In locking up Dow Jones & Co. for $5 billion late Tuesday, Rupert Murdoch ensured that his vast influence would be felt in the business world for years to come -- as it is now by hundreds of millions of global TV viewers, moviegoers and Internet users.
News Corp.'s pending purchase of the parent of the Wall Street Journal puts Murdoch, its chairman, closer to fulfilling a years-long personal ambition: leveraging the most trusted name in business news into the world's premier television, print and online provider of financial information.
Murdoch claimed his prize after separate board meetings of News Corp. and Dow Jones directors late Tuesday. The deal must still be approved by shareholders of both companies and by federal antitrust regulators.
In recent days, Murdoch swayed enough members of the Bancroft family, which has 64% of the voting power, to cede ownership of a company they have controlled since 1928.
Murdoch intends to use the Journal brand, its stories and its editorial talent in new ways, most urgently to fill a new cable channel he is launching this fall to rival CNBC. He promises to beef up the Journal's editions in Asia and Europe. He wants the publication to cover more general and political news, positioning it as a head-to-head rival of the nationally circulated New York Times. He also plans to expand the Journal's money-earning website.
Already, teenagers are among the 115 million global MySpace.com users whom Murdoch counts as his customers. So are the tens of millions of moviegoers worldwide who watched "The Simpsons Movie" in cinemas last weekend, the more than 30 million viewers who tuned in for last season's "American Idol" finale on the Fox network and some 300 million viewers who subscribe to Star TV in Asia. His empire has secured the rights to sporting events worldwide, using such properties as the NFL in the U.S. and soccer overseas to garner audiences and popularize his TV channels.
"He owns more than 100 newspapers, an international empire in television, print and the Internet," Boston University journalism expert Louis Ureneck said. "He's everywhere."
Veteran newspaper industry analyst John Morton called Murdoch a modern equivalent of William Randolph Hearst because of the extent to which News Corp. carries the 76-year-old billionaire's imprint.
"Seldom do you see a businessman so closely identified with his empire," Morton said.
