Tribune's daily newspaper Newsday like most of its peers has been going through some financial hardship over the last couple of years and media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has been watching. In what may turn out to be a shrewd move, Murdoch reportedly joined the Chandler family in a $7.6 billion bid for Tribune, which owns the New York daily newspaper Newsday. If a union happens, the merger sets up the stage for Murdoch to take a minority stake in Newsday and combine some of it with his New York Post.
The combination of certain parts of Newsday and the New York Post makes sense from a business standpoint possibly generating some significant cost savings. U.S. media ownership laws, however, would prohibit Murdoch's News Corp. for simply owning the two papers outright. A Newsday-New York Post combination could also save money while increasing the value in both properties by sharing the content and reporters. Newsday has a foothold in the Long Island market with a weaker presence in the New York City area while the reverse is true for the New York Post.
Newsday in the mid-1980s tried to compete in the New York City market but admitted defeat in 1995 by shutting its city edition known as New York Newsday and refocusing in the city in the borough of Queens. Today, it's back in the five boroughs in a limited fashion known simply as Newsday (the city edition) but the same problems persist — weak sales. Newsday has to compete in an even more crowded field in New York City with other dailies such as the New York Post, the Daily News, the New York Times, The New York Observer, the New York Sun and now add to the mix the free dailies AM New York and Metro New York. — Gerald Magpily
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