Business Notes PRESS

Last December, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy helped push Congress into passing a provision that seemed to take dead aim at Rupert Murdoch. At the time, Murdoch was benefiting from temporary waivers of a Federal Communications Commission regulation that prohibits a firm from owning a newspaper and a TV station in the same community. The waivers allowed him to continue owning the Herald and WFXT-TV in Boston, and the New York Post and WNYW-TV in Manhattan. But the congressional measure urged by Kennedy forbade the FCC to extend the time period of the waivers that were then in effect. Kennedy said Murdoch had the "fix in" with the FCC. For its part, the Herald tweaked Kennedy as the "fat boy."

Last week the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington ruled that the amendment was unconstitutional since it was aimed only at Murdoch. But the ruling came too late for Murdoch to hang on to the Post. Real Estate Tycoon Peter Kalikow bought the paper last month for $37 million.