Murdoch's once-mighty tabloid toy is out of time: the new News Corp can't carry the spectacularly loss-making vanity project
The Post has been in business since 1801, and owned since 1976 by Rupert Murdoch (other than for a five-year hiatus when regulatory requirements forced him to sell the paper – that is, until he arranged to be exempted from those rules and buy it back). It's been Murdoch's money-losing personal instrument for all manner of trouble-making, political power-brokering, and punishment and reward. When it was not being bent to his personal will, it was to that of his editors, picking the paper's enemies and friends for both personal and institutional benefit.
The new newspaper company will be backed by a several billion-dollar dowry from the entertainment company, but that dough will be needed for cash flow-positive investments. The present assets, including the Wall Street Journal, more than 70 papers in Australia, and the Sun, the Times, and Sunday Times in London, will all need to become productive and ever-more-profitable members of the company. Many will struggle to get there.
