Categories: OLD Media Moves

GE could enter bidding for Dow Jones

Russ Britt, the Los Angeles bureau chief for Marketwatch, writes Tuesday that General Electric Co. might be forced to make an offer for Dow Jones & Co., to prevent rival News Corp. from buying the owner of The Wall Street Journal, Marketwatch and Barron’s.

GE is the parent company of NBC and business news cable network CNBC, which has an agreement with the Journal to provide content.

Britt wrote, “General Electric, in particular, could face trouble if it doesn’t at least make a countermove as the deal gives News Corp. an instant source of content for its planned Fox business channel. GE owns the business-news cable channel CNBC.

“The price that News Corp. is offering, however, could deter most, if not all, potential suitors from making a play, said Benchmark’s Atorino. He said acquiring Dow Jones makes the most strategic sense for News Corp. and that a deal would create an awkward fit for other would-be bidders.”

Britt also wrote that if the Bancroft family, which controls more than 64 percent of the Dow Jones voting stock, turns down the offer, then they would likely face a lawsuit from other shareholders.

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Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.