Conservative shilldom doesn't float Faux News stock

Over at Forbes, Peter Cohan has a great column about how it may be time for Fox News parent News Corporation, which is after all a publicly traded corporation, to go beyond dumping Rupert Murdoch flunkies, but to dump the Murdochs.

Why? Because they're bad for business, that's why:

Over the last decade, News Corp’s stock has been in the doldrums. It’s lost 15% of its value since July 14, 2001 while the Dow Jones Industrial average has gained 21%. And that’s not surprising when you consider that News Corp. has been earning way less than its cost of capital. For example, in 2009 its economic value added — after tax operating income compared to its weighted average cost of capital — was negative $9.5 billion. That “improved” to negative $1.1 billion in 2010.

If you are a shareholder, it’s hard to find a reason to celebrate Murdoch’s control over this company.

Cohan even throws out a potential new CEO name: Lou Gerstner, former IBM turnaround artist.

One could argue for media stocks in general to be struggling. But, News Corp. has cable channels, pay cable channels and other media ventures that are immune from the ad plunge of newspapers and network TV.

Its other assets include American Idol, a rugby league, a sports simulation website (fantasy sports to the next level), an Aussie equivalent of Monster or CareerBuilder and part ownership of Hulu. Let's not forget that his publishing side includes HarperCollins and Zondervan as well as all of his newspapers. And, he also has the apolitical FoxSports.

What that means is that Faux News and other ventures are a fucking lead weight.

That said, Cohan's colleague at Forbes, suggests that Murdoch could pre-empt that by taking News Corp. private. He's got a $5 billion buyback plan, apparently to do just that.

This strategy makes sense because Murdoch has clearly never had as his top priority creating value for other shareholders. Far from it . His priority has been the aggrandizement of media power the past 11 years, especially by vastly overpaying for the Wall Street Journal. A massive write-off of over $2 billion was the result. Never you mind; Murdoch controlled the Wall Street Journal.

So, if you're a News Corp. investor, and one who actually, even if a strong conservative, cares about making some money, are you elbowing others aside trying to get Uncle Rupert to buy you out rather than others? Afraid that you'll be stuck with albatross-like stock after it goes private? But, if you bought into it because you believed the myth of Rupert, we liberals are laughing at you, not with you.

A Lou Gerstner would see them for what they are: equivalents of the Washington Examiner.

The Examiner is different, of course, in that it's privately held by at least some of the Moonie family. So, if you're a News Corp. investor, do you really want to continue to fatten the ego and the wallet of a man and family as stupid and intransigent as Sun Myung Moon and offspring?