Tuned In

What's In a Name? About $5 Billion

  • Share
  • Read Later

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.