News Corp’s Synergy Play With WSJ Starts: Australian Co-branded Section

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News Corp’s Synergy Play With WSJ Starts: Australian Co-branded Section

A year into Dow Jones and WSJ being part of News Corp (NYSE: NWS). the international synergy play across the vast media empire of Rupert Murdoch has started, with a new co-branded business section in The Australian. The Aussie newspaper was the first national newspaper Murdoch launched back in 1964. Though WSJ has some existing relationships with papers outside its empire (like Mint in India), and also of course has international editions, this is the first such effort from WSJ. The co-branding is: “The Australian Business, with the Wall Street Journal.”

Some people aren’t too happy about it, citing WSJ’s poor coverage of the Australian and Asian countries, compared to say FT or Bloomberg. Their point about UK’s The Times not ever launching such a section is probably true…will cause too much furore in the more cloistered confines of British journalism. The opposite is true, though: The Australian does carry some Times’ business stories. Well, never say never…

Rafat Ali

@rafatali Oct 19, 2008 11:35 PM ET

Posted In: Companies, News Corp., Dow Jones, Wall Street Journal, Countries, Australia & New Zealand

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Robert Barr

Where is the synergy here? how does this help promote the WSJ? In Australia? I don't think Rupert bought this paper to expand circulation in Australia did he?

Robert Andrews

WSJ.com and Times Online are looking at co-branding overlaps, but around financial tools rather than content - http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-ppa-times-gets-closer-to-wsj-prepping-web-archive

Dylan

Duncan's correct. The co-branding has been going on for a while - since just after The Australian separately ramped up their business section significantly and from memory before they finalised the Dow Jones deal. I'm looking at a co-branded page on my wall from Dec 2007 with a photo of Murdoch standing on the infamous paper boxes reassuring Dow Jones employees.
They have just had a redesign of the online Business section though. Thumbs up on the tools, though don't like the design as much as the old.

Duncan

The web site may be new, but the paper syndication started last year. For memory (I did write about it somewhere…) The Australian (The Oz) dropped the Economist or the IHT for WSJ content on a specific page in the Oz, complete with branding.