Brad Greenspan’s offer to take a big stake in Dow Jones might present an attractive counterproposal to the $5 billion offer for the company by Rupert Murdoch, but some number crunchers are finding that the numbers make them a little green. (Summary: lend the Bancrofts some money to buy out their relatives, load up on debt, start a third business news channel, go video video video online and a few other things.)

Few people watching the process are giving him much of a chance, but as the Bancrofts meet in Boston on Tuesday to consider Murdoch’s offer, it is proving hard to ignore the other guy out there.

Benchmark Co. analyst Ed Atorino shared his thoughts after some more thorough parsing of Greenspan’s offer:

- The proposed purchase by Dow Jones of 50 percent of the shares outstanding at $60 would cost approximately $2.5 billion (42 million shares at $60 per share). The debt would carry an estimated interest cost of $187 million to $200 million ($2.5 billion at 7.5-8 percent), wiping out most of Dow Jones’s earning and jeopardizing the dividend.

- The Bancrofts would be saddled with $200 million-$300 million in debt (after Dow Jones share purchase) and heavy interest costs unless Greenspan provides them with an interest-free loan. The Bancrofts would also lose much of their voting control of the company in the process.

- Dow Jones’s stock price would undoubtedly plummet, leaving the surviving Bancrofts with a much lower-priced stock in a company with heavy debt and little earnings.

- WSJ.com would lose a substantial amount of revenue if it switched to a free service resulting in lower future profits for Dow Jones.

- There is no provision for financing the launch of a financial news channel. (Another part of Greenspan’s proposal)

If you think Atorino was taking a critical tone, check out Ken Doctor, an analyst at Outsell Inc. Here’s the complete blog entry at the end of this link, but here’s an excerpt below:

- The kind of free-to-public, video-forward site he’s pitching is one that’s already out there — it’s called MarketWatch and it’s owned by Dow Jones.

- Greenspan says his plan will move the share price to $100. I don’t think so. The second page of Brad’s open letter, “Assuming stable performance from the existing businesses….” Unfortunately, that can’t be done. Print’s not stable; it’s in decline.

- The public likes web video, but how much will it watch — how much does the subject matter itself lend itself to video, when you consider the value of written analysis and data? So is his projection of 10 billion annual video page views by 2009 a tad high?