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Two wealthy investors have met with board members of Dow Jones to explore an offer for the company.
Ron Burkle and Brad Greenspan originally approached Dow Jones separately; they have never before worked together on a deal, writes The New York Times. Executives at Dow Jones are skeptical about the overtures from the two billionaires, because they are talking about making a bid involving several other investors but do not have firm commitments from any of them.
Unlike News Corp., which is offering $5 billion to purchase the company outright, Burkle and Greenspan do not want to acquire the whole Dow Jones pie, say insiders familiar with the situation. Rather, they are looking at such possibilities as buying out only those members of the Bancroft family who care to sell, or putting into place an employee stock ownership plan (the same structure that the Tribune Company is using to take itself private).
All sectors of the media business will suffer from the weakened economy in 2008 and 2009, with a slump in local advertising particularly hurting newspapers and local TV, according to a new projection from Goldman Sachs.
Broadcast nets will experience…
The New York Times is shuttering its International Herald Tribune site; NYTimes.com will soon host the international news normally reserved for its sister website.
The move is not about cost savings, but rather about growth, NYTimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller…
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come…
Meet the Press, the show hosted by Tim Russert for 17 years before his death last June, is beginning to slip in ratings.
Last month, CBS’s Face the Nation pulled ahead of Meet the Press for the first time in two…
Bloggers collectively create nearly one million blog posts each day, and half of bloggers believe blogs will be a primary source of news and entertainment in the next five years, according to Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report, MarketingCharts writes.…
Wal-Mart and Costco reported same-store gains in September, with sales rising 2.4% and 9% respectively. Sales at Target stores open at least a year fell 3%, writes Retailer Daily.
Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
