Murdoch Wins Dow Jones: Now What?

While Murdoch long ago rose to the highest echelons of media influence in London, the New York Post and Fox News were his only New York-based news assets. Both have gained considerable influence under his ownership, but neither carries anywhere near the prestige of the Journal.

News Corp. is expected to use that prestige for the upcoming launch of its new cable business news channel to rival General Electric's(GE Quote - Cramer on GE - Stock Picks) CNBC, which currently enjoys a content-sharing relationship with the Journal. Meanwhile, he has said that he wants to invest in the newspaper, expanding its political coverage and its Internet presence.

News Corp.'s deep pockets were a key attribute for the company in swaying the Bancroft family to accept its offer. As an independent company, Dow Jones faced a highly uncertain future after losing its market share lead in financial news publishing to rivals like Bloomberg and Thomson (TOC Quote - Cramer on TOC - Stock Picks).

Moreover, the newspaper industry is mired in an epic slump as consumers increasingly adopt the Internet for their information needs and online news aggregators like Google (GOOG Quote - Cramer on GOOG - Stock Picks) and Yahoo! (YHOO Quote - Cramer on YHOO - Stock Picks) collect the lion's share of advertising dollars on the web.

In this climate, a number of newspaper families, like the Ridders of Knight-Ridder and the Chandlers of Tribune (TRB Quote - Cramer on TRB - Stock Picks), have already opted to sell. Other family owned publishers, like New York Times (NYT Quote - Cramer on NYT - Stock Picks) and E.W. Scripps (SSP Quote - Cramer on SSP - Stock Picks), are feeling the heat from shareholders.

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