As print seems in its death throes, perhaps the model could be the same as for Scotland’s Caledonian Mercury, which is run and owned by former print journalists.

It’s entirely possible that the Times and ST could be bought just for the name, and subsumed into another upmarket title, maybe the Telegraph, though the Guardian could not be excluded – it would depend on the price.

The Guardian’s not exactly flush these days, especially since its punt on Emap went tits up.

Any other paper would be stupid to buy these papers if Mr Murdoch wants to sell them at full operating value.
The competitors can just wait for them to die and then the readers will migrate to the remaining existing papers anyway.

But for 100 £ or so, maybe somebody will buy them for the name.

Oh, ok, I’ll give him a tenner for them.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Rupert Murdoch will ever sell the Times or the Sun. He’s a newspapers man, (as in, he’s just opened a new newspaper at the time when the fortunes of the industry are down in the dumps) and he’ll quite cheerfully cross-subsidise a loss-making newspaper with a profitable satellite broadcasting network.

My evidence for that is that this is precisely what he’s been doing for the last 25 years. When was the Times last profitable anyway? It was hugely loss-making when Murdoch bought it, and I don’t think it’s ever made him money. Its value to him is part reputational (the Times of London, newspaper of record) and partly just because he likes owning newspapers.

That’s not a bad thing – the best proprietor the Telegraph ever had was Conrad Black, someone who just loved owning newspapers for their own sake, and not as a platform for his own views, or a cause.

Luckily he will be dead soon.

Murdoch keeps his newspapers because they still have political clout. His papers are read by a variety of voters. Labour and tory. That is not the case with papers likeThe Mirror or the Telegraph which preach to the converted.

He also uses them to cross promote other parts of his Empire. His papers heavily promoted Sky, which gave him a huge advantage over his rivals. They also act as attack dogs against his competitors. The BBC is attacked almost daily.

And we now know that he used them to go after anyone who he thought may be a problem to his business interests. Politicians, etc etc. With a little help from the police.

Great article. Can we now call Times journalists ‘Murdoch benefit claimants’? For all they talk about the superiority of the free market they’ve been on (admittedly not public) welfare for years…

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Rupert Murdoch will ever sell the Times or the Sun.

True in itself, but on the other hand *he doesn’t own them*. They’re owned by News Corp, which he’s only a minority shareholder in.

While the board and shareholders have been happy in the past to do whatever Rupe says, the combination of a) the police bribery scandal and corresponding US Corrupt Foreign Practices Act investigation; b) the loss of print media’s power to set the national agenda in the way it did 20 years ago; c) the fact that even the tabloids are no longer rabidly profitable – could all work to change this.

Federal racketeering charges are very much *not* something you want hanging over the head of your US-based media company…

@5 “he’ll quite cheerfully cross-subsidise a loss-making newspaper with a profitable satellite broadcasting network. My evidence for that is that this is precisely what he’s been doing for the last 25 years.”

I’m fairly sure he hasn’t. BSkyB only started making an annual profit around 5 years ago, and I’m pretty sure it’s still a long way from making an overall profit. Mind you, certainly during its early years, Sky was subsidised by the profits from Murdoch’s newspapers – so it would be only fair to return to the favour now.

But no, I can’t see him selling them either – Murdoch long since stopped caring about whether his British operations make money (he’d have abandoned Sky in the early 90s if he did). He’s only interested in the political power he can flex in the UK, subsidising any financial losses with the money he makes in the US. However unprofitable it may be, the Times is still a crucially influential newspaper. He won’t sell it unless he’s forced to – and if the rest of NewsCorp were to sell the title despite his objections, then I expect he’d be the one to buy it off them.