Murdoch Sets His Sights on Big Players including NY Times

[EV_Ares]

From Financial Times, August 10, 2007
By Aline van Duyn

Rupert Murdoch is known for his ambitious plans, and the hopes he made public yesterday for Dow Jones do not disappoint.

In his first comments on his bid for Dow Jones and its Wall Street Journal newspaper since last week’s announcement of a merger agreement, the chairman and chief executive of News Corp made clear that he had all the world’s big information providers in his sights, from the New York Times to the Financial Times to Reuters. Mr Murdoch, speaking late on Wednesday after the release of News Corp results, plans to cut costs by integrating Dow Jones with News Corp’s own printing and online operations – and has already worked out that he could save more than $50m a year – but these reductions will not come from shedding staff such as reporters and editors. “We’re going to be in hiring mode almost immediately,” he said.

Specifically, Mr Murdoch expects to invest in Europe and Asia, and to increase coverage of US, international and non-business news, “all to better compete with The New York Times”. He said the Journal would expand in the UK, the FT’s home market, and promised: “We’d take on everybody in terms of supply of real-time news.” However, a price war – one of his favoured tactics used in fighting for dominance for some of his other newspapers – was not on the cards. “We’re certainly not going to be cutting prices of either advertising or subscriptions,” he said. Yet it is his digital plans, about which he remained a little coy, that could have a big impact.

Specifically, Mr Murdoch said he was thinking about whether to take the big step and eliminate the Journal’s subscription charges for its online products, in hopes of attracting a bigger share of online advertising, the fastest growing advert segment and one where financial services adverts attract some of the highest rates. In a recent report, Lehman Brothers analysts said such a move could hurt the likes of Yahoo and AOL. “A free WSJ.com, with global distribution through News Corp, would likely see an increase in visitors and ad revenue, potentially siphoning ad dollars from incumbent leading financial sites, Yahoo Finance, MSN Monday and AOL Money & Finance,” the report said.

His deliberations on WSJ.com come as New York Times executives are also exploring whether they should have free access to its website. The New York Times said: “We continue to evaluate the best approach for nytimes.com.” The FT also charges for access to FT.com. Longer term, Mr Murdoch made it clear that Dow Jones feeds into a plan to break CNBC’s monopoly over 24-hour business news. News Corp said it would be spending $150m to $200m to launch its Fox business channel on October 15, and that it would break even in a “couple of years”.

Mr Murdoch said he thought the new channel could be worth more than $4bn “in short order”. He said he was not in negotiations with CNBC over breaking its contract with the Wall Street Journal, but it is widely expected that this will be a next step.

http://www.freepress.net/news/25426