Media In The City: Dow Jones Negotiations Near End

There was some big news in the City last week, with Rupert Murdoch’s £2.5 billion bid for Dow Jones seemingly on the verge of being accepted and a private equity firm making a bid for Virgin Radio.

On Friday, a report in Business magazine said that Murdoch’s bid for Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, had finally been accepted and was just waiting for formal approval from the Bancroft family, the major shareholders in Dow Jones (Full Story).

At the start of the week, the US private equity firm Carlyle made an £11.5 billion bid for Virgin Media.

It is believed that Carlyle made a preliminary offer of around £16.50 a share for the company, with Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group understood to be keen on a sale to a private equity firm (Full Story).

Also of note was the news that ITV’s net advertising revenues were down 5% for the first half of the year, with ITV1’s ad revenues down 9% year on year to £595 million (Full Story).

In press, Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) bought 25 weekly regional newspapers from Trinity Mirror for £64.15 million.

DMGT said that the new titles will extend the reach of its products to a wider audience of advertisers and readers (Full Story).

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