Smash Up News Corp, Says Dennis Kneale

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch turns 80 years old next March, but he's still a shop-a-holic buying up businesses like trinkets on a charm bracelet and using his shareholders' money to do it.

Investors are worse-off for it, says CNBC’s Dennis Kneale.

The stock price of News Corp. is down 40% from where it was ten years ago and off 17% over the past five years.

What to do?

Smash em up, Kneale says!

But Dennis isn’t just saying it to be glib – he’s put pencil to paper and has come up with some viable suggestions:

First, combine all the company's print properties and offload 'em -- Dow Jones and Barron's and the Wall Street Journal - plus the irrepressible New York Post and 28 papers in the U.K. and Asia. Rupert should stay with the hard copy side of the news business, says Kneale.

Then, his younger son, James, could sell off the giant HarperCollins book-publisher. No synergy there. And while he’s at it, why not spin off the B-Sky-B direct-satellite service in Europe – after all Asia is the future.

He also should look at peddling two dozen websites, including MySpace, the social network pioneer that is oh-so yesterday!

A sleeker video content company would be left: Fox film. Fox News Channel and 15 cable outlets. Fox Broadcasting, 27 TV stations and a television production studio and then rename it under that one distinctive brand: the Fox company.

With all due respect, it may be time to take out the mallet, Mr. Murdoch. Learn more about Kneale's idea. Watch the video now.

Kneale also wrote about his idea at length Click here to read more

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