THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RUPERT MURDOCK

 

Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch, born in 1931, Australian-born media magnate whose business holdings include newspapers, magazines, television stations, and news services. Current holdings include the Fox Broadcasting Company, the London Times, the New York Post, T.V. Guide magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the online MySpace social network. He boosted the circulation of many of his newspapers by creating a tabloid mix of sex, crime, and sports stories topped with giant, sensationalized headlines. He was born in Melbourne, Australia, and educated at the University of Oxford. He became a United States citizen in 1985.

After earning his degree at Oxford, Murdoch remained in England to work as a junior editor for the London Daily Express. Journalism was a familiar trade as his father had been chief executive of Australia’s largest newspaper chain. His family inherited a remote radio station and the weakest papers of the group, the Adelaide News and Sunday Mail. Murdoch returned to Australia in 1954 and took charge of the Adelaide News (sold in 1987 and closed in 1992), a marginally profitable afternoon daily paper. Applying his Daily Express experience, he created the giant sensationalized headlines that were to become his trademark, and the paper’s readership soared.

Murdoch started building his media empire with the purchase of a Perth Sunday newspaper in 1956, and in 1960 he entered the Sydney market by acquiring the Sydney Daily and Sunday Mirror. His hard-sell promotions and lurid stories boosted the circulations of both papers. In 1964 Murdoch founded Australia’s first national newspaper, the Australian, which featured national and international news, investigative reporting, and local issues. By 1968 his Australian empire of newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting stations was worth an estimated $50 million.

Murdoch then bought control of the Sunday News of the World, a sensationalist London paper aimed at the working classes, and the foundering London daily Sun, a stodgy liberal paper. Murdoch applied his tabloid mix of sex, crime, and sports topped with huge headlines. Circulation soared, and he went on to purchase other British newspapers and broadcasting interests. 

In 1973 Murdoch made his first U.S. acquisition with the purchase of the San Antonio Express and News. This was followed by the founding of the National Star (later shortened to the Star), a supermarket tabloid. Murdoch’s next inroad into American journalism was his purchase of the New York Post in 1976, quickly followed by the takeover of a company that published New York magazine, the Village Voice, and New West. In 1981 he acquired the renowned London Times and Sunday Times. His holdings expanded to include Fox Broadcasting Company, for which he assumed the chairman and chief executive roles in 1992, and TV Guide, which was acquired in 1988. 

By 1989 Murdoch’s empire included newspapers, television stations, a movie studio, publishing houses, magazines, and large shares in news services. But by 1991 his Australia-based News Corporation, Limited had accumulated immense debts, which resulted in his selling most of his American magazine holdings. And in 1992 the News Corporation divested itself of the renamed San Antonio Express-News. In 1995 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled that News Corporation had proven that its ownership of Fox Broadcasting was in the public’s best interests, even though News Corp.’s share of the network exceeded the limit for foreign ownership of a broadcasting network. Murdoch also began to come under criticism for imposing his conservative political views on the news coverage of his media holdings.

In 2007 Murdoch’s News Corp. acquired Dow Jones & Company, Inc., publishers of the prestigious Wall Street Journal, for an estimated $5.6 billion. The deal was expected to aid Murdoch’s media empire in a variety of ways; for example, as a competitor with one of Europe’s leading business newspapers, the Financial Times, and as a key resource for the Fox Business Network, a 24-hour cable channel due to debut in October 2007. Many advocates of an independent press saw the acquisition as another sign of the growing expansion of media conglomerates, which they said threatened the integrity of journalism. 

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.