What will one board seat mean to Bancrofts?

TheStreet.com’s Marek Fuchs writes about News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch‘s offer to give a seat on the board of his company to a member of the Bancroft family if they allow him to buy Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal.

The problem with the media coverage of the offer, Fuchs noted, is that it doesn’t detail how big the News Corp. board is so that readers would know the importance of the board seat.

Fuchs wrote, “Did the offer of a board seat help or hurt Murdoch’s chances of peeling off some Bancrofts?

“Because most business journalists have no natural sense of basic numbers and their impact on future developments, we don’t know. To wit: How many people are on the News Corp. board in the first place? In other words, does the offer of one board post carry with it the potential for any lasting influence?

“If there are five board members and Murdoch is offering roughly 20% representation, it’s more appealing than not, although it may not be irresistible. But if there are 15 or, say, the population of Calcutta on the board, then the offer is pretty hollow. If the Bancrofts will be one in a crowd, they probably won’t be as interested.

“The point, though, is that when you read most reports about Murdoch’s love letter, you’re not told how many are on News Corp.’s board.”

Read more here. The answer is that the News Corp. board has 15 seats.