Murdoch: I’m not helping Microsoft’s non-bid for Yahoo

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Back when Microsoft was trying to buy Yahoo -- which, the CEOs of both companies went to some trouble in the last 24 hours to stress, was a long time ago -- some of the permutations involved Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. The company owns top social networking site MySpace and is one of the biggest media companies on the planet.

Among the possibilities getting kicked around was Microsoft getting Yahoo’s search operation and Murdoch getting the rest. MySpace might have changed hands as well.

Even though Microsoft officially stopped trying to buy Yahoo almost three weeks ago -- ages ago! -- quite a number of folks, including some with non-trivial amounts of money at stake, think there might yet be a reconciliation.

So it seemed worthwhile to ask Murdoch, who will speak tonight at the All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif., a hypothetical: If Microsoft shocked nobody by making a new bid, would he want to participate?

Herewith his answer to The Times, which translates roughly into deepening shades of ‘no.’

‘It’s not being discussed. It would depend on price. If it’s paying part of $45 billion, it seems way out. It may not be much money to them, but it’s a lot to me.’

With what some might have called ruefulness, he concluded, ‘If I can’t afford Newsday, I can’t afford that.’

-- Joseph Menn

Photo: News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch. Credit: Evan Agostini / Associated Press