You are looking at a Wall Street Journal headline from yesterday's newspaper. What you might not get from the headline is that instead of posting a $8.86 billion loss, Wachovia will post a $9.11 billion loss. Pennies, right? But there's a reason you didn't get a sense of peril — we're talking a $250 million difference — from the headline: the Journal didn't want you to. When Rupert Murdoch launched the Fox Business Network last year, he promised a "more business friendly" (than CNBC) financial network. And having gobbled up the Journal, it appears Murdoch might be spreading that policy to newsprint. Otherwise, this headline might've read the less wordy, less vague, "Wachovia Admits to Even Wider Loss." [Naked Shorts]
Oh noers, MySpace is teaming up with MSNBC to hold a "citizen journalist" contest, with the prize being a trip to either the DNC or RNC (depending on which party your Top Eight friends are voting for) and continuing exposure on MSNBC. The submission deadline was mid-July, so unfortunately you missed out on this once-in-a-blogtime opportunity. Again, most bloggers/people on the internet do not have the credentials to do objective reporting, but hey, it's MSNBC so luckily that's not a requirement. But cranky Keith Olbermann won't agree to having xxxSEXYJESSY82xxx or whomever on his program. Is this because MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the older and grouchier media kingpin? Olbermann's reps have said that the conditions of the contest only extend to the winner appearing on Morning Joe, but Keith has heard of the phenomena of MySpace-face and doesn't want to be upstaged by a sixteen year old with better hair.
Still bitter about losing his wedding ring, media baron and newspaper shaman Rupert Murdoch has suddenly found himself hedging his bets, rather than expanding his empire anywhere you can translate American Idol. While he has no problem doing big business with human rights running joke China and sinking $100 million into India, there is one place he isn't keen on dealing with: the Kremlin. Because they steal! CONTINUED »
A year ago this month, wedding ring misplacer Rupert Murdoch had set his sights on Dow Jones & Co. and its Wall Street Journal newspaper, successfully clearing the bid with shareholders and leading up to the December closing. At the time, media speculators trashed Murdoch, accusing him of looking to the Journal not to improve its credentials, but to add it his enormous empire of political and business influence. But Wall Street wasn't on board with that scenario; instead, they nudged Murdoch on.
It's a very difference scenario today.
The press is defending Murdoch; even Jack Shafer has nice things to say about his stewardship of the Journal. Meanwhile, Wall Street has trounced News Corp.' stock; it hovers around $14, or 40 percent less than its 52-week high. Something about the instability of the print media market, and Murdoch's insistence on subsidizing any losses with big gains made elsewhere. And then there's the whole Dow Jones part of the equation; where does that thing fit in with, say, MySpace? And what about Murdoch's tendency to treat financial weaknesses in other media companies as a chance to snap 'em up on the cheap? So, so many concerns, this deserves an exposé! CONTINUED »
"Over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that FBN averaged 8,000 viewers during daytime programming and 20,000 viewers in primetime in the first three weeks of July. That's a little better than the numbers reported at the start of the year, when the channel was reaching 6,000 viewers during the day and 15,000 in the evening. But at that rate of growth, it will be another 3,588 weeks, or 69 years, before FBN matches CNBC's daytime audience of 284,000. By then, Murdoch will be 146 years old, and on his seventh wife, if current trends hold (and assuming no growth in CNBC's numbers)." [Portfolio]
"There is no bad Murdoch. There is no good Murdoch. And [Wall Street Journal managing editor Paul] Steiger knows it. There is only Murdoch." —Jack Shafer, discussing a certain somebody
Roger Ailes, the Fox News head earning $11 million a year whose job description is loosely phrased as "perform Rupert Murdoch's bidding," did something most would expect from his boss: He bought a newspaper. It's the 3,000 circ Putnam County News and Recorder, the 142-year-old paper of Ailes' hometown. And like a good Murdoch minion, Ailes is taking care of the whole nepotism thing: He's hired his wife, Elizabeth, to be its publisher. Also like Murdoch, there are promises that nothing about the paper will change. Heh. [NYT]
Rupert Murdoch's third wife Wendi Deng is going to have his balls handed to him if he doesn't find the wedding ring he managed to lose at the annual Allen & Co. media orgy in Sun Valley. The News Corp. mogul had a few too many at the Lodge bar and, en route to losing his sobriety, also lost his wedding ring. A 15-minute reporter-fueled search — must obey The Man's orders! — failed to turn it up. Forbes's 73rd richest man in the world … laughing stock of the upper echelon. [Reuters]
Rupert Murdoch is upset that his BSkyB has to compete in Britain with the BBC on bids for American programming, and wants the publicly funded channel to be banned from the practice. [Variety]
It must've been a bitter pill for Jack Shafer to swallow when his editor showed him the headline of his column published Friday: "Is the Journal Getting … Better?" To be sure, that's exactly what Shafer is arguing, pulling a 180 after what seems like endless columns where he railed against Rupert Murdoch from the first whispers of his trying to buy the paper from the Bancroft family to his first days as its new owner. But might the biggest foe to balanced journalism actually have made the Wall Street Journal a better paper through his stewardship? CONTINUED »
With his $28,500 contribution, the maximum legal amount, to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the News Corp. chief once again sends onlookers into a tizzy trying to figure out his political leanings. His deputy, COO Peter Chernin, donated less than half that amount in November to to Democrats' committee, which is charged with electing constituents to the Senate.
On last night's Countdown, Keith Olbermann named Rupert Murdoch his "Worst Person in the World" for the inside baseball decision of firing HarperCollins chief Jane Friedman, supposedly because she quashed the O.J. Simpson book and fired Judith Regan, despite Murdoch wanting the book out.
But maybe Friedman's fate was sealed much earlier? Like, three years ago? When her ally Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert, left the company, and she had to begin reporting to COO Peter Chernin? And had to start meeting certain financial targets? Which would've meant layoffs? That Friedman would've had a problem with?
With this week's ouster of HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, so too come the exciting details. Like how Rupert Murdoch took a meeting with Friedman's deputy Brian Murray on Monday, and then met with Friedman on Wednesday, where she was told she'd be leaving the company, and then named Murray her successor.
But another bit of HarperCollins news makes headlines this week: That the publisher is suing former Star columnist and reality television star Victoria Gotti for the $70,000 advance they paid her in a 2005 two-book deal, one of which was to be a memoir, but never materialized. Her literary agent says no big whoop, and that she'll return the advance. Oh, and maybe the reason she never turned in that memoir is because they fired her confidant Judith Regan and all her underlings, and she didn't feel like commuting in from Long Island to make any new friends.
As News Corp.'s HarperCollins pushes out its chief Jane Friedman, Rupert Murdoch is smartly installing her deputy, Brian Murray, who, at 41, is 21 years her junior and is expected to usher is a new methodology. Or whatever. Basically, he's expected to up profits.
No matter than Friedman has managed to double HarperCollins' take during her 10 years there; in the fiscal year's last nine months, her profits have slid $6 million, to $132 million, over last year. Which, theoretically, is not that big of a slide. But it's part of the newest trend in book publishing: Out with the old, in with the new. Which isn't exactly a new trend, but anyone will point to the ouster of Random House CEO Peter Olson last month, and his replacement of Markus Dohle, as evidence.
By all accounts, the move comes as a surprise, with top-level insiders at the publishing house not expecting her departure. So how to explain why Friedman, inarguably an industry talent, was given the heave ho?
Well, this Bill Moyers book deal might have something to do with it. Moyers, of course, was famously quoted in 2004 saying this, which couldn't have sat well with Murdoch: CONTINUED »
"But the other thing is, I mean, one of the things is Sean Hannity, terrific personality, and I think a valued part of Fox News, Bill O'Reilly. But, you know, Fox News doesn't have them anchor our evening news coverage. I mean, they know that they are people with sharp political opinions, and so they have people like Brit Hume and, I'm proud to say myself, doing the straight news coverage and then we go for commentary from people like Hannity and O'Reilly. But, yet, there's, there's Keith Olbermann, you know, one minute delivering a rant about "Shut the hell up, President Bush," and then the next minute he's the anchor of their news coverage or their election coverage." [Newsbusters]
Besides accosting Rupert Murdoch at a News Corp. event and challenging him to conversation, the best quotes we get from the granddaddy of media domination are from his speaking at public events. Like at the Wall Street Journal's All Digital Conference, which he now owns. Covering everything from "Barack Obama, Microsoft’s aborted bid for Yahoo, and even U.S. energy policy toward domestic oil drilling," Murdoch even had time to discuss a one Keith Olbermann. CONTINUED »
"SURPRISE" HIRE Rupert Murdoch has named Robert Thomson as the Wall Street Journal's new managing editor, replacing Marcus Brauchli, who departed last month, and confirming everyone's suspicions that Murdoch has every intent of turning the paper into a right-y mouthpiece for his own agenda. In an interesting twist: The Journal breaks its own news story. [WSJ]
If the rumor floating around is true, if, indeed, 50 Cent is about to ink a $300 million, 360 deal with arch-conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s Myspace to rival Jay-Z’s measly-by-comparison $100 million deal with Live Nation, then this would be huge, ground-breaking, major front-page news.
There will be no New York Post-Newsday News Corp. tag team to take on the Times, with Rupert Murdoch having dropped out of the bidding for Tribune Co.'s Long Island paper. Instead, Cablevision will buy 97 percent, for $650 million, of the paper, adding the rag to its massive cable biz front on Long Island.
Along with Newsday, Cablevision also picks up "related assets," including freebie paper am New York, a detail the Times surprisingly left out of its coverage. (The WSJ did not.)
So while the deal doesn't actually include Newsday's real estate, as original reports said, the two papers Cablevision picks up guarantees you're about to be inundated with ticket sales ads for Madison Square Garden, which it conveniently also owns. As well as Radio City Music Hall, the New York Knicks, and the New York Rangers..
A Fox News production assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was axed when, on the red carpet, she blurted out to John McCain, "I voted for you in the primary, you're going to win." Replied the Republican candidate: "You're not supposed to reveal that." The entire incident was recorded on video. [TVN] Meanwhile, media baron Rupert Murdoch was seated two seats away from McCain, with just Time managing editor Rick Stengel between them. While McCain was named to the Time 100 list along with Hillary and Barack, how come he was the only one to show? Because he wanted to "bend" Murdoch's powerful ear, natch. [NYO] Such power bestowed a gentleman who, in fact, has never even been invited to the White House. [Gawker] [Photo: Time]
