Rupert Murdoch, the media baron who boldly bid his way into the National Football League broadcast booth six weeks ago, sold the Boston Herald on Friday.
Murdoch’s News Corp., parent of the Fox television network, sold the tabloid to Patrick J. Purcell, the newspaper’s publisher for the last decade.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but Reuters news service quoted sources as saying the paper was acquired for about $10 million. Murdoch’s News America Corp., a division of News Corp., bought the Herald in 1982 for $1 million.
The Herald clearly is the second paper in Boston, reporting a daily circulation of 321,715 and Sunday sales of 213,985, according to the most recent data from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. The Boston Globe, whose parent, Affiliated Publications Inc., was acquired last year by The New York Times Co., enjoys a wide advantage in daily and Sunday circulation and, analysts say, has the vast majority of advertising.
“From a business point of view, investing in the second paper is not, by any stretch of the imagination, the wise thing to do,” John Morton, media analyst at Lynch, Jones and Ryan in Washington, said of the sale.
But Ken Berents, an analyst with Wheat, First Securities Inc. in Richmond, Va., said Purcell is taking advantage of a rare opportunity. “How often do you get the chance to run your own paper, even if you are No. 2?” Berents said. “No one complains about Avis next to Hertz.”
Avis built a marketing campaign around being No. 2 in the car-rental business.
The apparent force behind the sale of the Herald is Murdoch’s desire to reacquire a Boston television station. Murdoch retains an option to buy WFXT, a local Fox affiliate, and he is expected to exercise that option.
Berents said selling the Herald eliminates the problem Murdoch would face-again-with the Federal Communications Commission regulation that prohibits companies from owning newspapers and television stations in the same market.
Murdoch was forced by the FCC rule to choose between ownership of the New York Post and his Fox television station, WNYW. He sold the Post in 1988 but later was granted a waiver by the FCC enabling him to repurchase that troubled tabloid last year.
In a statement from New York, Murdoch said he has “very mixed emotions” about selling the Herald, but he noted that the sale would remove any conflict with the FCC.
Murdoch shocked the television world in December by winning from CBS the rights to broadcast National Football Conference games. Murdoch’s expensive move into big-time sports signaled his intention to be a major player in broadcasting, and his sale of the Herald appears to reconfirm Murdoch’s shift away from print and into television.
“Does he prefer broadcasting over print? Sure,” said Berents, “but that doesn’t mean he’s going to get out of print.”
