News Corp. (NWS) reported its fiscal fourth-quarter results after the closing bell Wednesday. And interestingly, the company did not mention the highly publicized Dow Jones (DJ) deal until page six of the eighteen page release.

Media hounds may find this amusing since News Corp. owns the New York Post, home to the famous gossip page called Page Six. And some industry watchers are concerned that News Corp. chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch will look to broaden the coverage (i.e. make it more tabloid-esque) of the esteemed Wall Street Journal.

But to be fair, there was no real need for Murdoch to mention Dow Jones any higher in the earnings release. For one, as I pointed out yesterday, the Dow Jones transaction is not a make or break purchase for the company. It’s not going to have a major impact on revenue and profits in the near-term.

What’s more, even though News Corp. announced the bid in May, it wasn’t accepted by the Bancroft family that controls Dow Jones until last week, which means that the deal was technically agreed to in the company’s fiscal first quarter of 2008.

More importantly for News Corp. shareholders, the company reported better-than-expected sales and earnings growth in the quarter thanks mainly to strength in its cable television networks business and global satellite TV unit. The company, like fellow media conglomerates Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIAB) and to a lesser extent, my parent company Time Warner (TWX), appears to be benefiting from improved ratings at its cable networks and a healthy demand for cable TV advertising.

In addition, News Corp. investors will also probably be pleased to learn that the company’s Fox Interactive Media unit, which owns popular social networking site MySpace, reported an operating profit for the full year thanks to strength in online advertising. MySpace has an ad-sharing partnership with search industry leader Google (GOOG).

During the company’s conference call with analysts, News Corp. chief financial officer David DeVoe added that during the fourth quarter, revenues from FIM more than doubled to $183 million and that the unit reported an operating profit of $30 million. Murdoch added that he expected FIM to report revenue in fiscal 2008 of more than $1 billion, with MySpace accounting for about $800 million in sales, and that operating profits would be well above 20 percent.

Still, Wall Street eagerly awaited what his Rupertness had to say about his new toy, Dow Jones. During the call, Murdoch joked that as the merger soap opera dragged on, he endured criticism during the past three months that was more befitting of a “genocidal tyrant.” Awww. He does have feelings!

Murdoch touted Dow Jones’ “unassailable credibility” and said that was one reason why he paid such a big premium — 65 percent to Dow Jones’ stock price the day before News Corp. announced its bid — for Dow Jones. When asked by a reporter if he planned to license the Dow Jones name for use in other products, Murdoch quipped that “you’re not going to see Dow Jones t-shirts and hats.”

He did not get into specific detail about what Dow Jones will look like under the same corporate umbrella as Bill O’Reilly, “American Idol” and Homer Simpson (D’oh!) but he did say some things that will probably alarm his critics.

He promised to make Dow Jones an even bigger player in online journalism and also said that News Corp. was talking with Dow Jones about possibly making the WSJ Web site, which currently keeps a lot of content behind a “walled garden” only available to paying subscribers, free to all readers. Ok. No problems there.

Murdoch also said that he planned to invest heavily in Asia and Europe. Once again, that doesn’t sound too troubling. But wait for it. Here it comes. Murdoch said he saw an opportunity to cut $50 million in expenses at Dow Jones. Uhhh…layoffs anyone? And Murdoch also said that in order to compete more effectively with the New York Times and other papers, Dow Jones publications, particularly the Journal, will need to add more coverage of “national, international and non-business news.”

Cue the ominous music. Will the Journal start to look more like Murdoch’s tabloids? If so, that’s a shame. There are enough outlets to get our daily dose of celebrity rehab news. We don’t need it in the fourth column of the WSJ’s front page. It would also be too bad if many journalists at Dow Jones, who are among the finest in business news, lost their jobs simply to appease Wall Street’s unflinching yearning for cost cuts. Murdoch later refuted the notion that he would be firing anyone. I guess we’ll see.

Then again, Murdoch also seemed to realize that business news is Dow Jones’ greatest strength.

To that end, Murdoch also said he would look for synergies between Dow Jones and other News Corp. businesses, most notably the company’s upcoming Fox Business Channel, which will launch in October. Murdoch boldly proclaimed that within “short order” he expected the new FBC to surpass the $4 billion valuation that he said some analysts have suggested GE (GE)-owned cable business channel CNBC could be worth.

So there it is. The gauntlet has been thrown. It will be very interesting to see whether FBC is the next big News Corp. hit or if it flops like the company’s MyNetworkTV, a broadcast channel that banked on viewers being interested in English-language telenovela style soap operas in prime time. It just goes to show that Murdoch’s track record, while very very good, is not perfect.