Murdoch won't raise bid for Newsday

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which had appeared close to a deal to buy Newsday, doesn't plan to raise its bid for the Long Island newspaper despite a higher offer from Cablevision Systems. Cablevision's offer of $650 million bested Murdoch's $580 million price, as well as an offer of equal value from New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman. It wasn't clear whether Zuckerman would respond to Cablevision's higher offer. The competitive bidding for Newsday is good news for its owner Tribune Co., which took on an additional $8.2 billion in debt in December when it became a privately held company. Tribune's new CEO Sam Zell had initially said he wanted to keep the company largely intact, but later decided to entertain offers for Newsday following a steep drop-off in advertising revenues at the company. Like Newsday, Cablevision is also based on Long Island and has about 3 million cable TV customers in the New York region. It also has a local cable news channel, Madison Square Garden, and several cable networks including AMC and IFC.
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