Murdoch on The Journal: 'We Are a Long Way in Front' of The Times

In addition to speaking to the Wall Street Journal newsroom, Rupert Murdoch also found time to sit down with Fox's Neal Cavuto yesterday, after the News Corp. chief's bid to take over Dow Jones was offically approved by shareholders.

The Huffington Post has picked out some choice excerpts from the conversation. Here are a few:

On his plans for the Wall Street Journal brand:

We want to make it absolutely the preeminent source of financial news and information and comment in the world. We've gotta globalize, gotta digitize...but the paper itself will be the flagship.

On the competition the New York Times poses to the Wall Street Journal:

We're already 50% bigger than the New York Times. Our readers are more influential, wealthier. We're a very much more attractive prospect to advertisers than the New York Times is. ... It has a huge habit buying it around the country on a Sunday. You cant just take it out like that. But it'll be competing with us and we'll be competing with it for sure. But we are a long way in front for now.

On his plans for WSJ expansion:

There's a great deal of news from Washington and around the world in the Journal that is not strictly financial. We'll expand that, but not at the cost of what we're doing with the financial community and the business community in the world.

On the economics behind his plan to tear down the WSJ paywall:

At the moment, we sell it to about 1 million people, at a theoretical $50/year. But it costs probably, of that 50 million, 15 [million dollars] is in costs of just getting subscribers, and looking after them. So it's 35 million [dollars]. We think when it goes from 1 million subscribers to 20 million people watching it around the world, there'll be more than enough advertising to make up the difference. It may take a year to get there, but we'll get there.

On how he plans to change the content at the WSJ:

With good editing, you can certainly say things in fewer words than is normal. But you can break stories in parts too. You can have the guts of it and the strength of it on Page 1 and then you refer to other aspects of it inside, in separate stories, and keep the paper busy. We'll be experimenting with this in various ways.