Rupert Murdoch's News Corp edged closer to winning control of Dow Jones yesterday as Pearson and General Electric said they had decided against a counter-bid for the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

　　Pearson confirmed that it had held “exploratory talks with GE about opportunities in business and financial information， including Dow Jones” but had decided not to pursue a combination of GE's CNBC business channel， the Financial Times Group and Dow Jones.

　　People close to GE said it had concluded that it could not justify matching or beating Mr Murdoch's $5bn offer and ruled out any other attempt to bid for Dow Jones.

　　魯珀特·

　　培生集團證實，曾“試探性地與通用電氣探討了有關商業和金融信息業務的機會——包括收購道瓊斯”，但現已決定，不再尋求將通用電氣的CNBC財經頻道、英國金融時報集團和道瓊斯合并。

　　熟悉通用電氣的人士表示，該集團已經做出結論，無法說服自己提出與默多克相同或更高的報價，并排除了以其他方式競購道瓊斯的可能性。默多克對道瓊斯的收購報價為50億美元。