Rupert Murdoch’s pursuit of Dow Jones has been successful. And I know there are doom-and-gloom predictions about the man who brought us Fox News, the revamps of the News of the World and The Sun in the ’60s, and the about-face of the New York Post in the ’70s.
   Murdoch, above all, is a pragmatist. I even think he views things through brands, but in that unpopular capitalist way, but he is a brand strategist nonetheless. He knows (and has said) that The Times, another one of his properties, can become a global newspaper: the days of capturing single countries are long gone. It can set the UK agenda but its name is so well known that it can go global, with the internet and with printed foreign editions (in the vein of the International Herald–Tribune).
   But no newspaper in Murdoch’s News Corp. sets a national agenda, unlike The New York Times. He is likely to keep his promise of pumping money to reverse Dow Jones’s The Wall Street Journal’s decline and make it into an agenda-setter. From the point of view of a media magnate, it is a sensible move, essentially replicating his Times acquisition across the Pond. This tendency has been there, initially with his positioning of The Australian as a national paper (when it was not in the early days), and later his acquisition (and subsequent sale) of the South China Morning Post.
   Just when you think the playbook has been played, Murdoch comes out with a few billion more, gets what he wants, and will now, more than likely, create a national, if not global, brand out of The Wall Street Journal—injecting more non-business bits and trying to compete (even if it is hard to believe) on quality journalism, and across more than one medium. The synergies in Dow Jones’s other media are relatively plain to see, too.

Disclaimer: The Wall Street Journal has advertised in JY&A Media properties. Posted by Jack Yan, 09:47  permalink

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