Ever seeking to enlarge his already engorged media empire, he's taking on Newsday, has his eyes on the New York Times.
In today's Times:
April 23, 2008
Murdoch Moving to Buy Newsday for $580 Million
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA and TIM ARANGO
Rupert Murdoch is moving to tighten his already-imposing grip on American news media, striking a tentative deal to buy his third New York-based paper, Newsday, and getting his first chance to appoint the top editor of The Wall Street Journal, after the resignation of the editor on Tuesday.
His $580 million bid for Newsday and his urgency in remaking The Journal worry his competitors and cause angst in many newsrooms, including his own. And both moves are vintage Rupert Murdoch, a man who operates his sprawling News Corporation like an old-style media mogul, making big bets on old and new media — bankrolling the new
Fox Business Network, aggressively pursuing a deal for Yahoo, and buying Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Journal, for far more than analysts thought it was worth. And that was just in the last year.
His first love, however, remains newspapers. The purchase of Newsday from the Tribune Company would put Mr. Murdoch in control of 3 of the nation’s 10 largest-circulation papers (the others being The Journal and The New York Post). Owning Newsday, which is based on Long Island, would also open an eastern front in the long-running battle for New York tabloid supremacy and, by combining some operations, could allow News Corporation to end decades of heavy losses by The Post....
http://www.nytimes.com/...
There may be a sabot in the works, however, in the person of Mortimer B. Zuckerman, owner of The Daily News, archrival of The Post, who will make a counter offer next week, "according to some," to borrow a phrase from the Faux Network.
Current owner of Newsday, Sam Zell, is having a few financial problems in connection with his new ownership of the Tribune Co., parent company of the Chicago Tribune:
Billionaire Zell, who became Tribune Co. chairman and chief executive late last year after engineering a highly leveraged $8.2 billion deal to take private the Chicago-based media concern, parent of the Chicago Tribune, has had to reconsider plans to keep the company's core assets intact in light of the company's worse-than-expected double-digit newspaper revenue declines.
Tribune has a $650 million debt obligation due Dec. 4, as well as about $250 million in medium-term notes due in 2008. The plan is to satisfy those obligations by drawing down a line of credit.
Zell said in a conference call with creditors last week he did not anticipate "trouble meeting our commitments going forward," but he also said the company was now "forced to consider the possible divestiture of some of our assets."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/...
Meanwhile, the New York Times is having its own financial problems -- and there are rumors that Murdoch is still hungry.
Murdoch is also busily at work to work out a deal with the FCC:
As he nears completion of a deal to acquire Newsday from the Tribune Company, Rupert Murdoch appears likely to pose the first significant challenge to the media ownership rule that the Federal Communications Commission recently adopted.
Even without Newsday, Mr. Murdoch was in the process of seeking waivers to continue to control two newspapers (The Wall Street Journal and The New York Post) and two television stations (WNYW and WWOR) in the New York area.
With those waiver requests pending at the F.C.C., the Newsday deal means that Mr. Murdoch must now apply for a waiver to own the two television stations and three newspapers in the same market.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Anyone want to place odds on Murdoch getting the waiver? With Kevin Martin as head?
And, how about a little commentary on Murdoch from The Nation in 2003:
We should be worried once again about Rupert Murdoch. For unless swift action is taken, Murdoch--and the conservative political causes he supports--will soon become an even more powerful presence in the United States and the world.
Murdoch is on the cusp of fulfilling a longstanding ambition that will finally give him a global network of powerful orbiting, interactive, direct broadcast satellites. Imagine a torrential downpour of dozens of Fox News Channels targeting major US cities; a super-broadband site continuously promoting the viewpoints of the Weekly Standard; and the ability to focus similar political messages simultaneously in Asia, Europe and North and South America. Murdoch's proposed control of DirecTV, the country's leading direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service, will ultimately harm the interests of those seeking greater political and social justice, let alone quality news and entertainment programming.
http://www.thenation.com/...
Behemoth. Leviathan. The Thing. The Murdoch.