Murdoch says he is aiming to be a global financial news conglomerate

Media baron Rupert Murdoch has said that his decision to acquire Dow Jones and Co. signaled his goal of become a major provider of global financial news through eventual synergies between the Wall Street Journal and the soon-to-be-launched Fox Business Network.

New York, Aug.9 : Media baron Rupert Murdoch has said that his decision to acquire Dow Jones and Co. signaled his goal of become a major provider of global financial news through eventual synergies between the Wall Street Journal and the soon-to-be-launched Fox Business Network.

Murdoch said that News Corp. was not in talks to buy out the exclusive contract that CNBC has with Dow Jones and its flagship Journal. The deal runs through 2012, and CNBC executives have indicated that they expect the arrangement to be honored no matter who owns the Journal.

Murdoch, however, said that he has expectations of his own, which no doubt includes that his newly acquired Journal and its more than 700 financial reporters and editors team up with the Fox Business Network that is set to launch in October in direct competition with CNBC.

"The CNBC contract is an obstacle, but we still think there are opportunities for the business network and the Journal" to cooperate outside of business news, Murdoch said during an earnings conference call that was dominated by questions about his broader Dow Jones vision.

Overall, Murdoch, was quoted by the Hollywood Reporter and Variety.com as saying that the five billion dollar Dow Jones acquisition has the potential to be "transformative" for his conglomerate and should make News Corp. a global provider of news in addition to entertainment.

The Dow Jones deal, sealed last week, "will provide an immediate and important lift to the whole company," Murdoch said.

Murdoch said that having Dow Jones and the Journal will immediately boost the credibility of FBN, which will launch October 15 with a minimum of 31.5 million subscribers and in markets including the financial capital of New York. He added the acquisition also could help expand the channel's carriage deals.

News Corp. president and COO Peter Chernin estimated during the call that his conglomerate's total FBN investment would be 150 million dollars to 200 million dollars, and that the channel would break even within "a couple" of years.

FBN shares a headquarters and some staff with the high-flying Fox News Channel.

Murdoch signaled that his team will unveil more detailed plans for Dow Jones and FBN down the line, but he did say that one big decision his management team is focused on right now is whether to make access to the online Journal free.

Such a move would hurt the paper's financials short-term, but "long-term (it) may be a wonderful thing to do," Murdoch said.

Overall, while he declined to provide specifics, the News Corp. boss said digital growth at the Journal and other parts of Dow Jones, including Barron's, Marketwatch.com and Factiva, are key priorities.

He also repeated comments that he wants the Journal to compete more aggressively with the New York Times and other national dailies as well as the London-based Financial Times and that he wants to expand coverage with more national, international and nonbusiness news. And he's aiming to boost the Journal's sweep in Asia and Europe.

Murdoch shot down suggestions that News Corp. could cut advertising or subscription prices to increase the Journal's reach and added that the paper likely would go into immediate hiring mode to expand its offerings.

Speaking to reporters and analysts as part of News Corp.'s fourth-quarter earnings report, Murdoch also took jabs at critics of his Dow Jones bid.

News Corp.'s numbers for the quarter revealed that film operating income at Fox dropped roughly in half, down to 106 million dollars this year from 200 million dollars last. But a strong frame for cable sent conglom's net income up four percent to 890 million dollars on revenues of 7.37 billion dollars, up nine percent.

Murdoch noted that the company was "enduring criticism normally leveled at some genocidal tyrant. If I didn't think it was such a perfect fit," he said, "I would have walked away" of his decision to buy Dow Jones.

He was also very careful to avoid details about changes to Dow Jones.

"As we get deeper into the business, we'll have much more to say about how we plan to integrate and grow it," he said.

He noted that Dow Jones will provide "an immediate and important lift" to the conglom's digital biz but declined to elaborate on how it would fit with the company's other new-media platforms, such as MySpace and the still-gestating Web video venture with NBC Universal.

ANI