News Corp confirmed on Wednesday that its Fox Interactive Media group would fall short of its $1bn revenue target this year even as the media group reported that its third-quarter earnings tripled to $2.7bn on a one-time stock sale.

Peter Chernin, News Corp’s president, predicted that FIM would miss its “ambitious goal” by about 10 per cent, highlighting the challenges of converting the MySpace social networking site’s vast online audience into advertising sales.