What's In a Name? About $5 Billion
Often lost in the excitement over Rupert Murdoch's attempt to buy Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal is the possibility that the deal may not mainly be about a newspaper at all but about TV. CNN Money takes a look at the potential for the deal to provide instant brand recognition for Murdoch's forthcoming business-news channel by acquiring two of the biggest brand names in business.
The verdict? Mixed; a Lazard Freres director calls it "a brilliant deal," while former Time Inc. editor-in-chief (and WSJ editor) Norman Pearlstine thinks it's not worth the price tag. Still, it's a worthwhile reminder that, while journalists understandably focus on the fallout for a print institution, the ramifications for electronic media may be the bigger force in this deal. And there has to be some value to associating the channel with brands that (for now) viewers associate with impartial business news than with the Fox brand, which viewers associate with Bill O'Reilly.
One cautionary tale that the CNN article ironically doesn't mention: the vaunted CNN brand didn't do CNNFN a whole lot of good when it was vanquished by CNBC.
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IIRC, Dow-Jones/WSJ already have an exclusive deal with MSNBC/CNBC that runs for another couple of years. And according to this
http://www.bizwiz.com/cgi-bin/wirestor.pl?storyid=096b1295
MSNBC?CNBC are exploiting that "brand name" for all its worth.
With the Fox Business Channel scheduled to launch soon, I kinda doubt that Murdoch's primary interest in WSJ is to use the "brand name" to promote the new Fox venture -- because he won't be able to for years.
I also predict that the Fox Business Channel is going to be stillborn.... people who care about business news will shy away from the new channel because of the reputation of FauxNews for ideological bias -- investors and business people want their information straight, because it will affect their profits if they start making decision based on faulty/biased information.
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Also, while we're at it, another iconic name in its field -- Time's sister mag SI -- didn't seem to do CNN/SI much good.
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