|
Why now?
The
timing is right—if not for Dow Jones, then for Murdoch.
Conventional wisdom says Dow Jones is vulnerable, having
lost more than half of its share value over the past
seven years. News Corp. insiders say this is about
Murdoch and his Web vision. Murdoch is hosting a
California conference on News Corp.’s digital future in
coming days. News Corp. and NBC are launching an
ambitious plan to show TV programs on Yahoo, AOL and
other Web platforms this summer. Murdoch already has a
dino-sized Web footprint in social-networking (MySpace.com),
TV (AmericanIdol.com) and sports (FoxSports.com). What
does he lack? A Web business-news presence, which
Murdoch sees as a big moneymaker.
What
happens next?
Analysts
agree on one thing: Dow Jones is in play. After that,
who knows? The Bancroft family—they control Dow Jones’s
stock—may think: “If Murdoch will pay $60 per share,
maybe he’ll pay $65.” Rival bidders may emerge, though
none has poked up his head yet. If the Dow Jones board
tells all suitors to go pound sand, it could face a wave
of lawsuits from shareholders who’ve watched their Dow
Jones stock idle at $35 per share for the past two
years, not to mention the new investors who jumped into
the Tuesday buying frenzy.
Is Dow
Jones a good company? Is the Wall Street Journal a good
business?
For
years, analysts have said that Dow Jones is a “C-class”
company with an “A-class” newspaper. The company goofed
when it bought business data provider Telerate in the
1980s, which lost money. Advertising in the Journal has
never fully recovered from the dot-com bubble burst and
the ad slump caused by the September 11, 2001, attacks.
However, unlike nearly every other daily newspaper, the
Journal charges for its online content—Journal Online
subscriptions grew 20 percent in the first quarter of
this year.
Is
Murdoch good for journalism, or not?
To many,
Murdoch is nothing less than Citizen Kane, using his
media properties to advance his interests. But editors
at the Times of London, which Murdoch bought in 1981,
report that the paper has doubled its number of foreign
correspondents in recent years, even as US papers are
shedding costly overseas bureaus.
Can
anything stop Murdoch from getting Dow Jones?
If he
gets past the Bancroft family, not much. Like all deals,
the feds would look at this one for antitrust and
media-ownership red flags. The Journal is based in New
York, where Murdoch owns a television station—potential
red flag—but Murdoch will argue that the Journal is a
national, not local, newspaper and that his deal is
bulletproof.
Has
Murdoch ever failed at a business venture?
In the
late 1990s, Murdoch’s oldest son,
Lachlan, persuaded his father to invest $577 million in Australian
telecom One.Tel. It crashed in 2001, wiping out the
Murdoch investment.
Does
Rupert really rule the media world?
The
jowly, often-unsmiling Murdoch is a convenient bogeyman
for Big Media foes who fear the Aussie wants to own the
world. It has been speculated that he was the model for
the villain in the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never
Dies—a mogul who tries to start a world war to boost
ratings and circulation for his global media empire.
News
Corp. is a huge company, but, hyperbole aside, here are
the facts and numbers: CBS-owned television stations
reach as many US viewers as those owned by Murdoch.
Unlike CBS, Murdoch owns no radio stations. Unlike the
Walt Disney Co., he owns no theme parks, no national
cable sports network. Unlike Tribune Co., he owns only
one
US
newspaper, not 16. Unlike Time Warner, Murdoch does not
own a cable system or the world’s largest collection of
magazines. Unlike Sony, he does not own an electronics
division.
And he
no longer owns DirecTV, which was once thought to be the
American piece to his global satellite network. It may
well be Rupert’s world, but he doesn’t own it all. Yet.
--Washington Post |
