Murdoch looks to legacy with Dow Jones bid
News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch spent a lifetime building a global media empire, but is best known for tarting up tabloids with topless girls and screaming headlines from Sydney to London to New York.
By Agencies |
NEW YORK: News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch spent a lifetime building a global media empire, but is best known for tarting up tabloids with topless girls and screaming headlines from Sydney to London to New York.
Now the 76-year-old media mogul aims to redeem his legacy in the business he loves the most with the anticipated $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones & Co, owner of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s financial weekly and Dow Jones Newswires. Dow Jones looked set to agree on Tuesday to the buyout later on Tuesday, regarded as one of the most audacious yet for the consummate dealmaker.
Murdoch wants to position himself as the saviour of the Journal, as newspapers languish in a downward spiral of circulation and advertising declines. He has never lacked for ideas. “What if, at the Journal, we spent $100 million a year hiring all the best business journalists in the world?”
Murdoch told Time magazine in a recent profile. Here’s another of Murdoch’s musings on the future of the soon-to-be-his Wall Street Journal. “And then you make it free, online only. No printing plants, no paper, no trucks,” he said. But Murdoch’s worst enemy may be his reputation for meddling in the print business.
From a pair of inherited newspapers in Australia, he built the world’s most far-flung and diverse empire of nearly 120 newspapers, film studios, television networks and internet properties, stirring controversy with his brash, populist journalism, but always seizing the chance to expand. His approach has been to find value in overlooked
properties, often taking big risks to rebuild or restructure neglected media companies in novel ways.
Murdoch wants to propel the Journal’s brand across his media outlets, using it to fuel News Corp’s upcoming Fox Business Channel, or finding fresh audiences on its MySpace online social network and mobile media ventures.
His father Sir Keith Murdoch died in 1953, leaving him to run the Adelaide News and Brisbane Courier-Mail. Even then, associates at the Adelaide News complained as a keen 21-year-old Murdoch studied every aspect of the family business, according to biographer William Shawcross.
“Rupert, in his sincere and charming way, has been making life somewhat wearing,”
Now the 76-year-old media mogul aims to redeem his legacy in the business he loves the most with the anticipated $5 billion purchase of Dow Jones & Co, owner of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s financial weekly and Dow Jones Newswires. Dow Jones looked set to agree on Tuesday to the buyout later on Tuesday, regarded as one of the most audacious yet for the consummate dealmaker.
Murdoch wants to position himself as the saviour of the Journal, as newspapers languish in a downward spiral of circulation and advertising declines. He has never lacked for ideas. “What if, at the Journal, we spent $100 million a year hiring all the best business journalists in the world?”
Murdoch told Time magazine in a recent profile. Here’s another of Murdoch’s musings on the future of the soon-to-be-his Wall Street Journal. “And then you make it free, online only. No printing plants, no paper, no trucks,” he said. But Murdoch’s worst enemy may be his reputation for meddling in the print business.
From a pair of inherited newspapers in Australia, he built the world’s most far-flung and diverse empire of nearly 120 newspapers, film studios, television networks and internet properties, stirring controversy with his brash, populist journalism, but always seizing the chance to expand. His approach has been to find value in overlooked
properties, often taking big risks to rebuild or restructure neglected media companies in novel ways.
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To fund buyouts, Murdoch at times has gone to the brink, piling on so much debt that in the early 1990s he needed a major restructuring to survive. Since then, his company’s stock has gone up more than 10-fold. To get the Journal, he offered $60 per share, a huge premium over Dow Jones’s trading price in the mid-30s before the deal was announced. Murdoch wants to propel the Journal’s brand across his media outlets, using it to fuel News Corp’s upcoming Fox Business Channel, or finding fresh audiences on its MySpace online social network and mobile media ventures.
His father Sir Keith Murdoch died in 1953, leaving him to run the Adelaide News and Brisbane Courier-Mail. Even then, associates at the Adelaide News complained as a keen 21-year-old Murdoch studied every aspect of the family business, according to biographer William Shawcross.
“Rupert, in his sincere and charming way, has been making life somewhat wearing,”
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