Dow Jones takeover will change Oz media industry profile: Fund managers

Rupert Murdochs five billion dollar bid for Dow Jones Inc, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, could change the profile of the Australian media market, fund managers predict.

Sydney, Aug.1 : Rupert Murdoch's five billion dollar bid for Dow Jones Inc, the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, could change the profile of the Australian media market, fund managers predict.

United States reports say that the News Corporation Chairman and CEO's 60 dollar per share bid is only a whisker away from success, with the controlling Bancroft family's 30 million dollar legal fees the only impediment to a deal.

Australian media analysts said financial news content from Dow Jones' wires, The Wall Street Journal and its Asian sister paper offer powerful content to drive News Corp's Australian websites and publications.

"Dow Jones is one of the few working pay websites that actually generates subscribers," 2MG Asset Management director Scott Maddock said.

"The Australian Financial Review will be a pale imitation in terms of must-read content, it is a significant differentiator."

Maddock said News Corp's stewardship of the company would also increase the prestige of The Asian Wall Street Journal.

"The Asian Wall Street Journal has been not been as authoritative as it could have been and there's room for more resources - this is the fastest growing region of markets and its more and more relevant to have a strong journal servicing it," news .com.au quoted Maddock, as saying.

According to variety .com, News Corp. still needs to win official approval from the full group of Dow Jones shareholders.

Murdoch's reasons for coveting the WSJ is self-evident, given the newspaper's perch as one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions in American journalism. Murdoch reportedly sees an opportunity, if not a daredevil challenge, to take the Dow's financial newswire, which lags its major competitors, and turn it into a powerhouse.

News Corp. won't really have the advantage of offering an alternative political voice, as it did when it launched Fox News Channel to compete with CNN in 1996, but it could try to use WSJ reporters to bring a diet of scoops uncommon in television reporting.

The big catch there, however, is that Dow has an existing alliance with CNBC, the chief rival of the Fox Business startup, that runs through 2012.

There are also questions about why News Corp. wants to make a big-ticket newspaper purchase at a time when print journalism is under financial duress, to put it mildly.

Skeptics have pointed to the fact that Murdoch's only other U.S. newspaper holding has been a money loser practically since he bought it in the 1970s.

While it's a matter of pride for the Murdoch profile and perhaps considered an important piece of his legacy, the newspaper biz has historically been an island within News Corp., never achieving the level of integration seen among the other divisions.

Murdoch is expected to use the company to buttress the operations of papers from London to Australia -- and also use his media empire to boost numbers at the Europe and Asia editions of the journal.

ANI