Murdoch Seeks Australia Papers

SYDNEY, Australia — Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch swooped on Australia’s largest newspaper group, the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd., with a $1.2-billion takeover bid today which its directors promptly accepted.

Murdoch’s News Corp. offered $7.80 a share for the Melbourne-based Herald group, which was headed by his father, Sir Keith Murdoch, until he died in 1952. If the bid is accepted by shareholders it will bring into Murdoch’s empire 14 metropolitan newspapers as well as television stations in Melbourne and Adelaide.