Mort Zuckerman would seem the last person interested in buying the loss-hemorrhaging BusinessWeek, considering the losses he's taken on U.S. News + World Report over recent years and the nose-to-nose fight his New York Daily News is waging against Rupert Murdoch's New York Post.

But indeed Zuckerman has joined the bidding for the McGraw Hill title, as reported by BusinessWeek's own web site.

The real estate tycoon and longtime publisher joins the four remaining bidders for the ailing business title: Bloomberg Media, owned by New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, OpenGate Capital, ZelnickMedia, and Platinum Equity Partners, a California investment shop that recently bought the San Diego Union-Tribune

Of the lot, Bloomberg is believed to be the most likely winner. He has the deep pockets, and he's had the depth of experience in business and financial media the others lack.

Just why Zuckerman is coming forward at this late date, two weeks after the initial round of bids were due, is unclear.

Just how serious he is is also unclear.

Over recent years, Zuckerman, either on his own or as part of a consortium, has been a bidder on a number of titles, including New York Magazine, and he briefly backed the relaunch of Radar. At one point he owned the Atlantic and Fast Company, which he sold off at a huge profit in a decade ago.

But after years of losses at U.S. News, and his inability to come up with a workable strategy for that once-profitable title, his interests in magazine publishing would appear to be on the wane.

"Of late he's given every indication of wanting to quietly fold up his interests in magazine publishing," says one former employee.

But as Zuckerman tells, it, he's still very much in the game.

"I am a junkie for journalism," he tells today's New York Post. "It kind of fascinates me. Obviously, we'd run it differently and financially more efficiently than they do."

In buying BusinessWeek, Zuckerman would have his work cut out for him. The title reportedly lost $43 million last year and is expected to lose as much this year as the ad recession lingers on.

Further, prospects for turning it around would appear slim.

All three major business titles are well down in ad pages. The category was down 33 percent over the first half of this year. BusinessWeek was down 37 percent, Forbes 30 percent, and Fortune 38 percent.

And indeed the category really never came back from the last ad recession, the result of advertisers moving their ad dollars online or to more general-interest titles.

Whoever gets the title would not only have to invest big dollars but also have a solid, longer-term strategy for reinventing the title