NY Post doomed by Murdoch exit

RUPERT MURDOCH, would-be saviour of the New York Post, decided instead to close the tabloid yesterday, abandoning plans to buy it after failing to win concessions from its 700 unionised employees.

Today's issue of the newspaper, America's oldest daily, was cancelled, with no immediate prospect of resumed publication. Mr Murdoch's News Corp, which stepped in when the bankrupt paper almost folded in March, had been publishing it under an agreement with its creditors, and claimed to have been losing more than dollars 300,000 a week.

'Regrettably, we have been unable to achieve the economic savings needed to guarantee the survival of the New York Post,' Patrick Purcell, the chief executive of News America, told reporters outside the tabloid's Manhattan offices. 'Unfortunately News Corp has no choice but to cancel our management agreement.'

In contract talks which began three months ago, News Corporation insisted on the right to fire any Post employee without paying acquired severance benefit, and on a five-year no- strike pledge.

With Mr Murdoch's withdrawal, control of the Post reverts to the creditors of its last owner, the local property developer Peter Kalikow.

The collapse of the Post leaves New York with two other tabloids, the Daily News and Newsday.