Murdoch eyes up Alwaleed’s Rotana

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp may be in talks to buy a stake in Rotana, the media group owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

The US paper, which is itself owned by News Corp, cites those ever-knowledgeable “people familiar with the deal” as a source. Said people apparently told the WSJ’s sister division Zawya Dow Jones that the Murdoch group was looking to buy 20% of Rotana.

Currently Prince Alwaleed’s main investment vehicle, Kingdom Holding, owns 5.7% of News Corp, and the prince has strong business ties to Murdoch and his operations, so the deal would make a certain amount of sense.

The deal could also allow Rotana to develop closer ties with Murdoch-owned Fox – which, as the WSJ points out, already broadcasts via Rotana in the region – possibly including greater access to Fox content, or perhaps production.

We would also imagine that a longer-term objective might be to boost the slightly flagging fortunes of LBC, which Alwaleed bought up last year, but which is still struggling to make any headway against the MBC behemoth in the regional TV market.

More on this as we hear it.