Wall Street Journal (WSJ), the prestigious American business paper has finally ended up in Murdoch’s growing $70 billion arsenal of world wide media acquisitions.

The 76 year old media baron’s unsolicited offer proved too tempting for the Bancroft family who had been basking in the glory of Dow Jones & Co Inc.’s ownership for over a century.

Acquisition of WSJ and Dow Jones Newswires makes a strategic fit for the Murdoch’s planned launch of Fox Business channel later in the year. The takeover also directly affronts Reuters Group Plc, CNBC, Bloomberg and The Financial Times, in the given space.

The deal of $60 per share, at a 65 percent premium was far too attractive for the Bancroft family to overcome the concerns about editorial integrity raised by many WSJ reporters and Dow Jones employees. The takeover is estimated to cost Murdoch’s New’s Corp $5 billion.

The Dow Jones empire employing about 7400 people, stretched across news wires and magazines with The Wall Street Journal alone having a 2 million readership and is considered America’s second highest circulation paper after USA Today.

As globalization marches to integrate world trade with incidents like a sneeze on the Shanghai stock exchange sending a shiver through the global markets, business journalism will gain more prominence.

Murdoch realizes the value of the premium financial product when more and more newspapers migrate to the free of charge access on the internet, but subscribers will continue to pay for business news.

The New York Times Co., owned by the Sulzbergers-Ochs for over a century, and the Washington Post Co controlled by the Graham family are among the few family owned media businesses that are holding out after the Chandlers and Bancrofts have decided to cash out of Tribune Company and Dow Jones & Co Inc.

Sale of Knight Ridder, pending sale of Tribune Company and the take over of Dow Jones Inc mark the bad times that American media businesses are going through as the Web slowly encroaches upon advertising revenues.

The Journal, as it is popularly known, is bound to become one of the finest gems in Murdoch’s crown. The others being ‘Times’, tabloid ‘Sun’ in UK, New York Post, American Idol, The Simpsons Movie, Fox News Channel, Twentieth Century Fox Movie and TV Studio, MySpace, National Geographic, Australian, several satellite TV networks and newspapers by the scores.

Growing clout of the media mogul is threatening political establishments around the globe as it gives the owner and the management a larger voice in national and international affairs.

The four month old hostile bid for Wall Street Journal was not a smooth affair.

‘It’s a bad thing for Dow Jones and American journalism that the Bancroft family coud not resist Rupert Murdoch’s generous offer,’ said Jim Ottaway whose family owns 7 percent share in Dow Jones.

Leslie Hill, a Dow Jones director, resigned from the company board as the deal began to take final shape.
Thomas Walker, a Wall Street Journal global copy desk worker, in lower Manhattan decided to call it quits after he heard about the sale. ‘I don’t want to work for the man,’ he said.

Image Credit: Telegraph