Mergers come to sectors in waves and now its media's turn.

There are many companies that would be of interest to either public or private buyers including Gannett Co. (NYSE: GCI), E.W. Scripps Co. (NYSE: SSP) and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (NYSE: MSO).

Shares of Gannett, the largest newspaper publisher, have tanked more than 20% over the past five years as advertisers fled to the Internet. The company, though, has a solid management team that has made many accretive acquisitions.

Scripps has long been a favorite on Wall Street. The company's cable business, which includes the Food Network and HGTV, is great and its newspaper business is no worse off than others, which I realize is faint praise. Its shares are down 13% this year.

Martha Stewart Living, whose shares have plunged 15% this year, has defied the skeptics.

Even though the company recently said its first quarter loss widened, the results did beat Wall Street expectations. Chief Executive Susan Lyne has done a good job in expanding the Stewart brand. The recent prepared food deal with Costco Wholesale Corp. (NASDAQ: COST) seems to have potential.

Other targets include The New York Times Co. (NYSE: NYT), which I've argued before, satellite radio companies XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (NYSE: XMSR) and Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) and Belo Corp. (NYSE: BLC), which owns the Dallas Morning News along television and radio stations.

Media merger mania isn't slowing down soon originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 04 May 2007 10:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) acquisition of Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) makes tons more sense than Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) buying Dow Jones & Co. (NYSE: DJ). Thomson Corp. (NYSE: TOC) or private equity players are the likely suitors for Reuters Group Plc. (NASDAQ: RTRSY).

Microsoft could combine its struggling search business with Yahoo!'s, which isn't struggling as badly. The dull MSN portal would benefit from being integrated with Yahoo!'s superior content. Moreover, Microsoft would gain the ability to market its products to millions more new users.

Even if this happens, the integration wouldn't be easy. With a market capitalization of more than $38 billion, Yahoo! would be a big acquisition to digest even for a gigantic company such as Microsoft. Combined, these companies would pose a formidable challenger to Google.

Continue reading Bet on Microsoft-Yahoo, not Google-Dow Jones

Bet on Microsoft-Yahoo, not Google-Dow Jones originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 04 May 2007 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.