The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission will examine Lachlan Murdoch's position on the News Corporation board, after this week's announcement of a joint $3.3 billion bid with James Packer for Consolidated Media Holdings. ACCC chief Graeme Samuel told the Australian they will assess "weather it leads to anti-competitive relationships."

Australian businessmen James Packer and Lachlan Murdoch have teamed up in a bid to privatise the Packer family’s Consolidated Media Holdings, which currently has stakes in Foxtel, Fox Sports and the Nine Network.  

Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch –chairman of New Corporation- told the Australian he had organised investors for the deal on his own: "This is completely my own transaction. This is nothing to do with News Limited, or for that matter, News Corporation."  

This is the fourth alteration to Packer’s family media assets since the federal Government announced changes to media ownership laws in 2006, according to the Australian.

Free Press has released Out of the Picture 2007, an updated analysis of the impact of consolidation on minority and female television station ownership. The report updates the results from last year's Out of the Picture study - the first complete assessment of female and minority ownership of commercial broadcast TV stations. The data suggests the future of minority TV station ownership is in jeopardy.

Read the report  here...
 

Rupert Murdoch has announced that online readers will be able to read the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) for free. Murdoch believes that by abolishing the subscription fee, wsj.com's readership will increase and so will the advertising dollars. 

"It'll be a question of what the Journal doesn't cover, rather than what it does. I suspect the Journal has won the last Pulitzer prize it's going to get for coverage of China." said John Morton, a Maryland-based newspapers analyst.

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After months of negotiations Murdoch finally received the required level of support for his media conglomerate News Corporation to take control of Dow Jones – owner of the Wall Street Journal - from the Bancroft family, who collectively owned 37 per cent of Dow Jones voting stock.

The family was deeply divided over the decision to sell to Murdoch and many Wall Street staffers expressed concern that he will use the paper to further his business and political interests and will lower its reputation.  

"It's a bad thing for the Journal and American journalism that the Bancroft family could not resist Rupert Murdoch's generous offer," said former Dow Jones director, Jim Ottaway Jr.

Andrew Neil, a former editor of News Corp’s Sunday Times also spoke out, telling London radio that Murdoch was an “interventionist proprietor,”

 “When there is something he feels strongly about or when some of his business interests are at stake he leaves you in no doubt what he wants you to do.”