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