Talking Biz News

Information about business
journalism from the
Carolina Business News Initiative.

CNBC’s David Faber is reporting Tuesday morning that Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Marketwatch and Dow Jones Newswires, will agree to be sold to News Corp. for $5 billion.

The story on the CNBC web site stated, “Still to be determined is how much of the legal and advisory fees News Corp. in the transaction, Faber said.

“‘It did come awfully close, in fact, closer than many had anticipated,’ Faber said. ‘But at the end of the day, according to people who were working on this, a number of the Bancrofts who had been somewhat vocal in their opposition–Chris Bancroft for example–seemed suddenly at the realization that they were going to have to pay all these banking fees said ‘Wait a second. Hey, if you pay my fees, I’ll give you my vote.’ And that may have turned it.’”

Read here.

Red Herring magazine, which has tracked the technology industry for the past decade, announced Tuesday that it would begin publishing its magazine in a digital format.

A release stated, “Powered by Olive ActiveMagazine, a web-based and easy-to-navigate solution that preserves the magazine’s original layout, viewing Red Herring on the web is now as compelling and easy as reading the magazine in print.

“The electronic edition is part of Red Herring’s strategy to expand reporting coverage and analysis to a broader circulation base. The company hopes to attract up to 500,000 digital subscribers globally over the next two years, and it already has readers from all over the world.

“‘As shown by the strong interest in Red Herring Europe 100, Red Herring North America 100 and Red Herring Asia 100– tens of thousands of entrepreneurs and companies are determined to make a difference in many (new) regions around the world. An electronic edition allows us to reach this increasingly global audience without increasing our print production and distribution costs,’ said Red Herring publisher Alex Vieux.”

Read the release here. As noted earlier on the ValleyWag blog, Red Herring has been having financial difficulties that resulted in an eviction notice from its California offices. 

In a wide-ranging interview with Hollywood Reporter chief media editor Andrew Wallenstein, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said that business news cable network CNBC, an NBC subsidiary, is in a strong position to compete against the upcoming Fox Business Network.

The Fox Business Network is slated to begin airing on Oct. 15.

Zucker said, “If this were two years ago, I would be far more concerned. CNBC has transformed itself into a strong and thriving operation under Mark Hoffman’s leadership. We feel very comfortable with where CNBC is at today. We don’t take any new competitor lightly. We’re not going to make the same mistake CNN made when Fox News Channel came along a decade ago.

“We’ll be strong and aggressive and continue to prove what makes CNBC by far the leading financial news broadcaster in the world. With all due respect to the success that News Corp. has had in many different places, just because Rupert Murdoch wants to launch something, it doesn’t mean it’s an automatic success. I think there is a degree of irony that the company that broke the story that Rupert Murdoch wanted to buy Dow Jones was CNBC.”

Read more here.

Marjorie Scardino, the CEO of Pearson Plc, the parent of The Financial Times, said the company had no intention of buying Dow Jones & Co. but wanted to explore possibilities of combining operations.

Alistair Osborne of The Telegraph newspaper in London wrote, “She said Pearson did not hold any talks with Dow Jones’ controlling Bancroft family, adding: ‘You have got to kick this around when your biggest competitor is obviously going to be sold. But we were never going to commit cash or equity to The Wall Street Journal.’

“She said Pearson and GE explored whether a combination of the FT’s content, GE’s CNBC business news channels and Dow Jones’ news wires could provide a cost-effective rolling service on various platforms, including TV and the internet.

“While these plans were dropped in the face of Mr Murdoch’s punchy $60-a-share offer for Dow Jones, the FT and CNBC continue to examine potential co-operation.”

Read more here.

Richard Perez-Pena and Andrew Ross Sorkin of The New York Times report for Tuesday’s paper that there are enough votes from the Bancroft family that controls Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, to sell it to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.

They wrote, “Family members and trusts representing more than 30 percent of the shareholder vote — enough to put the deal over the top — indicated to their lawyers that they would support the bid, but some of them had not yet delivered signed commitments and could still back away, according to people briefed on the matter, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss it.

“Late last night, bankers on both sides said that the Bancrofts’ chief lawyer, Michael B. Elefante, who was canvassing the family members, still had not given them a precise count of votes committed and those still pending. Some votes appeared to be held up by last-minute negotiations over a side issue — who would pay the fees of the bankers and lawyers advising the family and its various trusts.

“The News Corporation has not said how many firmly committed votes it needs from the family before it will be confident enough in the outcome to proceed; people involved in the negotiations put the minimum figure at 30 to 34 percent of the overall shareholder vote.”

Read more here.

Ken Howe, the business editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, is leaving the paper to pursue interests in Hong Kong, Talking Biz News has learned.

Howe will be replaced by Alan Saracevic, who has been the deputy business editor in the section for the past couple of years. Saracevic confirmed the changes, but declined to comment further.

The section is already reeling from the loss of columnist David Lazarus, who left the paper last week to become the business columnist for the Los Angeles Times.

Howe had been at the Chronicle for decades and he has been a judge for the Loeb Awards. Saracevic has been one of the section’s bloggers on its Tech Chronicles blog.

Chet Currier, a well-known business journalist who wrote for the Associated Press and Bloomberg News, has died at the age of 62 after battling prostate cancer, according to a Bloomberg story.

William Ahearn and Mark Schoifet wrote, “At AP, he wrote the daily stock market story that, until the explosion in coverage of financial news, was the single most-widely published business story in U.S. daily newspapers.

“After 29 years at AP, Currier joined Bloomberg in 1999, where he wrote a twice-weekly column on mutual funds and personal investing. As a columnist, he had a knack for taking contrarian positions.

“‘Buy low, sell high’ may be the least helpful piece of investment advice ever given,’ he wrote in 2006. ‘Those four little words convey no sense whatsoever of how difficult it is for most investors to put them into practice.’

“He edited AP’s weekly crossword puzzle for 20 years, creating more than 1,000 puzzles.”

Read more here. Currier received the 1999 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

After becoming the AP’s Wall Street writer in 1974, Currier started his first column, Ticker Talk, in 1976, revamped the AP’s old Weekly Wall Street fixture into a column, and then added On the Money, on broader personal finance topics, in 1979.

Currier did all of this while handling the AP’s daily stories on developments on Wall Street. He also several books, among them The Investor’s Encyclopedia, The 15-Minute Investor, Careers in the ’80s and Careers in the ’90s.

Conde Nast Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman is profiled in the latest issue of Variety magazine, and she states that the lack of in-depth, narrative business journalism is a niche that the publication intends to fill.

Monica Corcoran wrote, “‘I always envisioned myself as a magazine writer,’ she says. Nowadays, as editor-in-chief of a glossy, she oversees a stable of thoroughbred writers (including Tom Wolfe) and editors whom she hand-poached from the New York Times, New York Observer and even her alma mater. ‘I went kicking and screaming into editing, but I can be more effective behind the scenes,’ she notes.

“During the process of putting out the 332-page premiere issue this past April, Lipman learned that the curtains never seemed to close at Conde Nast. Portfolio was scrutinized from every story assignment to punctuation point by other media outlets. She learned to ‘roll with it and keep focused.’

“Skeptics have focused on the fact that circulation and ad pages are flat for competing mags like Forbes and Fortune, but Lipman doesn’t worry. She sees Portfolio — think Vanity Fair with hedge-fund managers in lieu of Angelina and Brad — as a unique entry.”

Read more here.

A Reuters story Monday afternoon quotes a News Corp. spokesman as saying that CEO Rupert Murdoch is ”highly unlikely” to proceed with his bid to acquire Dow Jones & Co., the parent of The Wall Street Journal, based on the low level of support for the offer from Bancroft family members.

The Reuters story stated, “Dow Jones’ Bancroft family, which controls 64 percent of the company’s voting shares, has been asked to decide by the end of Monday whether to support the deal.

“Family members holding about 28 percent of Dow Jones’ overall voting power had indicated their support for the deal as of late Sunday, the company’s Wall Street Journal newspaper reported.

“A News Corp. spokesman said the company would need more support than that from the Bancrofts for the deal to proceed, but he did not specify what percentage of the overall voting shares were sought.

“A spokesman for the Bancroft family declined to comment. Dow Jones representatives were not immediately available.”

Read more here.

Crain’s New York Business reports that business news cable network CNBC is getting ready to launch a new ad campaign to thwart the attention given to new competitor Fox Business News.

Crain’s wrote, “Featuring interviews with high-level chief executives who often featured on the network, the spots could start in the next week.

“The NBC Universal-owned cable channel, which has seen its ratings and profits improve in recent months, needs more than the ammunition provided by its on-air hotties, like Maria Bartiromo and Erin Burnett. After all, CNN and MSNBC were blindsided by Fox News when it burst onto the scene 10 years ago and quickly became the No. 1 all-news cable network.

“CNBC, one of cable’s most lucrative networks, would not comment on the ad plan. ‘There is nothing to say about this right now,’ a spokesman for the network wrote in an e-mail.”

Read more here.