NEW YORK -- Executives at two newspapers denied a report published Monday that Rupert Murdoch is seriously considering folding the New York Post and selling its assets to the rival Daily News.
Advertising Age quoted unidentified sources that the Chicago-based Tribune Co., which owns the Daily News, and also the Fort Lauderdale News and Sun- Sentinel, has offered to buy the rival Post for between $65 million and $85 million.
Daily News and Post executives denied the report, the weekly marketing magazine said.
Jack Dunleavy, an assistant to Daily News president and publisher James Hoge, had no immediate comment. Post spokesmen could not be reached immediately for a statement.
The report said several sources told the magazine that Murdoch was seriously mulling the offer for the paper he must sell to meet federal requirements prohibiting him from owning newspaper and broadcast outlets in the same city.
The Post is operating under a temporary waiver of the requirements obtained after Murdoch bought what was WNEW-TV from Metromedia Inc. earlier this year. The station is now called WNYW.
Advertising Age quoted news industry sources as saying under terms of a deal with the Tribune Co. Murdoch would fold the Post and sell its assets to the Daily News, its main competitor for readers and advertisers in the tabloid market.
The magazine also reported that Murdoch plans to sell his News America Syndicate to Hearst Corp.`s King Features Syndicate for an undisclosed sum.
