Murdoch bids for Wall Street Journal

Rupert Murdoch has made many bigger deals than his $5 billion

bid

for Dow Jones. But if he’s successful, this will still be one of his crowning

achievements. Murdoch is a king of all media: his Fox brands are hugely profitable,

and his MySpace acquisition was a thing of genius. But underneath it all he’s

a newspaperman, and the Wall Street Journal is the kind of property that newspapermen

spend entire lifetimes dreaming about owning.

Martin

Peers, reporting for the Journal, says that a bidding war might be in the

offing:

The offer could set off a bidding war for Dow Jones, owner of one of the

most storied franchises in American newspapers. Possible rival suitors include

the Washington Post Co., the New York Times Co. and possibly even Bloomberg

LP.

To that list one would probably have to add one if not more private-equity

groups, who have the kind of cash that newspaper companies tend to lack.

One big question: What would happen to the Journal’s formidable unions if Murdoch

took over? Are they powerful enough to be able to block a deal from even happening

in the first place? Murdoch doesn’t have quite the same union-busting reputation

on this side of the pond as he does in the UK, but I doubt that he’d exactly

be welcomed with open arms.

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