A Year After: Dow Jones Under Murdoch: Enterprise's the Bright Spot; WSJ Americas-Fox International
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
It has been a year since Rupert Murdoch's Dow Jones chase started, and DJ's integration within the News Corp machinery continues. Variety does an in-depth on a year after, and concludes that even though Wall Street has gone negative on News Corp stock as a result, at the very least, he hasn't unleashed a massive series of cutbacks that have plagued the rest of the industry. We may know some more details on DJ when News Corp announces its Q208 results on Aug 5th.
But the $5 billion price is being questioned by some: UBS media analyst Michael Morris: "Given the decline in newspaper valuations since the acquisition, it appears (News Corp.) could have gotten it a lot cheaper. What was the rush?" He also think that News Corp (NYSE: NWS). hasn't outlined a clear strategy of how it will integrate the Dow Jones businesses into its TV, Internet and international platforms (some of it hampered by CNBC's existing deal with Dow Jones). He says expansion in these areas is key to realizing the value of the transaction.
Meanwhile, as the story rightly points out, Dow Jones' big profit center is its Enterprise Media Group, which includes the newswires, Dow Jones Indexes, Dow Jones Financial Information Services, and Factiva. When Murdoch talks about boosting Dow Jones revenue to 75 percent digital from 50 percent, EMG will be the primary growth driver, the story says. Clare Hart, president of Enterprise Media, mentioned that the group will make some more acquisitions, adding to the recent purchase of Dutch wire service Betten Financial News, and financial social networking firm Generate. EMG has also just added a commercial managing director in India, where News Corp. has a large foothold.
Speaking of international, WSJ has expanded its Latin American operations online by launching a dedicated URL for it, under WSJAmericas.com, and has tied up with sister company Fox International Channels that will see the newspaper's content promoted on TV networks in Latin America. WSJ Americas ads will begin appearing on Fox, FX and National Geographic channels in the region. FIC owns .Fox Networks, the online remnant ad sales arm for News Corp internationally. Some more details in release.
By Rafat Ali