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Murdoch Meltdown Update: Chief Exec Rebekah Brooks Arrested

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Killgore Trout7/17/2011 11:53:45 am PDT

My cup runeth over with schadenfreude….
News Corporation crisis: Is News International really unsellable?

Willing buyers

So all that talk about a sale six months down the line may have something to it. The unthinkable might be thinkable after all. The big stumbling block, however, is finding a willing and credible buyer for all or any of the titles.
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The Independent has been lucky enough to fall into the hands of a super-rich Russian businessman, Alexander Lebedev, and his increasingly influential son, Evgeny. There is no suggestion that he would want to add the Times to his stable, and he would surely fall foul of competition regulations anyway. Maybe there is another wealthy Russian – Roman Abramovich, perhaps – who would like to buy a loss-making newspaper institution.

Perhaps a media-friendly sheikh may consider it – such as Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa (the emir of Qatar), who funds al-Jazeera, or Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, who owns the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation, which is in bed with BSkyB over the launch of Arabia Sky News. Perhaps one of China’s new billionaires may take a punt. Closer to home, the Daily Mail & General Trust might fancy adding two upmarket titles to its middle-market pairing. Again, a competition hurdle would have to be jumped.


So Murdoch’s Libertarian, anti-communist, anti-muslim empire will most likely be bought up by Chinese, Russians and Saudis.