News Corporation becomes largest media empire in the world

Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has become the largest capitalized media corporation in the world, surpassing rival Time Warner, $67.79 billion to $67.32 billion.

At close Friday, News Corp. was first at $67.79 billion, followed by Time Warner ($67.32 billion), Disney ($65.62 billion), Sony ($45.29 billion), Viacom ($26.98 billion) and CBS ($21.11 billion), according to Hollywood Reporter .

Murdoch recently bought the Wall Street Journal and started the Fox Business Network to compete with CNBC.

News Corp's success this year has more to do with losses at rival firms, the paper notes: Time Warner shares have lost nearly 17% this year; Disney has lost 1.4%.

Among the corporation's largest and most notable holdings include: Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, 20th Century Fox, TV Guide, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, Harpercollins, FX, Showtime, BSkyB, The London Sun, The London Sunday Times, The Weekly Standard and more than 20 newspapers in Australia, where the company began.

On the web, it owns MySpace and Photobucket.

It also has large holdings in the National Geographic Channel (67%) and owns 25% of the Australian Associated Press.

If gaged by annual revenue, News. Corp lags behind other media giants. Sony pulled a whopping $70.3 billion last year, Time Warner $43.7 billion, Disney $34.29 billion, News Corp. $28.66 billion, CBS $14.32 billion and Viacom $11.47 billion.


News Corporation (abbreviated to News Corp) (NYSE: NWS, NYSE: NWSa, ASX: NWS, LSE: NCRA) is an Australian media conglomerate company and one of the world's largest. Its chief executive officer is Rupert Murdoch.

News Corporation is a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Australian Stock Exchange and as a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange. Formerly incorporated in Adelaide, Australia, the company was re-incorporated in the United States state of Delaware after a majority of shareholders approved the move on November 12, 2004.

News Corporation's headquarters is at 1211 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Ave.), in New York City, in the newer 1960s-1970s corridor of the Rockefeller Center complex.

Revenue for the year ended June 30, 2005 was US$23.859 billion. This does not include News Corporation's minority share of the revenue from DirecTV and BSkyB. Almost 70% of the company's sales come from its US businesses.

A weak dollar is bad for America

Martin Feldstein, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Reagan, wrote an article for the Financial Times this week, which outlines why he believes that a more "competitive" or weaker U.S. dollar is good for America.

Even though I am a rock-ribbed Reagan Republican, I cannot overstate how strongly I believe that this opinion is incorrect. "Strong Dollar, Strong Currency" is more than a mantra for me since economic history indicates that no country has ever achieved greatness nor maintained it by debasing its currency.

Feldstein rolls out a litany of reasons why he believes America benefits from a weaker dollar. In short, increasing exports as well as maintaining growth and employment.

Here is my case for why a weaker dollar hurts America.

First, a weaker dollar translates into a cut in the real spending power of American consumers in effect, a reduction in real income.

Second, a weaker dollar weakens the role of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. Why should investors and central banks around the world invest in US assets when their value is steadily declining?

Third, the chances of a weaker dollar leading to a sharp reduction in America's trade deficit is highly unlikely since 40% of the current balance is due to oil imports that are denominated in U.S. dollars. An additional 20% is due to trade with China, which is, of course, controlling the value of its own currency.

Fourth, a weaker dollar is inflationary since it increases the cost of imports.

Fifth, business leaders know that discounting prices may bump near-term revenue and profits but at a real cost to long-term profitability, not to mention inflicting damage to the brand name. This is what we are doing to the brand of America by trying to increase exports by lowering their price in the global marketplace. Better to stand firm on price and sell into global markets on the basis of what is great about American products: superior quality, innovation and service.

Sixth, investors seem to like a weaker dollar since the profits of American multinationals get a boost from foreign earnings being translated into U.S. dollars. Again this is short-term thinking and vastly overstated since most multinationals have sophisticated treasury departments that hedge currency exposures.

What a weaker dollar really does is to encourage American and international investors to invest in non-American markets. The more the dollar drops, the more global equities rise. Many Asian currencies are hitting record highs against the U.S. dollar.

The Australian dollar has climbed to a 25-year highs, while the Singapore dollar has touched 10-year highs. The Brazilian real, which has jumped 18% in value against the U.S. dollar this year, and the Indian rupee's sharp appreciation against the U.S. dollar during the past year, have supercharged U.S. dollar investors' returns in those markets.

According to EPFR Global, investors are pouring money into global funds with net inflows of $96.94 billion into world equity funds so far in 2007, while taking out $9.6 billion out of U.S. equity funds. Brazil's local stock exchange, the Bovespa, reported that investors have injected $1.2 billion into the market in September alone.

Foreign investors slashed their holdings of U.S. securities by a record amount as the credit squeeze intensified, according to the U.S. Treasury Department. The Treasury said net sales of U.S. market assets including bonds, notes and equities were $69.3 billion in August after a revised inflow of $19.5 billion during July. The August outflow exceeded the previous record decline of $21.2 billion in March 1990.

Last and perhaps most importantly, I view a policy of weakening the U.S. dollar to improve America's competitive position as the path of least resistance.

Let's not roll up our sleeves and cut federal spending, greatly simplify our tax code to encourage productivity and achievement or reduce corporate tax rates and excessive regulation. Let's just wink and weaken and let our nation's currency drift lower on automatic pilot.

My view is that the value of a nation's currency reflects the perceived value of country in the global marketplace. Maintaining and strengthening the value of our nation's currency is in the best interest of American consumers, businesses and investors.