Murdoch sells weekly

Press, 22 June 1985, Page 11

Murdoch sells weekly

NZPA-Reuter New York The Australian publisher, Rupert Murdoch, yesterday sold his anti-establishment New York newspaper, “Village Voice,” to Leonard Stern, chairman of the Hartz Mountain Pet Supply empire and reputedly one of the richest men in America.

A Murdoch spokesman said that the profitable 30-year-old Greenwich Village weekly had been sold for more than SUSSS million ($119.9 million) after spirited bidding that continued right up to the moment of sale.

The “Voice,” which boasts the author, Norman Mailer, among its founders as the first of the country’s underground weekly newspapers, now has a circulation of 150,000 a week and an affluent audience that is the envy of many publishers. Mr Stern, aged 47, has been listed by “Forbes”

business magazine as bne of the richest men in America with a fortune in excess of SUSSOO million ($lO9O million). His privately held Hartz Mountain Industries firm, which manufactures everything from cat litter to birdseed to flea collars, is known as a fierce competitor.

The firm has been charged at various times with monopolistic practices and in 1979 paid a $U542.5 million ($92.65 million) out-of-court settlement to a competitor that had charged it with illegal trade deals.

News of the deal stunned staff members at the “Voice.” “I don’t know if he knows anything about the newspaper business but I hope he turns out to be as benign an owner as Rupert was and doesn’t interfere,” said Nat Hentoff, a long-time “Voice”

columnist. Mr Stern, for his part, promised to leave the paper’s liberal and sometimes Left-wing editorial contents alone. “Voice” staff members praised Mr Murdoch for not interfering in the paper even when it took positions radically different from those of his other papers. Murdoch bought the “Voice” and “New West” and “New York” magazines in 1977 for SUSI 6 million ($34.88 million). He sold “New West” for SUS 3 million ($6.54 million) and now has sold the “Voice” for more than SUSSS million ($119.9 million). In recent months, Mr Murdoch has dramatically expanded his American holdings by buying a halfinterest in 20th Century Fox film studios and the Metromedia chain of six tele-

vision stations for more than SUSI.S billion ($3.27 billion).

Mr Murdoch put the “Voice” and his “New York Post” newspaper up for sale after he agreed to buy the television stations from Metromedia. There is speculation that he might sell his Chicago “SunTimes” paper, as well.

He has said that the “Voice” did not really fit with his other holdings. “The ‘Voice’ is one of those things that if you want to go in and change it, you ruin it.”

■ The “Voice” has had a history of breaking many news stories on the environment and politics and with promoting new voices in the arts and music. It is also famous for its; personal advertisements; that offer everything from sex to quick weight-loss programmes.