the bancroft family, which controls the wall street journal, is currently deciding on whether it will consider a sale of the company. 68 days after the initial offer for the wall street journal, rupert decides he s going to kind of issue a warning shot. you have one last chance to keep disrespecting us, and then we re going to pull the offer. for the bancrofts, the stakes are pretty high. the stock price leapt after rupert made his offer public. the share price of the company that they have been entrusted to protect is going to plummet if they don t take this offer. and the bancrofts blink. the bancroft family said no way would they sell to this crude media heathen. but then they thought about the $5 billion he was offering, and
the marvel of rupert murdoch is how exponentially larger his ambitions and his reach became. he controls 40% of newspaper circulation in the united kingdom, almost 70% in australia. in the united states he has a powerful movie studio, multiple television stations, fox news, which is gaining in influence at this point. it s an incredible moment to be rupert murdoch. because it was james s idea to sort of hold the bancrofts feet to the fire, the maneuver raises james s value in rupert s eyes. well, 34-year-old james murdoch is being given a much larger role overseeing all of news corp s european and asian operations, making him the heir apparent to the murdoch empire. he gets to be the ceo of all of the family s business in europe.
the wall street journal is the bible of american capitalism and one of the most prestigious newspapers in the country. you have expressed in the past interest in purchasing dow jones. i think the journal s got a wonderful brand. i don t think we ll ever get it. i don t think they ll ever sell it. former employees say murdoch s always wanted to own a prestigious business newspaper. he s coveted the wall street journal for years. as the beat reporter at the wall street journal covering him, it just became like the air that we breathe. i was just like, of course he wants it, i also would like to be size two, like whatever, a lot of people want a lot of things. rupert murdoch does something which was kind of mind-blowing. he makes a hostile bid for dow jones, the company that owns the wall street journal. it s a public company, but it s controlled by a family, the bancrofts. the bancroft family has owned dow jones for over 100 years. it s an old new england family.
and i think he read them. he was so knee-deep in the family dynamics of the bancroft family and who liked who and who wanted to screw who and who was going to kill who and how you were basically going to split these people apart. of course, he told us repeatedly, i m not here to break up the family. i think my family should meet with their family. he was a family man who had been a steward of his media companies and he really wanted to be able to prove to them that he was just like them, just like the bancrofts. the bancrofts finally agree that they re going to sit down with rupert murdoch. the bancroft family is meeting with rupert murdoch today to discuss news corp s $5 billion offer for dow jones. i d like to be a fly on the wall.
he had almost every newspaper lined up on the wall. and i think he read them. he was so knee-deep in the family dynamics of the bancroft family and who liked who and who wanted to screw who and who was going to kill who and how you were basically going to split these people apart. of course, he told us repeatedly, i m not here to break up the family. i think my family should meet with their family. he was a family man who had been a steward of his media companies and he really wanted to be able to prove to them that he was just like them, just like the bancrofts. the bancrofts finally agree that they re going to sit down with rupert murdoch. the bancroft family is meeting with rupert murdoch today to discuss news corp s $5 billion offer for dow jones. i d like to be a fly on the