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Originally Posted by Kali Yuga
News already decided to split its business into publishing (news, books, magazines) and broadcast/media (BSkyB, Fox News, the movie studio etc) back in June. It's highly unlikely they will split off the book publishers any time soon.
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Oh, it's not the book publishers that are going to be spun off, it is the entire traditional publishing business. That is why they did the split in june. Between degrading economic value and the political heat, publishing isn't worth it to the Murdocks any more.
The handwriting's been on the wall since spring. The growth parts of News Corp are all going into one company and the stagnant/at-risk parts (books, newspapers, and magazines) are going into the other. Merging HC with S&S adds near-term value (in the form of the increased visibility and "market power") to the publishing company to make the IPO-to-come more attractive.
The News Corp part of the deal is clear; they're pumping up the publishing corp prior to dumping it and recovering as much value as they can.
The open question is for CBS: what to do with their (no longer so) Big Publishing House. Do they get out now, ride their existing bet, or throw more money into the pot. With Murdock out shopping, either CBS takes his money or they watch him buy up somebody else. Either way, their share of the market isn't going to be all that big compared to the Random Penguin. It's time to get big or get out.
This has happened before; big multinationals dumping a high-visibility subsidiary in the midst of a tech-driven disruption. Most recently, the big music studios. It used to be that every media conglomerate *had* to have an inhouse music studio. Nowadays? Hardly any of them does. Those companies are all about fast growth and big revenue, not propping up an at-risk business model.