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Murdoch’s Chest Thumping: $2 Million Newspaper Ad Blitz On DJ Acquisition

By Rafat Ali - Fri 14 Dec 2007 05:56 AM PST

News Corp is in a celebratory mood after closing Dow Jones’ (NYSE: DJ) acquisition yesterday: it did a reported $2 million global advertising blitz today, with full page congratulatory ads in Guardian and the Daily Telegraph in the UK, New York Times, (NYSE: NYT) Washington Post (NYSE: WPO) and Los Angeles Times in the U.S., the Singapore Straits Times, the Jakarta Post and the Australian. At least two newspapers, the Financial Times and the China Daily, declined to run the ads, according to this Fortune story.

According to the story, Spanning three pages and playing off Dow Jones’ motto, the headline is “Free People, Free Markets, Free Thinking,” and trumpets Murdoch’s contrarian triumphs. Those include the launches of the Sun tabloid and BSkyB (NYSE: BSY) in UK, the creation of Fox television (and The Simpsons) in the U.S., the Fox News Channel, and the purchase of MySpace two years ago.

“Today the greatest brand in financial journalism joins up with the world’s most restless global media company,” the ad proclaims. No wonder FT refused…

Guardian: Each entry in the ad contains skeptical quotes predicting Murdoch’s demise, including: “He’ll be broke within the year” - 1954, on his rescue of the Adelaide News. “No one reads that” - 1969, on his acquisition of the Sun. “No one messes with the BBC” - 1989, on the launch of Sky. The timeline ends with 2007 and the quote: “The Wall Street Journal will never be the same.” It continues: “Exactly. And that’s a promise.”

Posted in: Companies, News Corp., WSJ-DJ

Tags: rupert murdoch,


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