Categories: OLD Media Moves

Why is the dumping of CNBC's ads news?

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan wonders on the Seeking Alpha web site why the decision by Dow Jones & Co. to drop ads for CNBC on its Wall Street Journal and Marketwatch web sites on the day of the debut of Fox Business Network — which is a property of News Corp., the buyer of Dow Jones — is news

Karbasfrooshan wrote, “Is this news or common sense? Let me get this straight: Rupert Murdoch

– should spend $5B to rescue a successful publication in an otherwise morbid industry (print media)
– but he should not have any say on editorial (even though every single parent does control editorial of a publication… but I digress)
– nor should he have any say on advertising matters, either?

“You’ve all lost it, my dear.

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: while I disagreed with Mr. Murdoch’s support for the war back in 2003, his business bravado should be a lesson for chieftains in both old and new media alike. While Reuters, Thomson, GE’s NBC all balked at the mere specter of bidding for Dow Jones, publisher of Barron’s and Wall Street Journal, Murdoch launched an unsolicited but shrewdly calculated $5B offer that separated the men from the boys. He got the asset, fair and square, no?

“He will probably change the look and feel – and organs – of the venerable publication, but as far as I am concerned, if NBC is upset about the denouement in l’affaire CNBC/FOX Business News they really only have themselves to blame.”

Read more here.

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.

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