps—just open it to enjoy a free week for free. Choose between monthly ($3.99/month) or annual ($39.99/year—a 15% savings) subscriptions, conveniently charged directly through your Verizon Wireless bill.

“Verizon Wireless has been a key partner since we launched on iPad, and we’re thrilled to now be available to Android customers as we continue to expand and grow throughout the mobile space,” says publisher Greg Clayman.

The Daily was the number 3 top grossing iPad app in 2011.

News of the matter was made worse when The Guardian published a story indicated News of the World paid out £100,000 in bribes to police officers in the London area.

James Murdoch, Deputy Chief Operating Officer, and son of Rupert, announced the shutdown to the staff:

“I have important things to say about the News of the World and the steps we are taking to address the very serious problems that have occurred.

The paper made statements to Parliament without being in the full possession of the facts. This was wrong.”

The announcement came on the heels of several phone-hacking scandals, which involved members of the Royal Family and a missing 13-year old girl, whom was later found dead. It appears as though advertisers had had enough, and began pulling their campaigns:

Ford was quick to answer the above tweet.

Mitsubishi even took it a step further, donating their ad spend to the Childline charity.

It’s unclear at this time if News Corp plans on shifting the staff of News of the World to their other UK media companies, which includes: The Sunday Times, The Sun, and The Times.

Do you think that News Corp should shut down News of the World? Tell us your thoughts in the comments.

Do you think Hulu should be concerned with who purchases the service? Let us know your thoughts.

Yesterday at the Allen & Co. media conference, Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive, Robert Iger, said the owners of Hulu are “committed to selling“. He also predicted the site would sale, but gave no timetable of a possible deal.

At this time there are preliminary discussions taking place with about a dozen potential buyers, according to Reuters. The list of candidates includes Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and some non-U.S. based media companies.

Hulu is jointly owned by Disney, News Corp, Comcast Corp’s NBC Universal and Providence Equity Partners

Last week, video content and advertising company Specific Media announced their acquisition of Myspace from News Corp. It has also been reported that the price of that acquisition is $35 million. If you remember, News Corp paid just a little bit more for Myspace when they purchased it – about $550 million more. It’s safe to say that the $35 million sale was probably not what News Corp wanted.

Soon after the reports emerged about Specific Media’s acquisition, we learned that Justin Timberlake had decided to join the party. When it’s all said and done, we learned, Timberlake will be part owner in the company.

He had this to say about his vision for the future of Myspace –

There’s a need for a place where fans can go to interact with their favorite entertainers, listen to music, watch videos, share and discover cool stuff and just connect. Myspace has the potential to be that place,” says Timberlake. “Art is inspired by people and vice versa, so there’s a natural social component to entertainment. I’m excited to help revitalize Myspace by using its social media platform to bring artists and fans together in one community.

Now, according to the AP, Myspace might become something akin to the online version of American Idol or The Voice.

Timberlake’s longtime manager Johnny Wright says that “a talent show or some other way of developing new artists will be core to the revamp of Myspace.”

He goes on to say that “whether it becomes a talent competition or something like that, those are things that we will still flesh out, we definitely want to bring the industry back to Myspace to really look at the talented people that have put their faces there.”

The full vision of the new Myspace will be revealed at a press conference scheduled for August 17th.

What do you think? Could competition help the new Myspace? Let us know in the comments.

The report comes from Kara Swisher at All Things D, who cites “sources close to the situation” as saying the price range for MySpace is somewhere between $20 million and $30 million, though others are putting it slightly higher at $35 million.

Swisher reports that Specific Media and Golden Gate Capital are the frontrunners for the acquisition, and that News Corp. hopes to unload the site by Thursday, which is the end of its fiscal year. The former is an ad network, and the latter is a private equity firm.

Earlier this month, News Corp.’s Head of Digital Media Jonathan MIller said that it would know something about the sale in two weeks, and it appears that he was just slightly off. The media conglomerate had reportedly been asking $100 million, but it doesn’t sound like that or anything close to it is going to happen.

To be honest, MySpace is making Google+ look really good today as it is still pushing the Nick Cannon “hijack” it was the day we covered Miller’s remarks, weeks ago.

Even still, MySpace.com had over 30 million unique visitors in the U.S. in May. The number continues to nosedive, however. It was over 67 million in May 2010, and even that was well after the MySpace train began to derail.

It sounds like we’ll have something more solid to report on in a couple days.

The News Corp. business group that MySpace is a part of lost $165 million in the third quarter (compared to a loss of $150 million in the same period the year prior), according to Bloomberg.

Once the leader in social networks, MySpace has lost a lot of its luster, as more people have migrated to Facebook and essentially left the site behind. MySpace is even the butt of most of the jokes in the recent viral “Roast of Facebook” video:

News Corp. bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, and it’s pretty much been in a nosedive since. Earlier this year, the company cut nearly half of its staff.

Last year, MySpace basically re-branded itself as more of an entertainment content site than a social network, and even started using Facebook integration. That hasn’t done much to keep the site’s traffic from plummeting, from the looks of it, though to be fair, it still gets a ton of traffic. According to Compete, MySpace had nearly 33 million unique visitors in April.

That’s got to be worth something to somebody. The question is who. It certainly doesn’t seem like the most attractive buy, but if the price is right, who knows? Could someone turn MySpace around? How much is it worth? Reports suggest that News Corp. is asking $100 million, but is having trouble finding buyers. Bebo owners Criterion Capital and Vevo have both been mentioned in previous reports as possibilities.

Here’s the statement from Hulu CEO Jason Kilar about the talks:

News Corp, Disney, Providence and the Hulu team have been engaged in productive discussions to extend our existing content agreements a number of years. Keep in mind that our existing Hulu.com content agreements already extend for several more years; these discussions would extend the term further and also extend our separate Hulu Plus content agreements.

Between the operating results and formalizing the above, it is shaping up to be a big year for Hulu.

If you remember, Kilar made a splash in February when he discussed the “future of TV” in a hulu blog post. In this post he challenged the basic structure of network television, saying that there are too many ads on traditional TV and that consumers don’t want lineups that are set in stone, but want to watch shows on their own time.

According to All Things D’s sources, most of the basic structure of the contract will remain unchanged. Hulu.com will stay ad-supported and Hulu Plus will still be a paid subscription with much more content. Hulu viewers probably won’t notice much change, as the new deal is likely to only affect a small amount of programming and possibly change the windows of availability for some content.

Though the terms of the new deal may not affect the normal viewer, they make shake up things for the companies involved. Apparently the terms may also deal with more flexible content distribution, allowing the networks the right to put their programming out on other outlets as well as Hulu. Disney’s CEO Bob Iger said that he “doesn’t intend to let a platform, even one we own, get in the way of doing what we think it right” at last week’s earnings call.

The landscape of digital streaming has changed dramatically since Hulu’s inception. Hulu Plus and Netflix will probably continue to due battle for the paid streaming content market. Just recently, Hulu Plus launched on Xbox 360, joining the already present Netflix app that has been around for some time.