Rupert and the business side of Dow Jones

Louis Hau of Forbes.com takes a look at what might happen to the business side of Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, if News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch is successful in purchasing the company from the Bancroft family.

Hau wrote, “If anything, Murdoch has expressed an interest in reversing Dow Jones’ recent efforts to trim costs. He says he wants to invest more in the company’s overseas editorial operations and in its coverage of Washington. And he’ll clearly exploit the Journal and Dow Jones’ other editorial resources to bolster his planned Fox Business Channel.

“The post-merger transition will also be helped by the fact that Murdoch and Dow Jones’ senior management already appear to be on the same page strategically. In fact, to get a further hint of the kinds of changes ahead for Dow Jones and its flagship publication under the News Corp., it might not hurt to look backward for a moment.

“Yes, there has been a well-documented litany of missteps, including Dow Jones’ epic mismanagement of its acquisition of financial data service Telerate, which weakened the company’s competitive position vis-a-vis aggressive rivals like privately held Bloomberg and left the company with significant exposure to the declining market for print advertising.”

Read more here.