Rupert Murdoch
Encyclopedia
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC
, KSG (born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-American business magnate
. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate
.
In 1953, Murdoch became managing director of News Limited
, inherited from his father. In the 1950s and '60s, he acquired various newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World and then The Sun. He moved to New York
in 1974 to expand into the US market and became a naturalised US citizen in 1985. In 1981, he bought The Times
, his first British broadsheet. In 1986, keen to adopt newer electronic publishing technologies, he consolidated his UK printing operations in Wapping
, causing bitter industrial disputes. His News Corporation acquired Twentieth Century Fox (1985), HarperCollins (1989) and The Wall Street Journal
(2007). He formed BSkyB in 1990 and during the 1990s expanded into Asian networks and South American television. By 2000 Murdoch's News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion.
In July 2011 Murdoch faced allegations that his companies, including the News of the World
, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty and public citizens. He faced police and government investigations into bribery and corruption in the UK and FBI investigations in the US.
, the only son of Sir Keith Murdoch
(1885–1952) and Elisabeth Joy (née Greene) (b. 1909). Elisabeth is of English and Scottish ancestry. They were both born in Melbourne. Keith was a renowned war correspondent and later a regional newspaper magnate.The encyclopedia of the history of American management (2005) Morgen Witzel Continuum International Publishing Group p393 ISBN 9781843711315 He asked for a rendezvous after seeing her debutante photograph in one of his own newspapers and they married in 1928, when she was aged 19 and he 23 years her senior. In addition to Rupert, the couple had three daughters: Janet Calvert-Jones, Anne Kantor and Helen Handbury (1929–2004).
Rupert Murdoch attended the elite Geelong Grammar School
, where he had his first experience of editing a publication, being co-editor of the school's official journal The Corian and editor of the student journal If Revived. He worked part time at the Melbourne Herald and was groomed by his father from an early age to take over the family business. Murdoch read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford University
in England, where he supported the Labour Party
. After her husband's death from cancer in 1952, Elisabeth Murdoch went on to invest herself in charity work, as life governor of the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne and establishing the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. At 102 (in 2011) she has 74 descendants. Rupert Murdoch did an MA before working as a sub-editor with the Daily Express
for two years.
, which had been established in 1923. Rupert Murdoch turned its newspaper, Adelaide News
, its main asset, into a major success. He began to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion, buying the troubled Sunday Times
in Perth, Western Australia
(1956) and over the next few years acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory
, including the Sydney afternoon tabloid, The Daily Mirror
(1960). The Economist
describes Murdoch as "inventing the modern tabloid", as he developed a pattern for his newspapers, increasing sports and scandal coverage and adopting eye-catching headlines.
Murdoch's first foray outside Australia involved the purchase of a controlling interest in the New Zealand daily The Dominion. In January 1964, while touring New Zealand with friends in a rented Morris Minor after sailing across the Tasman, Murdoch read of a takeover bid for the Wellington paper by the British-based Canadian newspaper magnate, Lord Thomson of Fleet. On the spur of the moment, he launched a counter-bid. A four-way battle for control ensued in which the 32-year-old Murdoch was ultimately successful. Later in 1964, Murdoch launched The Australian
, Australia's first national daily newspaper, and its first broadsheet, which was based first in Canberra
and later in Sydney. In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney morning tabloid The Daily Telegraph
from Australian media mogul Sir Frank Packer
, who later regreted selling it to him. In 1984, Murdoch was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia for services to publishing.
In 1999, Murdoch significantly expanded his music holdings in Australia by acquiring the controlling share in a leading Australian independent label, Michael Gudinski
's Mushroom Records
; he merged that with Festival Records
, and the result was Festival Mushroom Records (FMR). Both Festival and FMR were managed by Murdoch's son James Murdoch for several years.
, leader of the Australian Country Party (now known as the National Party of Australia
), who was governing in coalition with the larger Menzies-Holt Liberal Party
. From the very first issue of The Australian Murdoch began taking McEwen's side in every issue that divided the long-serving coalition partners. (The Australian, 15 July 1964, first edition, front page: "Strain in Cabinet, Liberal-CP row flares.") It was an issue that threatened to split the coalition government and open the way for the stronger Australian Labor Party to dominate Australian politics. It was the beginning of a long campaign that served McEwen well.
After McEwen and Menzies
retired, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the Australian Labor Party
under the leadership of Gough Whitlam
and duly saw it elected on a social platform that included universal free health care, free education for all Australians to tertiary level, recognition of the People's Republic of China, and public ownership of Australia's oil, gas and mineral resources. Rupert Murdoch's backing of Whitlam turned out to be brief. Murdoch had already started his short-lived National Star newspaper in America, and was seeking to strengthen his political contacts there.
Asked about the Australian federal election, 2007 at News Corporation's annual general meeting in New York on 19 October 2007, its chairman Rupert Murdoch said, "I am not commenting on anything to do with Australian politics. I'm sorry. I always get into trouble when I do that." Pressed as to whether he believed Prime Minister John Howard
should be re-elected, he said: "I have nothing further to say. I'm sorry. Read our editorials in the papers. It'll be the journalists who decide that – the editors." In 2009, in response to accusations by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
that News Limited was running vendettas against him and his government, Murdoch opined that Rudd was "oversensitive" Murdoch described Howard's successor, Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
, as "...more ambitious to lead the world [in tackling climate change] than to lead Australia..." and criticised Rudd's expansionary fiscal policies in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 as unnecessary. Although News Limited's interests are extensive, also including the Daily Telegraph
, the Courier-Mail and the Adelaide Advertiser, it was suggested by the commentator Mungo MacCallum
in The Monthly
that "the anti-Rudd push, if coordinated at all, was almost certainly locally driven" as opposed to being directed by Murdoch, who also took a different position from local editors on such matters climate change and stimulus packages to combat the financial crisis.
In 1968 Murdoch entered the UK newspaper market with his acquisition of the populist News of the World, followed in 1969 with the purchase of the struggling daily broadsheet The Sun
from IPC
.. Murdoch turned The Sun into a tabloid format and reduced costs by using the same printing press for both newspapers. In 1997 The Sun attracted 10 million daily readers. In 1981, Murdoch acquired the struggling Times
and Sunday Times
from Canadian newspaper publisher Lord Thomson of Fleet
. Ownership of The Times came to him through his relationship with Lord Thomson, who had grown tired of losing money on it as a result of much industrial action that stopped publication. In the light of success and expansion at The Sun the owners believed that Murdoch could turn the papers around. Harold Evans
, Editor of the Sunday Times from 1967, was made head of the daily Times, though he stayed only a year amidst editorial conflict with Murdoch.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Murdoch's publications were generally supportive of Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
. At the end of the Thatcher
/Major era, Murdoch switched his support to the Labour Party
and its leader, Tony Blair
. The closeness of his relationship with Blair and their secret meetings to discuss national policies was to become a political issue in Britain. Though this later started to change, with The Sun publicly renouncing the ruling Labour government and lending its support to David Cameron
's Conservative Party
, which soon after came to form a coalition government. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official spokesman said in November 2009 that Brown and Murdoch "were in regular communication" and that "there is nothing unusual in the prime minister talking to Rupert Murdoch".
In 1986, Murdoch introduced electronic production processes to his newspapers in Australia, Britain and the United States. The greater degree of automation led to significant reductions in the number of employees involved in the printing process. In England, the move roused the anger of the print unions, resulting in a long and often violent dispute that played out in Wapping
, one of London's docklands areas, where Murdoch had installed the very latest electronic newspaper purpose-built publishing facility in an old warehouse. The bitter dispute at Wapping started with the dismissal of 6,000 employees who had gone on strike and resulted in street battles and demonstrations. Many on the political left in Britain alleged the collusion of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government with Murdoch in the Wapping affair, as a way of damaging the British trade union movement. In 1987, the dismissed workers accepted a settlement of £60 million.
Murdoch's British-based satellite network, Sky Television
, incurred massive losses in its early years of operation. As with many of his other business interests, Sky was heavily subsidised by the profits generated by his other holdings, but convinced rival satellite operator British Satellite Broadcasting
to accept a merger on his terms in 1990. They were quick to see advantages of direct to home (DTH) satellite broadcasting that did not require costly cable networks and the merged company, BSkyB, has dominated the British pay-TV market ever since. By 1996, BSkyB had more than 3.6 million subscribers, triple the number of cable customers in the UK.
In response to print media's decline and the increasing influence of online journalism during the 2000s, Murdoch proclaimed his support of the micropayments model for obtaining revenue from on-line news, although this has been criticised by some.
News Corporation has subsidiaries in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands
, the Channel Islands
and the Virgin Islands
. From 1986, News Corporation's annual tax bill averaged around seven percent of its profits.
, and The Sun credited itself
with helping John Major
to win an unexpected election victory in the 1992 general election
. In the general elections of 1997
, 2001
and 2005
, Murdoch's papers were either neutral or supported Labour
under Tony Blair
. This has led some critics to argue that Murdoch simply supports the incumbent parties (or those who seem most likely to win an upcoming election) in the hope of influencing government decisions that may affect his businesses. The Labour Party, under Blair, had moved from the Left to a more central position on many economic issues prior to 1997. Murdoch identifies himself as a libertarian
, saying "What does libertarian mean? As much individual responsibility as possible, as little government as possible, as few rules as possible. But I'm not saying it should be taken to the absolute limit."
In a speech delivered in New York, Rupert Murdoch said that the British Prime Minister Tony Blair
described the BBC
coverage of the Hurricane Katrina
disaster as being full of hatred of America.
In 1998, Rupert Murdoch failed in his attempt to buy the football club Manchester United F.C.
with an offer of £625 million. It was the largest amount ever offered for a sports club. It was blocked by the United Kingdom's Competition Commission
, which stated that the acquisition would have "hurt competition in the broadcast industry and the quality of British football".
On 28 June 2006 the BBC reported that Murdoch and News Corporation were flirting with the idea of backing Conservative leader
David Cameron at the next General Election. In a later interview in July 2006, when he was asked what he thought of the Conservative leader, Murdoch replied "Not much". In a 2009 blog, it was suggested that in the aftermath of the News of the World phone hacking scandal which is still ongoing in 2011 and might yet have Transatlantic implications Murdoch and News Corporation might have decided to back Cameron. Despite this, there had already been a convergence of interests between the two men over the muting of Britain's communications regulator Ofcom
.
In 2006, Britain's Independent
newspaper reported that Murdoch would offer Tony Blair a senior role in his global media company News Corporation when the prime minister stood down from office.
He is accused by former Solidarity MSP
Tommy Sheridan
of having a personal vendetta against him and of conspiring with MI5
to produce a video of him confessing to having affairs – allegations over which Sheridan had previously sued News International
and won. On being arrested for perjury
following the case, Sheridan claimed that the charges were "orchestrated and influenced by the powerful reach of the Murdoch empire".
In August 2008 British Conservative leader and future Prime Minister David Cameron
accepted free flights to hold private talks and attend private parties with Murdoch on his yacht, the Rosehearty. Cameron has declared in the Commons register of interests he accepted a private plane provided by Murdoch's son-in-law, public relations guru Matthew Freud
; Cameron has not revealed his talks with Murdoch. The gift of travel in Freud's Gulfstream IV
private jet was valued at around £30,000. Other guests attending the "social events" included the then EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson
, the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska
and co-chairman of NBC Universal
Ben Silverman
. The Conservatives have not disclosed what was discussed.
In July 2011 it emerged that Cameron met key executives of Murdoch's News Corporation 26 times during the 14 months that Cameron had served as Prime Minister. It was also reported that Murdoch had given Cameron a personal guarantee that there would be no risk attached to hiring Andy Coulson
, the former editor of News of the World, as the Conservative Party's communication director in 2007. This was in spite of Coulson having resigned as editor over phone hacking by a reporter. Cameron chose to take Murdoch's advice, despite warnings from Nick Clegg
, Lord Ashdown
and The Guardian
. Coulson resigned his post in 2011 and was later arrested and questioned on allegations of further criminal activity at The News of the World, specifically the News International phone hacking scandal.
committee regarding phone hacking. In the U.K his media empire remains under fire as investigators continue to probe reports of other phone hacking.
On 14 July, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons served a summons
on Murdoch, his son James
, and his former CEO Rebekah Brooks to testify before a committee on 19 July. After an initial refusal, the Murdochs confirmed they would attend after the committee issued them a summons to Parliament. The day before the committee, the website of the News Corporation publication The Sun was hacked, and a bogus story was posted on the front page claiming that Murdoch had died. Murdoch described the day of the committee "the most humble day of my life". He argued that since he ran a global business of 53,000 employees and that the News of the World was "just 1%" of this, he was not ultimately responsible for what went on at the tabloid. He added that he had not considered resigning, and that he and the other top executives had been completely unaware of the hacking.
On 15 July Rupert Murdoch attended a private meeting in London with the family of Milly Dowler, where he personally apologised for the hacking of their murdered daughter's voicemail by a company he owns. On 16 and 17 July, News International published two full-page apologies in many of Britain's national newspapers. The first apology took the form of a letter, signed by Rupert Murdoch, in which he said sorry for the "serious wrongdoing" that occurred. The second was titled "Putting right what's gone wrong", and gave more detail about the steps News International was taking to address the public's concerns. In the wake of the allegations Murdoch accepted the resignations of Rebekah Brooks, head of Murdoch's British operations, and Les Hinton
, head of The Wall Street Journal who was chairman of Murdoch's British newspaper division when some of the abuses happened. They both deny any knowledge of any wrong-doing under their command.
. Soon afterwards, he founded Star, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976, he purchased the New York Post
. On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalised citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own American television stations. This resulted in Murdoch losing his Australian citizenship. Also in 1985, Murdoch purchased the 20th Century Fox
movie studio.In 1986, Murdoch purchased six television stations owned by Metromedia
. These stations would form the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company
, founded on 9 October 1986, which would go on to have great success with programmes such as The Simpsons
and The X-Files
. In 1987 in Australia, he bought The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd
, the company that his father had once managed. By 1990 News Corporation had built up debts of $7 billion (much from Sky TV in the UK). forcing Murdoch to sell many of the American magazine interests he had acquired in the mid-1980s. In 1993 took exclusive of the National Football League (NFL) from CBS
and increased programming to seven days a week. In 1995, Murdoch's Fox Network became the object of scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC), when it was alleged that News Ltd.'s Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. However, the FCC ruled in Murdoch's favour, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the best interests of the public. That same year, Murdoch announced a deal with MCI Communications
to develop a major news website and magazine, The Weekly Standard
. Also that year, News Corporation launched the Foxtel
pay television network in Australia in partnership with Telstra
. In 1996, Murdoch decided to enter the cable news market with the Fox News Channel
, a 24-hour
cable news
station. Ratings studies released in 2009 showed that the network was responsible for nine of the top ten programs in the "Cable News" category at that time. Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner
(founder and former owner of CNN) are long-standing rivals. In late 2003, Murdoch acquired a 34 percent stake in Hughes Electronics, the operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV
, from General Motors for $6 billion (USD). His Fox movie studio would go on to have global hits with Titanic
and Avatar.
In 2004, Murdoch announced that he was moving News Corporation headquarters from Adelaide, Australia to the United States. Choosing a US domicile was designed to ensure that American fund managers could purchase shares in the company, since many were deciding not to buy shares in non-US companies. Some analysts believed that News Corporation's Australian domicile was leading to the company being undervalued compared with its peers.
On 20 July 2005, News Corporation bought Intermix Media Inc.
, which held Myspace, Imagine Games Network and other social networking-themed websites, for $580 million USD, making Murdoch a major in online media concerns. In June 2011, it sold off Myspace for US$35 million. On 11 September 2005, News Corporation announced that it would buy IGN
Entertainment for $650 million (USD).
In May 2007, Murdoch made a $5 billion offer to purchase Dow Jones
. At the time, the Bancroft family
, who had owned the Dow Jones for 105 years and controlled 64% of the shares at the time, firmly declined the offer, opposing Murdoch's much-used strategy of slashing employee numbers and gutting existing systems. Later, the Bancroft family confirmed a willingness to consider a sale. Besides Murdoch, the Associated Press
reported that supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and Internet entrepreneur Brad Greenspan
were among the other interested parties. In 2007, Murdoch had acquired Dow Jones, an acquisition which gave Murdoch such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Barron's Magazine
, the Far Eastern Economic Review
(based in Hong Kong) and SmartMoney
.
ideology; unified positions on matters of public policy; global editorial meetings; and opposition to a perceived liberal bias in other public media
.
On 8 May 2006, the Financial Times
reported that Murdoch would be hosting a fund-raiser for Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-New York) Senate re-election campaign. In a 2008 interview with Walt Mossberg, Murdoch was asked whether he had "anything to do with the New York Post
s endorsement of Barack Obama
in the democratic primaries." Without hesitating, Murdoch replied, "Yeah. He is a rock star. It's fantastic. I love what he is saying about education. I don't think he will win Florida... but he will win in Ohio
and the election. I am anxious to meet him. I want to see if he will walk the walk." Murdoch is a strong supporter of Israel and its domestic policies.
In 2010 News Corporation gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association
and $1 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Murdoch also served on the board of directors of the libertarian
Cato Institute
.
. A judge ruled the Italian Prime Minister's media arm Mediaset
prevented News Corporation's Italian unit, Sky Italia, from buying advertisements on its television networks.
, a Hong Kong company founded by Richard Li
for $1 billion (Souchou, 2000:28), and subsequently set up offices for it throughout Asia. The deal enables News International to broadcast from Hong Kong to India, China, Japan and over thirty other countries in Asia, becoming one of the biggest satellite TV networks in the east.However, the deal did not work out as Murdoch had planned, because the Chinese government placed restrictions on it that prevented it from reaching most of China.
(not to be mistaken for the actress Anna Torv
of Fringe
who is the elder Torv's niece). During his marriage to Torv, a Roman Catholic, Murdoch was awarded the KSG, a papal honour. Torv and Murdoch had three children: Elisabeth Murdoch
(born in Sydney, Australia on 22 August 1968), Lachlan Murdoch
(born in London, UK on 8 September 1971), and James Murdoch
, (born in London on 13 December 1972). Murdoch's companies published two novels by his then wife: Family Business (1988) and Coming to Terms (1991), both widely regarded as vanity publications. They divorced in June 1999. Anna Murdoch received a settlement of US$ 1.2 billion in assets.
On 25 June 1999, 17 days after divorcing his second wife, Murdoch, then aged 68, married Chinese-born Deng Wendi (Wendi Deng
). She was 30, a recent Yale School of Management
graduate, and a newly appointed vice-president of his STAR TV
. Murdoch has two children with her.
, which publishes The Times
and The Sunday Times
. Murdoch's eldest son Lachlan
, formerly the deputy chief operating officer at the News Corporation and the publisher of the New York Post
, was Murdoch's heir apparent
before resigning from his executive posts at the global media company at the end of July 2005. Lachlan's departure left James Murdoch
chief executive of the satellite television service British Sky Broadcasting
since November 2003, as the only Murdoch son still directly involved with the company's operations, though Lachlan has agreed to remain on the News Corporation's board.
After graduating from Vassar College
and marrying classmate Elkin Kwesi Pianim (the son of Ghanaian financial and political mogul Kwame Pianim
) in 1993, Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth
, along with her husband, purchased a pair of NBC-affiliate television stations in California, KSBW
and KSBY, with a $35 million loan provided by her father. By quickly re-organising and re-selling them at a $12 million profit in 1995, Elisabeth emerged as an unexpected rival to her brothers for the eventual leadership of the publishing dynasty's empire. But after divorcing her first husband in 1998 and quarrelling publicly with her assigned mentor Sam Chisholm
at BSkyB, she struck out on her own as a television and film producer in London. She has since enjoyed independent success, in conjunction with her second husband, Matthew Freud
, the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud
(the founder of psychoanalysis
) whom she met in 1997 and married in 2001..
It is not known how long Murdoch will remain as News Corporation's CEO. For a while the American cable television entrepreneur John Malone was the second-largest voting shareholder in News Corporation after Murdoch himself, potentially undermining the family's control. In 2007, the company announced that it would sell certain assets and give cash to Malone's company in exchange for its stock. In 2007, the company issued Murdoch's older children voting stock.
Rupert Murdoch has two children with Wendi Deng: Grace (b. New York, 19 November 2001) and Chloe (b. New York, 17 July 2003).. It was revealed in September 2011 that Tony Blair
is Grace's godfather
..There is reported to be tension between Murdoch and his oldest children over the terms of a trust holding the family's 28.5 percent stake in News Corporation, estimated in 2005 to be worth about $6.1 billion. Under the trust, his children by Wendi Deng share in the proceeds of the stock but have no voting privileges or control of the stock. Voting rights in the stock are divided 50/50 between Murdoch on the one side and his children of his first two marriages. Murdoch's voting privileges are not transferable but will expire upon his death and the stock will then be controlled solely by his children from the prior marriages, although their half-siblings will continue to derive their share of income from it. It is Murdoch's stated desire to have his children by Deng given a measure of control over the stock proportional to their financial interest in it (which would mean, if Murdoch dies while at least one of the children is a minor, that Deng would exercise that control). It does not appear that he has any strong legal grounds to contest the present arrangement, and both ex-wife Anna and their three children are said to be strongly resistant to any such change.
are thinly fictionalised as "Keith Townsend" and "Richard Armstrong" in The Fourth Estate by British novelist and former MP Jeffrey Archer.
Rupert Murdoch has been portrayed by Barry Humphries
in the 1991 mini-series Selling Hitler
, Hugh Laurie
in a parody of It's a Wonderful Life
in the television show A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Ben Mendelsohn
in the film Black and White
, Paul Elder in The Late Shift
and by himself on The Simpsons
first in "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday
" and most recently in "Judge Me Tender
".
It has been speculated that the character of Elliot Carver
, the global media magnate and main villain in the 1997 James Bond
movie Tomorrow Never Dies
, is based on Rupert Murdoch. The writer of the film, Bruce Feirstein
, has stated that Carver was actually inspired by British press magnate Robert Maxwell
, who was one of Murdoch's rivals. Since both Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell had the same initials they were often confused by the public.
This confusion was exploited by the writers of the British situation comedy 'Drop the Dead Donkey
' which was set in a TV newsroom
who chose to name the fictional proprietor Sir Roysten Merchant (initials RM).
The writers state on their DVD commentares that it was "fortunate" for them that the two men shared the same initials.
In the 1997 film Fierce Creatures
, the head of Octopus Inc. Rod McCain (initials R.M.) character is likely modeled after Rupert Murdoch.
In 1999, the Ted Turner
owned TBS
aired an original sitcom, The Chimp Channel
. This featured an all-simian
cast and the role of an Australian TV veteran named Harry Waller. The character is described as "a self-made gazillionaire with business interests in all sorts of fields. He owns newspapers, hotel chains, sports franchises and genetic technologies, as well as everyone's favorite cable TV channel, The Chimp Channel." Waller is thought to be a parody of Murdoch, a long-time rival of Turner's.
In 2004, the movie Outfoxed
included many interviews accusing Fox News of pressuring reporters to report only one side of news stories, in order to influence viewers' political opinions.
Murdoch has been listed three times in the Time 100
as among the most influential people in the world. He is ranked 13th most powerful person in the world in the 2010 Forbes
The World's Most Powerful People list. With a personal net worth of US$7.6 billion, he was ranked 117th wealthiest person in the world in March 2011.
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
, KSG (born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-American business magnate
Business magnate
A business magnate, sometimes referred to as a capitalist, czar, mogul, tycoon, baron, oligarch, or industrialist, is an informal term used to refer to an entrepreneur who has reached prominence and derived a notable amount of wealth from a particular industry .-Etymology:The word magnate itself...
. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate
Media conglomerate
A media conglomerate, media group or media institution is a company that owns large numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, radio, publishing, movies, and the Internet...
.
In 1953, Murdoch became managing director of News Limited
News Limited
News Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The publicly listed company's interests span newspaper and magazine publishing, Internet, Pay TV, National Rugby League, market research, DVD and film distribution, and film and television production trading assets.News Limited...
, inherited from his father. In the 1950s and '60s, he acquired various newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World and then The Sun. He moved to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1974 to expand into the US market and became a naturalised US citizen in 1985. In 1981, he bought The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, his first British broadsheet. In 1986, keen to adopt newer electronic publishing technologies, he consolidated his UK printing operations in Wapping
Wapping
Wapping is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets which forms part of the Docklands to the east of the City of London. It is situated between the north bank of the River Thames and the ancient thoroughfare simply called The Highway...
, causing bitter industrial disputes. His News Corporation acquired Twentieth Century Fox (1985), HarperCollins (1989) and The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
(2007). He formed BSkyB in 1990 and during the 1990s expanded into Asian networks and South American television. By 2000 Murdoch's News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion.
In July 2011 Murdoch faced allegations that his companies, including the News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...
, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty and public citizens. He faced police and government investigations into bribery and corruption in the UK and FBI investigations in the US.
Early life
Rupert Murdoch was born in MelbourneMelbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, the only son of Sir Keith Murdoch
Keith Murdoch
Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch was an Australian journalist and the father of Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and Chairman of News Corp.-Life and career:Murdoch was born in Melbourne in 1885, the son of Annie and the Rev...
(1885–1952) and Elisabeth Joy (née Greene) (b. 1909). Elisabeth is of English and Scottish ancestry. They were both born in Melbourne. Keith was a renowned war correspondent and later a regional newspaper magnate.The encyclopedia of the history of American management (2005) Morgen Witzel Continuum International Publishing Group p393 ISBN 9781843711315 He asked for a rendezvous after seeing her debutante photograph in one of his own newspapers and they married in 1928, when she was aged 19 and he 23 years her senior. In addition to Rupert, the couple had three daughters: Janet Calvert-Jones, Anne Kantor and Helen Handbury (1929–2004).
Rupert Murdoch attended the elite Geelong Grammar School
Geelong Grammar School
Geelong Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, co-educational, boarding and day school. The school's main campus is located at Corio, on the northern outskirts of Geelong, Victoria, Australia, overlooking Corio Bay and Limeburners Bay....
, where he had his first experience of editing a publication, being co-editor of the school's official journal The Corian and editor of the student journal If Revived. He worked part time at the Melbourne Herald and was groomed by his father from an early age to take over the family business. Murdoch read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Worcester College, Oxford University
Worcester College, Oxford
Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in the eighteenth century, but its predecessor on the same site had been an institution of learning since the late thirteenth century...
in England, where he supported the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
. After her husband's death from cancer in 1952, Elisabeth Murdoch went on to invest herself in charity work, as life governor of the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne and establishing the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. At 102 (in 2011) she has 74 descendants. Rupert Murdoch did an MA before working as a sub-editor with the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
for two years.
Activities in Australia and New Zealand
Following his father's death, when he was 21, Murdoch returned from Oxford to take charge of the family business News LimitedNews Limited
News Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The publicly listed company's interests span newspaper and magazine publishing, Internet, Pay TV, National Rugby League, market research, DVD and film distribution, and film and television production trading assets.News Limited...
, which had been established in 1923. Rupert Murdoch turned its newspaper, Adelaide News
The News (Adelaide)
The News was an afternoon daily tabloid newspaper in the city of Adelaide, South Australia.The newspaper was established in 1869 as the Evening Journal. In 1933, a controlling stake was taken by The Advertiser, controlled by the Herald and Weekly Times. HWT sold off The News in 1949, and Sir Keith...
, its main asset, into a major success. He began to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion, buying the troubled Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (Western Australia)
The Sunday Times, owned by News Limited, is a tabloid Sunday newspaper printed in Perth and distributed throughout Western Australia.-History:...
in Perth, Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
(1956) and over the next few years acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
, including the Sydney afternoon tabloid, The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror (Australia)
The Daily Mirror was an afternoon paper established by Ezra Norton in Sydney, Australia in 1941, gaining a licence from the Minister for Trade and Customs, Eric Harrison, despite wartime paper rationing. In October 1958, Norton and his partners sold his newspapers to the Fairfax group, which...
(1960). The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
describes Murdoch as "inventing the modern tabloid", as he developed a pattern for his newspapers, increasing sports and scandal coverage and adopting eye-catching headlines.
Murdoch's first foray outside Australia involved the purchase of a controlling interest in the New Zealand daily The Dominion. In January 1964, while touring New Zealand with friends in a rented Morris Minor after sailing across the Tasman, Murdoch read of a takeover bid for the Wellington paper by the British-based Canadian newspaper magnate, Lord Thomson of Fleet. On the spur of the moment, he launched a counter-bid. A four-way battle for control ensued in which the 32-year-old Murdoch was ultimately successful. Later in 1964, Murdoch launched The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
, Australia's first national daily newspaper, and its first broadsheet, which was based first in Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
and later in Sydney. In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney morning tabloid The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
from Australian media mogul Sir Frank Packer
Frank Packer
Sir Douglas Frank Hewson Packer, KBE , was an Australian media proprietor who controlled Australian Consolidated Press and the Nine Network.-Biography:...
, who later regreted selling it to him. In 1984, Murdoch was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia for services to publishing.
In 1999, Murdoch significantly expanded his music holdings in Australia by acquiring the controlling share in a leading Australian independent label, Michael Gudinski
Michael Gudinski
Michael Solomon Gudinski, AM is an Australian entrepreneur and businessman currently based in Melbourne who is a leading figure in the Australian music industry...
's Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records
Mushroom Records is an Australian recoJrd company formed by Michael Gudinski and Ray Evans in Melbourne in 1972. After its sale in 1998, it merged into Festival Mushroom Records. From 2005 to 2009, it is one of the record labels operated by Warner Bros...
; he merged that with Festival Records
Festival Records (Australia)
Festival Records was an Australian music recording and publishing company which was founded in Sydney in 1952 and operated until 2005....
, and the result was Festival Mushroom Records (FMR). Both Festival and FMR were managed by Murdoch's son James Murdoch for several years.
Political activities in Australia
Murdoch found a political ally in John McEwenJohn McEwen
Sir John "Black Jack" McEwen, GCMG, CH , was an Australian politician and the 18th Prime Minister of Australia...
, leader of the Australian Country Party (now known as the National Party of Australia
National Party of Australia
The National Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Traditionally representing graziers, farmers and rural voters generally, it began as the The Country Party, but adopted the name The National Country Party in 1975, changed to The National Party of Australia in 1982. The party is...
), who was governing in coalition with the larger Menzies-Holt Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
. From the very first issue of The Australian Murdoch began taking McEwen's side in every issue that divided the long-serving coalition partners. (The Australian, 15 July 1964, first edition, front page: "Strain in Cabinet, Liberal-CP row flares.") It was an issue that threatened to split the coalition government and open the way for the stronger Australian Labor Party to dominate Australian politics. It was the beginning of a long campaign that served McEwen well.
After McEwen and Menzies
Robert Menzies
Sir Robert Gordon Menzies, , Australian politician, was the 12th and longest-serving Prime Minister of Australia....
retired, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
under the leadership of Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
and duly saw it elected on a social platform that included universal free health care, free education for all Australians to tertiary level, recognition of the People's Republic of China, and public ownership of Australia's oil, gas and mineral resources. Rupert Murdoch's backing of Whitlam turned out to be brief. Murdoch had already started his short-lived National Star newspaper in America, and was seeking to strengthen his political contacts there.
Asked about the Australian federal election, 2007 at News Corporation's annual general meeting in New York on 19 October 2007, its chairman Rupert Murdoch said, "I am not commenting on anything to do with Australian politics. I'm sorry. I always get into trouble when I do that." Pressed as to whether he believed Prime Minister John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
should be re-elected, he said: "I have nothing further to say. I'm sorry. Read our editorials in the papers. It'll be the journalists who decide that – the editors." In 2009, in response to accusations by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
that News Limited was running vendettas against him and his government, Murdoch opined that Rudd was "oversensitive" Murdoch described Howard's successor, Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Kevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
, as "...more ambitious to lead the world [in tackling climate change] than to lead Australia..." and criticised Rudd's expansionary fiscal policies in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 as unnecessary. Although News Limited's interests are extensive, also including the Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
, the Courier-Mail and the Adelaide Advertiser, it was suggested by the commentator Mungo MacCallum
Mungo Wentworth MacCallum
Mungo Wentworth MacCallum is an Australian political journalist and commentator.He is the son of Mungo Ballardie MacCallum , and Diana Wentworth a great granddaughter of the Australian explorer and politician William Charles Wentworth...
in The Monthly
The Monthly
The Monthly is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz...
that "the anti-Rudd push, if coordinated at all, was almost certainly locally driven" as opposed to being directed by Murdoch, who also took a different position from local editors on such matters climate change and stimulus packages to combat the financial crisis.
Business activities in Britain
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
from IPC
IPC Media
IPC Media , a wholly owned subsidiary of Time Inc., is a consumer magazine and digital publisher in the United Kingdom, with a large portfolio selling over 350 million copies each year.- Origins :...
.. Murdoch turned The Sun into a tabloid format and reduced costs by using the same printing press for both newspapers. In 1997 The Sun attracted 10 million daily readers. In 1981, Murdoch acquired the struggling Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
from Canadian newspaper publisher Lord Thomson of Fleet
Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet
Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet , in Canada known as Ken Thomson, was a Canadian businessman and art collector who, at the time of his death, was the richest person in Canada, and the ninth richest person in the world, according to Forbes.com, with assets of approximately US $17.9...
. Ownership of The Times came to him through his relationship with Lord Thomson, who had grown tired of losing money on it as a result of much industrial action that stopped publication. In the light of success and expansion at The Sun the owners believed that Murdoch could turn the papers around. Harold Evans
Harold Evans
Sir Harold Matthew Evans is a British-born journalist and writer who was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981. He has written various books on history and journalism...
, Editor of the Sunday Times from 1967, was made head of the daily Times, though he stayed only a year amidst editorial conflict with Murdoch.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Murdoch's publications were generally supportive of Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
. At the end of the Thatcher
Premiership of Margaret Thatcher
The Premiership of Margaret Thatcher began on 4 May 1979, with a mandate to reverse the UK's economic decline and to reduce the role of the state in the economy...
/Major era, Murdoch switched his support to the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
and its leader, Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
. The closeness of his relationship with Blair and their secret meetings to discuss national policies was to become a political issue in Britain. Though this later started to change, with The Sun publicly renouncing the ruling Labour government and lending its support to David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....
's Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
, which soon after came to form a coalition government. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official spokesman said in November 2009 that Brown and Murdoch "were in regular communication" and that "there is nothing unusual in the prime minister talking to Rupert Murdoch".
In 1986, Murdoch introduced electronic production processes to his newspapers in Australia, Britain and the United States. The greater degree of automation led to significant reductions in the number of employees involved in the printing process. In England, the move roused the anger of the print unions, resulting in a long and often violent dispute that played out in Wapping
Wapping
Wapping is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets which forms part of the Docklands to the east of the City of London. It is situated between the north bank of the River Thames and the ancient thoroughfare simply called The Highway...
, one of London's docklands areas, where Murdoch had installed the very latest electronic newspaper purpose-built publishing facility in an old warehouse. The bitter dispute at Wapping started with the dismissal of 6,000 employees who had gone on strike and resulted in street battles and demonstrations. Many on the political left in Britain alleged the collusion of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government with Murdoch in the Wapping affair, as a way of damaging the British trade union movement. In 1987, the dismissed workers accepted a settlement of £60 million.
Murdoch's British-based satellite network, Sky Television
Sky Television plc
Sky Television plc was a public limited company which operated its four-channel satellite television service, launched by Rupert Murdoch's News International on 5 February 1989...
, incurred massive losses in its early years of operation. As with many of his other business interests, Sky was heavily subsidised by the profits generated by his other holdings, but convinced rival satellite operator British Satellite Broadcasting
British Satellite Broadcasting
British Satellite Broadcasting was a British television company which provided direct broadcast satellite television services to the United Kingdom...
to accept a merger on his terms in 1990. They were quick to see advantages of direct to home (DTH) satellite broadcasting that did not require costly cable networks and the merged company, BSkyB, has dominated the British pay-TV market ever since. By 1996, BSkyB had more than 3.6 million subscribers, triple the number of cable customers in the UK.
In response to print media's decline and the increasing influence of online journalism during the 2000s, Murdoch proclaimed his support of the micropayments model for obtaining revenue from on-line news, although this has been criticised by some.
News Corporation has subsidiaries in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands
Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and overseas territory of the European Union located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica...
, the Channel Islands
Channel Islands
The Channel Islands are an archipelago of British Crown Dependencies in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two separate bailiwicks: the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey...
and the Virgin Islands
Virgin Islands
The Virgin Islands are the western island group of the Leeward Islands, which are the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, which form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean...
. From 1986, News Corporation's annual tax bill averaged around seven percent of its profits.
Political activities in Britain
In Britain, in the 1980s, Murdoch formed a close alliance with Margaret ThatcherMargaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
, and The Sun credited itself
It's The Sun Wot Won It
"It's The Sun Wot Won It" is a famous headline that appeared on the front-page of The Sun on Saturday 11 April 1992, and has since become a political catch phrase in the United Kingdom.-Origin:...
with helping John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
to win an unexpected election victory in the 1992 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1992
The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...
. In the general elections of 1997
United Kingdom general election, 1997
The United Kingdom general election, 1997 was held on 1 May 1997, more than five years after the previous election on 9 April 1992, to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party ended its 18 years in opposition under the leadership of Tony Blair, and won the general...
, 2001
United Kingdom general election, 2001
The United Kingdom general election, 2001 was held on Thursday 7 June 2001 to elect 659 members to the British House of Commons. It was dubbed "the quiet landslide" by the media, as the Labour Party was re-elected with another landslide result and only suffered a net loss of 6 seats...
and 2005
United Kingdom general election, 2005
The United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
, Murdoch's papers were either neutral or supported Labour
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
under Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
. This has led some critics to argue that Murdoch simply supports the incumbent parties (or those who seem most likely to win an upcoming election) in the hope of influencing government decisions that may affect his businesses. The Labour Party, under Blair, had moved from the Left to a more central position on many economic issues prior to 1997. Murdoch identifies himself as a libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
, saying "What does libertarian mean? As much individual responsibility as possible, as little government as possible, as few rules as possible. But I'm not saying it should be taken to the absolute limit."
In a speech delivered in New York, Rupert Murdoch said that the British Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
described the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
coverage of the Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
disaster as being full of hatred of America.
In 1998, Rupert Murdoch failed in his attempt to buy the football club Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
with an offer of £625 million. It was the largest amount ever offered for a sports club. It was blocked by the United Kingdom's Competition Commission
Competition Commission
The Competition Commission is a non-departmental public body responsible for investigating mergers, markets and other enquiries related to regulated industries under competition law in the United Kingdom...
, which stated that the acquisition would have "hurt competition in the broadcast industry and the quality of British football".
On 28 June 2006 the BBC reported that Murdoch and News Corporation were flirting with the idea of backing Conservative leader
Leaders of the Conservative Party
The Leader of the Conservative Party is the most senior politician within the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. The post is currently held by David Cameron, who s eeded Michael Howard in 2005, and who since 2010 is also the serving Prime Minister....
David Cameron at the next General Election. In a later interview in July 2006, when he was asked what he thought of the Conservative leader, Murdoch replied "Not much". In a 2009 blog, it was suggested that in the aftermath of the News of the World phone hacking scandal which is still ongoing in 2011 and might yet have Transatlantic implications Murdoch and News Corporation might have decided to back Cameron. Despite this, there had already been a convergence of interests between the two men over the muting of Britain's communications regulator Ofcom
Ofcom
Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
.
In 2006, Britain's Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
newspaper reported that Murdoch would offer Tony Blair a senior role in his global media company News Corporation when the prime minister stood down from office.
He is accused by former Solidarity MSP
Member of the Scottish Parliament
Member of the Scottish Parliament is the title given to any one of the 129 individuals elected to serve in the Scottish Parliament.-Methods of Election:MSPs are elected in one of two ways:...
Tommy Sheridan
Tommy Sheridan
Tommy Sheridan is a Scottish socialist politician. He has had various prominent roles within the socialist movement in Scotland and is currently one of two co-convenors of the left-wing Scottish political party Solidarity....
of having a personal vendetta against him and of conspiring with MI5
MI5
The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...
to produce a video of him confessing to having affairs – allegations over which Sheridan had previously sued News International
News International
News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....
and won. On being arrested for perjury
Perjury
Perjury, also known as forswearing, is the willful act of swearing a false oath or affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to a judicial proceeding. That is, the witness falsely promises to tell the truth about matters which affect the outcome of the...
following the case, Sheridan claimed that the charges were "orchestrated and influenced by the powerful reach of the Murdoch empire".
In August 2008 British Conservative leader and future Prime Minister David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....
accepted free flights to hold private talks and attend private parties with Murdoch on his yacht, the Rosehearty. Cameron has declared in the Commons register of interests he accepted a private plane provided by Murdoch's son-in-law, public relations guru Matthew Freud
Matthew Freud
Matthew Freud is head of Freud Communications, an international public relations firm in the United Kingdom.-Biography:...
; Cameron has not revealed his talks with Murdoch. The gift of travel in Freud's Gulfstream IV
Gulfstream IV
The Gulfstream IV and derivatives are a family of twin-jet aircraft, mainly for private or business use. The aircraft was designed and built by Gulfstream Aerospace, a General Dynamics company based in Savannah, Georgia, United States from 1985 until 2003.-Design and development:Gulfstream, in...
private jet was valued at around £30,000. Other guests attending the "social events" included the then EU trade commissioner Lord Mandelson
Peter Mandelson
Peter Benjamin Mandelson, Baron Mandelson, PC is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Hartlepool from 1992 to 2004, served in a number of Cabinet positions under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and was a European Commissioner...
, the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska
Oleg Deripaska
Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska is the Russian Chief executive officer of Basic Element company and a member of the Board of Directors and CEO of United Company RUSAL, a Russian aluminium industry company...
and co-chairman of NBC Universal
NBC Universal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...
Ben Silverman
Ben Silverman
Benjamin Noah "Ben" Silverman is the founder and CEO of Electus, a next generation entertainment studio staked by IAC's Barry Diller....
. The Conservatives have not disclosed what was discussed.
In July 2011 it emerged that Cameron met key executives of Murdoch's News Corporation 26 times during the 14 months that Cameron had served as Prime Minister. It was also reported that Murdoch had given Cameron a personal guarantee that there would be no risk attached to hiring Andy Coulson
Andy Coulson
Andrew Edward Coulson is an English journalist and political strategist.Coulson was the editor of the News of the World from 2003 until his resignation in 2007, following the conviction of one of the newspaper's reporters in relation to illegal phone-hacking.He subsequently joined David Cameron's...
, the former editor of News of the World, as the Conservative Party's communication director in 2007. This was in spite of Coulson having resigned as editor over phone hacking by a reporter. Cameron chose to take Murdoch's advice, despite warnings from Nick Clegg
Nick Clegg
Nicholas William Peter "Nick" Clegg is a British Liberal Democrat politician who is currently the Deputy Prime Minister, Lord President of the Council and Minister for Constitutional and Political Reform in the coalition government of which David Cameron is the Prime Minister...
, Lord Ashdown
Lord Ashdown
Lord Ashdown can refer to:*Arnold Silverstone, Baron Ashdown *Paddy Ashdown , Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon...
and The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. Coulson resigned his post in 2011 and was later arrested and questioned on allegations of further criminal activity at The News of the World, specifically the News International phone hacking scandal.
News International phone hacking scandal
In July 2011 Rupert Murdoch along with his son James gave testimony before a British parliamentaryParliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
committee regarding phone hacking. In the U.K his media empire remains under fire as investigators continue to probe reports of other phone hacking.
On 14 July, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee of the House of Commons served a summons
Summons
Legally, a summons is a legal document issued by a court or by an administrative agency of government for various purposes.-Judicial summons:...
on Murdoch, his son James
James Murdoch (media executive)
James Rupert Jacob Murdoch is the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and currently serves as chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, Europe, and Asia, overseeing assets such as News International , SKY Italia , Sky Deutschland, and STAR TV .He sits on the News...
, and his former CEO Rebekah Brooks to testify before a committee on 19 July. After an initial refusal, the Murdochs confirmed they would attend after the committee issued them a summons to Parliament. The day before the committee, the website of the News Corporation publication The Sun was hacked, and a bogus story was posted on the front page claiming that Murdoch had died. Murdoch described the day of the committee "the most humble day of my life". He argued that since he ran a global business of 53,000 employees and that the News of the World was "just 1%" of this, he was not ultimately responsible for what went on at the tabloid. He added that he had not considered resigning, and that he and the other top executives had been completely unaware of the hacking.
On 15 July Rupert Murdoch attended a private meeting in London with the family of Milly Dowler, where he personally apologised for the hacking of their murdered daughter's voicemail by a company he owns. On 16 and 17 July, News International published two full-page apologies in many of Britain's national newspapers. The first apology took the form of a letter, signed by Rupert Murdoch, in which he said sorry for the "serious wrongdoing" that occurred. The second was titled "Putting right what's gone wrong", and gave more detail about the steps News International was taking to address the public's concerns. In the wake of the allegations Murdoch accepted the resignations of Rebekah Brooks, head of Murdoch's British operations, and Les Hinton
Les Hinton
Leslie Frank "Les" Hinton is a British-American journalist and businessman. Hinton, born in the UK, became a United States citizen in 1986. He was appointed CEO of Dow Jones & Company in December 2007, after its acquisition by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation...
, head of The Wall Street Journal who was chairman of Murdoch's British newspaper division when some of the abuses happened. They both deny any knowledge of any wrong-doing under their command.
Activities in the United States
Murdoch made his first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when he purchased the San Antonio Express-NewsSan Antonio Express-News
The San Antonio Express-News is the daily newspaper of San Antonio, Texas. It is ranked as the third-largest daily newspaper in the state of Texas in terms of circulation, and is one of the leading news sources of South Texas, with offices in Austin, Brownsville, Laredo, and Mexico City...
. Soon afterwards, he founded Star, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976, he purchased the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
. On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalised citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only US citizens were permitted to own American television stations. This resulted in Murdoch losing his Australian citizenship. Also in 1985, Murdoch purchased the 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
movie studio.In 1986, Murdoch purchased six television stations owned by Metromedia
Metromedia
Metromedia was a media company that owned radio and television stations in the United States from 1956 to 1986 and owned Orion Pictures from 1986-1997.- Overview :...
. These stations would form the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
, founded on 9 October 1986, which would go on to have great success with programmes such as The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
and The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
. In 1987 in Australia, he bought The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd
The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd
The Herald and Weekly Times Limited is a newspaper publishing company based in Melbourne, Australia. It is owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch's News Limited, who purchased HWT in 1987.-Newspapers:...
, the company that his father had once managed. By 1990 News Corporation had built up debts of $7 billion (much from Sky TV in the UK). forcing Murdoch to sell many of the American magazine interests he had acquired in the mid-1980s. In 1993 took exclusive of the National Football League (NFL) from CBS
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
and increased programming to seven days a week. In 1995, Murdoch's Fox Network became the object of scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission
Federal Communications Commission
The Federal Communications Commission is an independent agency of the United States government, created, Congressional statute , and with the majority of its commissioners appointed by the current President. The FCC works towards six goals in the areas of broadband, competition, the spectrum, the...
(FCC), when it was alleged that News Ltd.'s Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. However, the FCC ruled in Murdoch's favour, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the best interests of the public. That same year, Murdoch announced a deal with MCI Communications
MCI Communications
MCI Communications Corp. was an American telecommunications company that was instrumental in legal and regulatory changes that led to the breakup of the AT&T monopoly of American telephony and ushered in the competitive long-distance telephone industry. It was headquartered in Washington,...
to develop a major news website and magazine, The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard
The Weekly Standard is an American neoconservative opinion magazine published 48 times per year. Its founding publisher, News Corporation, debuted the title September 18, 1995. Currently edited by founder William Kristol and Fred Barnes, the Standard has been described as a "redoubt of...
. Also that year, News Corporation launched the Foxtel
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
pay television network in Australia in partnership with Telstra
Telstra
Telstra Corporation Limited is an Australian telecommunications and media company, building and operating telecommunications networks and marketing voice, mobile, internet access and pay television products and services....
. In 1996, Murdoch decided to enter the cable news market with the Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel
Fox News Channel , often called Fox News, is a cable and satellite television news channel owned by the Fox Entertainment Group, a subsidiary of News Corporation...
, a 24-hour
24-hour news cycle
The 24-hour news cycle arrived with the advent of television channels dedicated to news, and brought about a much faster pace of news production with increased demand for stories that can be presented as news, as opposed to the day-by-day pace of the news cycle of printed daily newspapers...
cable news
United States cable news
Cable news refers to television channels devoted to television news broadcasts, with the name deriving from the proliferation of such networks during the 1980s with the advent of cable television. In the United States, early networks included CNN in 1980, Financial News Network in 1981, and CNN2 ...
station. Ratings studies released in 2009 showed that the network was responsible for nine of the top ten programs in the "Cable News" category at that time. Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
(founder and former owner of CNN) are long-standing rivals. In late 2003, Murdoch acquired a 34 percent stake in Hughes Electronics, the operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV
DirecTV
DirecTV is an American direct broadcast satellite service provider and broadcaster based in El Segundo, California. Its satellite service, launched on June 17, 1994, transmits digital satellite television and audio to households in the United States, Latin America, and the Anglophone Caribbean. ...
, from General Motors for $6 billion (USD). His Fox movie studio would go on to have global hits with Titanic
Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
and Avatar.
In 2004, Murdoch announced that he was moving News Corporation headquarters from Adelaide, Australia to the United States. Choosing a US domicile was designed to ensure that American fund managers could purchase shares in the company, since many were deciding not to buy shares in non-US companies. Some analysts believed that News Corporation's Australian domicile was leading to the company being undervalued compared with its peers.
Intermix Media
Intermix Media, Inc. was a Los Angeles-based Internet marketing company founded in 1998 that owned the MySpace website...
, which held Myspace, Imagine Games Network and other social networking-themed websites, for $580 million USD, making Murdoch a major in online media concerns. In June 2011, it sold off Myspace for US$35 million. On 11 September 2005, News Corporation announced that it would buy IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
Entertainment for $650 million (USD).
In May 2007, Murdoch made a $5 billion offer to purchase Dow Jones
Dow Jones & Company
Dow Jones & Company is an American publishing and financial information firm.The company was founded in 1882 by three reporters: Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. Like The New York Times and the Washington Post, the company was in recent years publicly traded but privately...
. At the time, the Bancroft family
Bancroft family
The Bancroft family are the former owners of Dow Jones & Company — publishers of the Wall Street Journal — which is now owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation .- The family :...
, who had owned the Dow Jones for 105 years and controlled 64% of the shares at the time, firmly declined the offer, opposing Murdoch's much-used strategy of slashing employee numbers and gutting existing systems. Later, the Bancroft family confirmed a willingness to consider a sale. Besides Murdoch, the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
reported that supermarket magnate Ron Burkle and Internet entrepreneur Brad Greenspan
Brad Greenspan
Brad Greenspan is an internet entrepreneur who has been involved in the founding and proliferation of web properties including MySpace. Greenspan founded eUniverse Inc. in 1998, which went public in 1999. The company survived the .com-bust of 2001 and was the incubator that launched MySpace.com in...
were among the other interested parties. In 2007, Murdoch had acquired Dow Jones, an acquisition which gave Murdoch such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Barron's Magazine
Barron's Magazine
Barron's is an American weekly newspaper covering U.S. financial information, market developments, and relevant statistics. Each issue provides a wrap-up of the previous week's market activity, news reports, and an informative outlook on the week to come....
, the Far Eastern Economic Review
Far Eastern Economic Review
The Far Eastern Economic Review was an English language Asian news magazine started in 1946. It printed its final issue in December 2009. The Hong Kong-based business magazine was originally published weekly...
(based in Hong Kong) and SmartMoney
SmartMoney
SmartMoney The Wall Street Journal Magazine of Personal Business was launched in 1992 by Hearst Corporation and Dow Jones & Company. In 2010, Hearst sold its stake to Dow Jones. Its first editor was Norman Pearlstine....
.
Political activities in the United States
McNight (2010) identifies four characteristics of his media operations: free marketFree market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
ideology; unified positions on matters of public policy; global editorial meetings; and opposition to a perceived liberal bias in other public media
Media bias
Media bias refers to the bias of journalists and news producers within the mass media in the selection of events and stories that are reported and how they are covered. The term "media bias" implies a pervasive or widespread bias contravening the standards of journalism, rather than the...
.
On 8 May 2006, the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
reported that Murdoch would be hosting a fund-raiser for Senator Hillary Clinton's (D-New York) Senate re-election campaign. In a 2008 interview with Walt Mossberg, Murdoch was asked whether he had "anything to do with the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
s endorsement of Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
in the democratic primaries." Without hesitating, Murdoch replied, "Yeah. He is a rock star. It's fantastic. I love what he is saying about education. I don't think he will win Florida... but he will win in Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
and the election. I am anxious to meet him. I want to see if he will walk the walk." Murdoch is a strong supporter of Israel and its domestic policies.
In 2010 News Corporation gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association
Republican Governors Association
The Republican Governors Association is a Washington, D.C.-based 527 organization founded in 1963, consisting of U.S. state and territorial governors affiliated with the Republican Party.Its Democratic Party counterpart is the Democratic Governors Association...
and $1 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Murdoch also served on the board of directors of the libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
Cato Institute
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, who remains president and CEO, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of the conglomerate Koch Industries, Inc., the largest privately held...
.
Activities in Europe
Murdoch owns controlling interest in Sky Italia, a satellite television provider in Italy.Business Week Murdoch's business interest in Italy have been a source of contention since they began. In 2010 Murdoch won a media dispute with Italian Prime Minister Silvio BerlusconiSilvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi , also known as Il Cavaliere – from knighthood to the Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 – is an Italian politician and businessman who served three terms as Prime Minister of Italy, from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006, and 2008 to 2011. Berlusconi is also the...
. A judge ruled the Italian Prime Minister's media arm Mediaset
Mediaset
Mediaset S.p.A., known as Gruppo Mediaset in Italian, is an Italian-based media company which is the largest commercial broadcaster in the country...
prevented News Corporation's Italian unit, Sky Italia, from buying advertisements on its television networks.
Activities in Asia
In 1993, Murdoch acquired Star TVSTAR TV (Asia)
Satellite Television Asian Region is an Asian TV service owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.In 2009, News Corporation restructured STAR Asia into four units – STAR India, STAR Greater China, STAR Select and Fox International Channels....
, a Hong Kong company founded by Richard Li
Richard Li
Richard Li Tzar Kai is the younger son of successful entrepreneur Li Ka-Shing and brother of Victor Li.Li was 26th in the Forbes List of Hong Kong’s 40 Richest people for 2010...
for $1 billion (Souchou, 2000:28), and subsequently set up offices for it throughout Asia. The deal enables News International to broadcast from Hong Kong to India, China, Japan and over thirty other countries in Asia, becoming one of the biggest satellite TV networks in the east.However, the deal did not work out as Murdoch had planned, because the Chinese government placed restrictions on it that prevented it from reaching most of China.
Marriages
In 1956 Murdoch married Patricia Booker, a former shop assistant and flight attendant from Melbourne and they had their first child, Prudence, in 1958. Rupert and Patricia Murdoch divorced in 1967. In 1967 Murdoch married Anna Torv, a Scottish-born cadet journalist working for his Sydney newspaper The Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
(not to be mistaken for the actress Anna Torv
Anna Torv
Anna Torv is an Australian actress known for her role as FBI agent Olivia Dunham on the Fox television series Fringe.-Early life:...
of Fringe
Fringe (TV series)
Fringe is an American science fiction television series created by J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. The series follows a Federal Bureau of Investigation "Fringe Division" team based in Boston, Massachusetts under the supervision of Homeland Security...
who is the elder Torv's niece). During his marriage to Torv, a Roman Catholic, Murdoch was awarded the KSG, a papal honour. Torv and Murdoch had three children: Elisabeth Murdoch
Elisabeth Murdoch (businesswoman)
Elisabeth Murdoch is an executive in the British television industry and a daughter of international media mogul Rupert Murdoch...
(born in Sydney, Australia on 22 August 1968), Lachlan Murdoch
Lachlan Murdoch
Lachlan Keith Murdoch is the eldest son of Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his second wife Anna Torv. He resigned from his executive positions at News Corporation on 29 July 2005...
(born in London, UK on 8 September 1971), and James Murdoch
James Murdoch (media executive)
James Rupert Jacob Murdoch is the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and currently serves as chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, Europe, and Asia, overseeing assets such as News International , SKY Italia , Sky Deutschland, and STAR TV .He sits on the News...
, (born in London on 13 December 1972). Murdoch's companies published two novels by his then wife: Family Business (1988) and Coming to Terms (1991), both widely regarded as vanity publications. They divorced in June 1999. Anna Murdoch received a settlement of US$ 1.2 billion in assets.
On 25 June 1999, 17 days after divorcing his second wife, Murdoch, then aged 68, married Chinese-born Deng Wendi (Wendi Deng
Wendi Deng
Wendi Deng Murdoch is a Chinese-born American businesswoman. She is the third wife of News Corporation Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, and is leading her husband's Chinese media investments.In 1988 she was sponsored by an American family for a student visa...
). She was 30, a recent Yale School of Management
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
graduate, and a newly appointed vice-president of his STAR TV
STAR TV
Satellite Television Asia Region is an Asian TV service owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It is headquartered in Hong Kong, with regional offices in mainland China, Taiwan....
. Murdoch has two children with her.
Children
Murdoch has six children.. His eldest child Prudence MacLeod was appointed, on 28 January 2011, to the board of Times Newspapers Ltd, part of News InternationalNews International
News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....
, which publishes The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times is a British Sunday newspaper.The Sunday Times may also refer to:*The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times *The Sunday Times...
. Murdoch's eldest son Lachlan
Lachlan Murdoch
Lachlan Keith Murdoch is the eldest son of Australian-American media mogul Rupert Murdoch and his second wife Anna Torv. He resigned from his executive positions at News Corporation on 29 July 2005...
, formerly the deputy chief operating officer at the News Corporation and the publisher of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, was Murdoch's heir apparent
Heir apparent
An heir apparent or heiress apparent is a person who is first in line of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting, except by a change in the rules of succession....
before resigning from his executive posts at the global media company at the end of July 2005. Lachlan's departure left James Murdoch
James Murdoch (media executive)
James Rupert Jacob Murdoch is the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and currently serves as chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, Europe, and Asia, overseeing assets such as News International , SKY Italia , Sky Deutschland, and STAR TV .He sits on the News...
chief executive of the satellite television service British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....
since November 2003, as the only Murdoch son still directly involved with the company's operations, though Lachlan has agreed to remain on the News Corporation's board.
After graduating from Vassar College
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
and marrying classmate Elkin Kwesi Pianim (the son of Ghanaian financial and political mogul Kwame Pianim
Kwame Pianim
A. Kwame Pianim is a celebrated Ghanaian business economist and investment consultant. After ten years as a political prisoner, he made a 1996 bid to run for the presidency of Ghana. Switching gears, he found success as a businessman in Accra.-Family:...
) in 1993, Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth
Elisabeth Murdoch (businesswoman)
Elisabeth Murdoch is an executive in the British television industry and a daughter of international media mogul Rupert Murdoch...
, along with her husband, purchased a pair of NBC-affiliate television stations in California, KSBW
KSBW
KSBW is a television station in the United States and is the primary NBC affiliate for the Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz, California market. The station is owned by Hearst Television. KSBW has its studios on John Street in downtown Salinas, which is mentioned occasionally during commercial breaks...
and KSBY, with a $35 million loan provided by her father. By quickly re-organising and re-selling them at a $12 million profit in 1995, Elisabeth emerged as an unexpected rival to her brothers for the eventual leadership of the publishing dynasty's empire. But after divorcing her first husband in 1998 and quarrelling publicly with her assigned mentor Sam Chisholm
Sam Chisholm
Sam Chisholm is a media executive born in New Zealand. He was a significant figure in Australian media. He ran Kerry Packer's Nine Network for a significant period during the 1980s before moving to the UK to work for Packer's rival Rupert Murdoch in rescuing the newly established BSkyB from...
at BSkyB, she struck out on her own as a television and film producer in London. She has since enjoyed independent success, in conjunction with her second husband, Matthew Freud
Matthew Freud
Matthew Freud is head of Freud Communications, an international public relations firm in the United Kingdom.-Biography:...
, the great-grandson of Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
(the founder of psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
) whom she met in 1997 and married in 2001..
It is not known how long Murdoch will remain as News Corporation's CEO. For a while the American cable television entrepreneur John Malone was the second-largest voting shareholder in News Corporation after Murdoch himself, potentially undermining the family's control. In 2007, the company announced that it would sell certain assets and give cash to Malone's company in exchange for its stock. In 2007, the company issued Murdoch's older children voting stock.
Rupert Murdoch has two children with Wendi Deng: Grace (b. New York, 19 November 2001) and Chloe (b. New York, 17 July 2003).. It was revealed in September 2011 that Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
is Grace's godfather
Godfather
A godfather is a male godparent in the Christian tradition.Godfather may also refer to:*A male arranged to be legal guardian of a child if untimely demise is met by the parentsPeople:* Capo di tutti capi, a Mafia crime boss...
..There is reported to be tension between Murdoch and his oldest children over the terms of a trust holding the family's 28.5 percent stake in News Corporation, estimated in 2005 to be worth about $6.1 billion. Under the trust, his children by Wendi Deng share in the proceeds of the stock but have no voting privileges or control of the stock. Voting rights in the stock are divided 50/50 between Murdoch on the one side and his children of his first two marriages. Murdoch's voting privileges are not transferable but will expire upon his death and the stock will then be controlled solely by his children from the prior marriages, although their half-siblings will continue to derive their share of income from it. It is Murdoch's stated desire to have his children by Deng given a measure of control over the stock proportional to their financial interest in it (which would mean, if Murdoch dies while at least one of the children is a minor, that Deng would exercise that control). It does not appear that he has any strong legal grounds to contest the present arrangement, and both ex-wife Anna and their three children are said to be strongly resistant to any such change.
Portrayal on television, in film, books and music
Rupert Murdoch and rival newspaper and publishing magnate Robert MaxwellRobert Maxwell
Ian Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...
are thinly fictionalised as "Keith Townsend" and "Richard Armstrong" in The Fourth Estate by British novelist and former MP Jeffrey Archer.
Rupert Murdoch has been portrayed by Barry Humphries
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...
in the 1991 mini-series Selling Hitler
Selling Hitler
Selling Hitler is a 1991 ITV television drama-documentary mini-series about the Hitler Diaries hoax and was based on Robert Harris's 1986 book Selling Hitler: The Story of the Hitler Diaries.-Plot:...
, Hugh Laurie
Hugh Laurie
James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
in a parody of It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life is a 1946 American Christmas drama film produced and directed by Frank Capra and based on the short story "The Greatest Gift" written by Philip Van Doren Stern....
in the television show A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Ben Mendelsohn
Ben Mendelsohn
Paul Benjamin "Ben" Mendelsohn is an Australian actor.-Early life:Mendelsohn was born in Melbourne, Australia, the son of Carole Ann and Frederick Mendelsohn. He attended Heidelberg Primary School and Banyule High School. His father is a prominent medical researcher who heads the Howard Florey...
in the film Black and White
Black and White (2002 film)
Black and White is a 2002 Australian film, directed by Craig Lahiff and starring Robert Carlyle, Charles Dance, Kerry Fox, David Ngoombujarra, and Colin Friels.Louis Nowra wrote the screenplay and Helen Leake and Nik Powell produced the film...
, Paul Elder in The Late Shift
The Late Shift (film)
The Late Shift is a 1996 American TV movie produced by HBO. It is directed by Betty Thomas and based on the book of the same name by The New York Times media reporter Bill Carter.-Plot synopsis:...
and by himself on The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
first in "Sunday, Cruddy Sunday
Sunday, Cruddy Sunday
"Sunday, Cruddy Sunday" is the twelfth episode of The Simpsons tenth season. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 31, 1999, just after Super Bowl XXXIII. In the episode, while buying new tires for his car, Homer meets a travel agent called Wally Kogen...
" and most recently in "Judge Me Tender
Judge Me Tender
"Judge Me Tender" is the twenty-third episode and season finale of The Simpsons twenty-first season. It is the 464th episode for the series and originally premiered in the United States on May 23, 2010, on Fox Broadcasting Company. In the episode, Moe discovers his talent for judging in...
".
It has been speculated that the character of Elliot Carver
Elliot Carver
Elliot Carver is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. In the film, he is portrayed by Welsh actor Jonathan Pryce. Screenwriter Bruce Feirstein modelled the character on Robert Maxwell, but many viewers analysed Carver as a satirical take on...
, the global media magnate and main villain in the 1997 James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
movie Tomorrow Never Dies
Tomorrow Never Dies
Tomorrow Never Dies is the eighteenth spy film in the James Bond series, and the second to star Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. Bruce Feirstein wrote the screenplay, and it was directed by Roger Spottiswoode. It follows Bond as he tries to stop a media mogul from engineering...
, is based on Rupert Murdoch. The writer of the film, Bruce Feirstein
Bruce Feirstein
Bruce Feirstein is an American screenwriter and humorist, best known for his contributions to the James Bond series and his best-selling humor books, including Real Men Don't Eat Quiche and Nice Guys Sleep Alone. Real Men Don't Eat Quiche was on the New York Times best seller list for 53...
, has stated that Carver was actually inspired by British press magnate Robert Maxwell
Robert Maxwell
Ian Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...
, who was one of Murdoch's rivals. Since both Rupert Murdoch and Robert Maxwell had the same initials they were often confused by the public.
This confusion was exploited by the writers of the British situation comedy 'Drop the Dead Donkey
Drop the Dead Donkey
- Major characters :* Gus Hedges — The unctuous Chief Executive of the company, and yes-man to Sir Roysten Merchant. A management stereotype, complete with clichés and clumsy metaphors, he swiftly transforms GlobeLink from a serious news network to a ratings-chasing tabloid channel...
' which was set in a TV newsroom
who chose to name the fictional proprietor Sir Roysten Merchant (initials RM).
The writers state on their DVD commentares that it was "fortunate" for them that the two men shared the same initials.
In the 1997 film Fierce Creatures
Fierce Creatures
Fierce Creatures is a 1997 comedy film. Although not a sequel, it was a follow-up to the wildly popular A Fish Called Wanda, starring the same four actors, John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin...
, the head of Octopus Inc. Rod McCain (initials R.M.) character is likely modeled after Rupert Murdoch.
In 1999, the Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
owned TBS
TBS (TV channel)
TBS , stylized in the logo as tbs, is an American cable television channel owned by Time Warner that shows a variety of programming, with a focus on comedy. TBS was originally known as WTCG, a UHF terrestrial television station that broadcast from Atlanta, Georgia, during the late 1970s...
aired an original sitcom, The Chimp Channel
The Chimp Channel
The Chimp Channel is an American comedy television series which aired on TBS Superstation in 1999. Based on the highly popular Monkey-ed Movies interstitials that TBS aired one year prior. It is the network's first original sitcom...
. This featured an all-simian
Simian
The simians are the "higher primates" familiar to most people: the Old World monkeys and apes, including humans, , and the New World monkeys or platyrrhines. Simians tend to be larger than the "lower primates" or prosimians.- Classification and evolution :The simians are split into three groups...
cast and the role of an Australian TV veteran named Harry Waller. The character is described as "a self-made gazillionaire with business interests in all sorts of fields. He owns newspapers, hotel chains, sports franchises and genetic technologies, as well as everyone's favorite cable TV channel, The Chimp Channel." Waller is thought to be a parody of Murdoch, a long-time rival of Turner's.
In 2004, the movie Outfoxed
Outfoxed
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism is a 2004 documentary film by filmmaker Robert Greenwald that criticises the Fox News Channel, and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, claiming that the channel is used to promote and advocate right-wing views...
included many interviews accusing Fox News of pressuring reporters to report only one side of news stories, in order to influence viewers' political opinions.
Influence and wealth
According to the 2011 list of Forbes richest Americans, Murdoch is the 38th richest person in the US and the 117th-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $7.6 billion.Murdoch has been listed three times in the Time 100
Time 100
Time 100 is an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world, as assembled by Time. First published in 1999 as a result of a debate among several academics, the list has become an annual event.-History and format:...
as among the most influential people in the world. He is ranked 13th most powerful person in the world in the 2010 Forbes
Forbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
The World's Most Powerful People list. With a personal net worth of US$7.6 billion, he was ranked 117th wealthiest person in the world in March 2011.
External links
- Profile at ForbesForbesForbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
- Murdoch, Rupert (1931–) resources from Trove at the National Library of Australia
- Bill Moyers on Rupert Murdoch, 29 June 2007
- Arsenault, A & Castells, M. (2008) Rupert Murdoch and the Global Business of Media Politics. International Sociology. 23(4)
- Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Gives Big To GOP – audio report by NPRNPRNPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
- Review of Bruce Page's "The Murdoch Archipelago", by Godfrey Hodgson. New Statesman