The largest outside shareholder in Dow Jones has called on the Bancroft family to sell their controlling stake to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, saying the family had no plan in place to lift the company's share price to the level offered by News Corp.

Brian Rogers, the chairman and chief investment officer of private equity group T Rowe Price, told the Financial Times: "There might be other buyers more palatable to them. But who's to say Rupert Murdoch is all that bad?