BUOYED by a box office hit in Avatar and better-than-expected profits, News Corporation chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch predicted a rosy future for content-makers like the media and entertainment company.

"The debate over the primacy of content is over,'' Mr Murdoch told analysts after News Corp reported a $US254 million ($285.1 million) second-quarter net profit compared with a $US6.4 billion loss in the same quarter a year ago.

"The value of content is now clear,'' said Mr Murdoch, whose holdings include the Fox television networks, Avatar maker 20th Century Fox, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and newspapers in Australia and Britain.

"Content is not just king. It is the emperor of all things electronic,'' said Mr Murdoch.

Declaring News Corp "the world's preeminent content company,'' Mr Murdoch said "devices and platforms are proliferating.''

"But this clever technology is merely an empty vessel without any great content,'' he said.

"Without content, the ever larger and flatter screens, the tablets, the e-readers and the increasingly sophisticated mobile phones would be lifeless.''

"Without content these ingenious and wonderful devices would be unloved and unsold,'' he said.

Mr Murdoch repeated plans to begin charging online readers of his newspapers. The Wall Street Journal is currently the only major newspaper in the News Corp stable to charge readers a subscription fee.

"We expect to expand to other titles in the coming months,'' Mr Murdoch said. "We'll be charging for online wherever we have publications.''

News Corp, he added, is also holding "a very substantive conversation with device makers on developing a subscription model that will provide high-quality journalism to consumers whenever and wherever they want it.''

An outspoken critic of Amazon's Kindle, Mr Murdoch said News Corp, owner of book publisher Harper-Collins, had entered into an agreement with Apple, which unveiled its iPad tablet computer last week.

Mr Murdoch said the deal with Apple would allow for higher prices for e-books than the $US9.99 Amazon charges for bestsellers and hardcover releases.

News Corp is the parent company of the publisher of news.com.au