RUPERT MURDOCH READY TO TOPPLE NEW YORK TIMES SAYS LASKY
January 24th 2008 05:14
It’s real clear to US writer Ed Lasky that the New York Times will be toppled by Rupert Murdoch.
Lasky writes on the Real Clear Politics site that, “The American mediascape is about to experience an earthquake, Rupert Murdoch is preparing to topple the New York Times from its position as the pre-eminent general interest daily newspaper, generating severe financial pressure on a struggling media company reeling from mismanagement. There is every indication he will succeed.
“The New York Times has long enjoyed the status of America's leading and most influential national general interest newspaper. A wide range of advertisers, particularly purveyors of upscale goods, have paid escalating advertising rates to reach the elite readership presumed to read the nation's leading daily.
“While the company has suffered from poor management under its chairman and publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr (‘Pinch’), he has been insulated from pressure by shareholders (including a hedge fund that accumulated millions of shares) because of an unusual voting class structure that vests enormous power – but little ownership – in the founding family.
”However, Pinch will soon face a very formidable competitor. Legendary media baron Rupert Murdoch has just completed his purchase of the Wall Street Journal - a paper that also enjoys nationwide reach, but one that has heretofore focused on the world of business. Change is afoot. Murdoch is a man who makes no ‘small plans’; he makes ‘big plans’.
”Murdoch's goal is to transform the Journal into a rival of the Times, and then surpass it, making the Journal the nation's pre-eminent general interest newspaper. Given Murdoch's history, zeal, resources and talents – all qualities sadly lacking in the fourth generation of Sulzbergers, as symbolized by Pinch – the Times will be toppled.
Meawnhile, a sister site, Real Clear Markets suggested Google may buy the New York Times. It said, “In the last five years, the New York Times has declined in value by an astonishing 70 percent. There is no indication that things will get better any time soon. Indeed, as the specter of recession looms, there is every reason to believe that things will get worse. At some point here in the near future, the market capitalization of the New York Times will fall below $2 billion. At that point, a psychological floor will have collapsed and the company will be in play.
“The company that has the most to gain from buying the New York Times is Google. If it proffered a Murdoch-like, no-auction bid of $4 billion, wouldn't the Sulzberger family have to accept it? Every single class B shareholder would accept the offer. It's their only exit. It is also likely that Times employees and retirees would enthusiastically support the deal; it's their only exit as well. So it would all come down to whether the Sulzberger family (smaller in number and not as far-flung as the fractious Bancroft clan that owned Dow Jones) would accept the deal.”
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