Murdoch To Buy Dow Jones, Not CNET or Pearson?

Staffers at the Los Angeles Times' business section made their annual New Year's predictions -- one of which is that Rupert Murdoch will purchase Dow Jones in 2007. Their prediction reads:

News Corp. (NWS) adds to its stable of newspapers by buying Dow Jones & Co. (DJ), owner of the Wall Street Journal, to bolster Rupert Murdoch's nascent business news cable channel, a companion to his Fox News juggernaut. Some investors are furious that Murdoch would spend $5 billion on an old-line media acquisition when a purchase of CNet Networks Inc. (CNET) could fill a similar need for a fraction of the price.

Longtime readers know that I speculated on Murdoch buying Dow Jones back in July 2005. I took pains not to call it a prediction because, well, I'm not in the predicting business. But it makes sense to own the Dow Jones stable of publications -- especially the WSJ and Barron's -- and use them as content providers for the long-anticipated Fox Business Channel.

I also speculated that if he couldn't get Dow Jones, Murdoch could buy the Financial Times from Pearson (PSO). Though having Dow Jones titles makes more sense for an American-based business channel.

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[SeekingAlpha Editors]

So it turned out that the Dow Jones prediction was correct. Now we'll see about Pearson and CNET...