Mumbai: Pearson Plc and General Electric Co. are in talks to make a joint bid for Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, the journal reported.

Under the plan, Pearson''s Financial Times, GE''s CNBC unit and Dow Jones, which owns the Wall Street Journal, would be merged in a closely held venture and give the publisher''s controlling Bancroft family a minority stake in the new company.

GE and Pearson are discussing a proposal under which they would each hold 40 per cent to 45 per cent of the new company and leave the Bancrofts with a 10-20 per cent stake, the Journal said.

The structure would allow some family members to sell their Dow Jones shares and let others roll their stock into the venture to avoid taxes, the newspaper added.

The talks between GE and London- based Pearson are exploratory and may collapse, the Journal said, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

An offer would pit the Pearson-GE combine against Rupert Murdoch who has made a $5 billion bid and is in talks with the Bancrofts. The Bancroft family said last week that it''s still working on a proposal to send to Murdoch''s News Corp. designed to protect the newspaper''s editorial independence.

Fairfield, Connecticut-based GE, declined to comment on the report.

CNBC, the business news cable-television channel owned by GE''s NBC Universal, has a deal to use the Wall Street Journal''s content through 2012. News Corp. plans to start a business news channel this year to compete with CNBC and Bloomberg LP, owner of Bloomberg News.

NBC Universal also held exploratory talks with Microsoft Corp. about the possibility of bidding for Dow Jones, but without success.