NEW YORK — News Corp., the media conglomerate controlled by Rupert Murdoch, has withdrawn its bid to purchase the Long Island paper Newsday, a News Corp. spokeswoman said Saturday.
The decision to revoke the offer came just days after Murdoch confidently predicted he would clinch a deal to buy the newspaper within a week.
News Corp. had offered about $580 million for the daily newspaper, one of the country’s biggest, but it was competing against rival bids from Cablevision Systems Corp. and New York Daily News owner Mortimer Zuckerman. Cablevision had reportedly made an offer of $650 million.
News Corp. spokeswoman Teri Everett didn’t elaborate on why the company revoked its offer, but she hinted at the potentially higher price tag, saying, “It became uneconomical for us to continue.”
