Dow Jones merging WSJ and News Wire businesses

Publishing and financial information firm, Dow Jones & Company, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation is merging its consumer and enterprise divisions in its biggest restructuring since it was acquired by News Corp in 2007.

Dow Jones announced yesterday a new organisational structure combining its consumer media group, which includes The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, Barron's and other publications with its business enterprise group, which has Dow Jones Newswires, the Dow Jones stock indexes and the business research service Factiva in a single operating unit.

The Local Media Group, the company's community news division, which includes eight daily newspapers and 15 weeklies in six states will continue to function independently, said Dow Jones in a statement.

The restructuring, which formalises a process that began last year in the wake of the global financial crisis, will not affect jobs at Dow Jones, which has approximately 6,000 employees.

Dow Jones expects the restructuring would help identify and respond to customer needs more quickly.

Les Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones said, ''We have devoted two years to improving our products. This is the right time for a strategic step aimed at coordinating their development and marketing for the future. This structure will provide the focus to make us faster and better than our rivals at identifying and meeting customer needs.''