RUPERT MURDOCH -News
Corp,
the media company built by Rupert
Murdoch,
joined
the Standard Poor's 500 stock
index after the close of trading
on Dec. 17, 2004.
------The
change is being made as News
Corp., which earns roughly 80
percent of its profit in the
United States and has corporate
headquarters in New York,
reincorporates in Delaware and
shifts its main stock market
listing to the New York Stock
Exchange. Shareholders
overwhelmingly approved the
reincorporation last month. ------Built
by Murdoch from a single
newspaper in Adelaide, Australia,
News Corp. now ranks as one of
the world's biggest media
empires. It owns the Fox
Entertainment Group Inc. network,
20th Century Fox film studios,
and many newspaper and satellite
assets. .
-
CONTINUED
•
(Continued)
-
We
have taken a good look to see if there was
a different Murdoch answering question
during his recent February 2007 TV
interview seen above on YouTube, and the
Rupert Murdoch interviewed during his
SkyFORUM seminar tviNews covered in April
2001, at the Marriott in New York City.
-----
His
positive outlook is still the same, and
that's why he's been selected once again
as TVI's person of the month. The Chairman
& Chief Executive of News Corporation
and Sky Global Networks was the Keynote
speaker at his 2001 SkyFORUM discussing at
length, his role in shaping the industry's
future into what it is
today. From
the1907 Wireless Telephone™ -- to the
stylings of WiFi LookRadio, operating as
iPhones, carrying vFoxWebNews events over
land-lines that can be stored on MySpace
with VOD
cababilities.
-----
"Mr. Murdoch was TVI's first POW in
1987, and it was my first "hands-on"
publication", founded by SamDonaldson in
1956, says TVI publisher, Josie Cory,
during the interview for this Byline
Story. "After taking over the magazine
from Al Preiss, (see
page 18, "Tribute To A Publisher")
I needed something hot . . . so it was
Fox, the Internet, LookRadio and
computers."
-----
During the TVI interview, FOX: A
FOURTH NETWORK? -- Three constant key
words kept popping up; two political
parties, two baseball leagues and three
networks. Perhaps because the time was
right, and according to Jamie Kellner, the
then Fox Broadcasting president and CEO,
Murdoch commenced Fox to start the fourth
network.
----- "It
will work when other ventures haven't
because the time is right for a fourth
network despite what has and is being
written in the media. There are enough
advertising dollars to make this a
success. Almost $1 billion is leaving the
networks, and going to cable and barter
television, he said."
Kellner asserted that there wasn't enough
ad time available at reasonable costs in
network television, that would enable,
would be advertisers to go national, . . .
therefore . . . "the Fox Network,", said
Josie Cory.
---Ja((Jamie
Kellner would later become the founder of
the WB Network.)
-----
It
took Murdoch another five years to
announce his plans to go international.
Again, TVI was there on Thursday, April
5th, 2001 at the Marriott Marquis in New
York City, when Murdoch himself, the
Chairman and Chief Executive, News
Corporation and Sky Global Networks -
discussed his role in shaping the
industry's future and satellites, at his
own SkyFORUM seminar.
"Rupert Murdoch embodies to me the
confluence that occurs when you combine
the erudition, philosophy and pragmatism",
of the finest of Americans, said Josie
Cory. TVI's
legal entertainment journalist,
Pat Maginnis explains it this
way: -----Ayn
Rand would worship the ground Rupert
Murdoch walks on, and she would marvel
that her heroic fictional character John
Galt has finally been anthropomorphosed
into a man who is not an ideologue, but a
bottom liner.
-----As Ayn Rand once said in
defining her philosophy of objectivism:
"My philosophy, in essence, is the concept
of man as a heroic being, with his own
happiness as the moral purpose of his
life, with productive achievement as his
noblest activity, and reason as his only
absolute."
-----Alvin Toffler would lustily
embrace Rupert Murdoch as the
reincarnation of his warning to the world
that: "Man has a limited biological
capacity for change. When this capacity is
overwhelmed, the capacity is in future
shock." Rupert Murdoch has lived this
philosophy of Alvin Toffler all of his
life.
----- Rupert Murdoch, seems to have
picked up a few of Barry Goldwater
political visionary thoughts. He was not a
curmudgeon, and he treated his employees
very well. He was also a bottom liner who
felt government that governs least governs
best. He was not for pork barrel spending
and he abhorred government subsidies of
any kind. His work: "Why Not Victory," is
a mirror image of the hard driving life
story of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, it
exemplifies Rupert Murdoch's approach to
government that include values that foster
balanced budgets, denigrate bureaucracies,
and foster innovation -- not for blind
followers, and not for
conformists."
-----Like this web page stresses,
Murdoch has done it by himself, and he
still maintains control over his vast
empire, which includes: publishing, TV,
movies, magazines, satellite transmission
and the famous TV Guide. His critics have
torched him as a right wing ideologue who
is ruthless, and is hell bent on success.
So what if he does not act or look like
Richard Branson? He is just as
successful.
-----A friend of mine, named John
Ferretti, who works for Rupert Murdoch at
DIRECTV loves the company, his job and the
company philosophy in spite of all the
media critics who prefer political
correctness over progress and
results.
-----In his own philosophical bent
Rupert Murdoch tells us "I'm a catalyst
for change... You can't be an outsider and
be successful over 30 years without
leaving a certain amount of scar tissue
around the
place."
-----"The world is changing very
fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It
will be the fast beating the slow." Rupert
Murdoch is also a man of religious ideals.
He received the award of the Order of the
Knights of Malta from Cardinal Roger
Mahoney in Los Angeles several years
ago.
-----"Rupert Murdoch is truly A Man
For All Seasons as Erasmus would gladly
tell all of us," says Patrick
Maginnis. Global
reach
------Strangely
for a man who despises the aristocracy and
praises meritocracy, Murdoch has
shamelessly promoted three of his four
grown-up children to run his
companies.
------Though
his daughter, Elizabeth, left Sky
Television to pursue her own dreams, sons
James and Lachlan remain poised to take
over from their father, whose recent brush
with prostate cancer caused tremors in
financial markets.
------Whether
pronouncing on New Labour (he is broadly
in favor) or on the Euro (he is firmly
against British participation), Rupert
Murdoch continues to live up to his
billing as a press baron.
------An
early apostle of digital broadcasting,
Murdoch entered the Internet business just
as the smart money left town. It is clear
that he still sees plenty of dragons ripe
for slaying.
------With
no intention of retiring, Rupert Murdoch's
many fans and enemies may well have to put
up with the Digger for some time yet. Rupert
Murdoch is probably the bravest
deal-maker the world has ever known" --
says Andrew Neil - "he
bought London's News of the
World." ------
1968
brought a major breakthrough, when Murdoch
beat Robert Maxwell to buy London's News
of the World. He later incorporated the
Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times into
his News International group.
------It
was the Sun which introduced bare breasts
to the breakfast table and which, during
the 1982 Falklands conflict, provided
history's most infamous
headline.
------GOTCHA!,
screamed the paper's front page after the
sinking of the Argentinean cruiser,
General Belgrano, to huge
outrage.-
-----As
Charles Foster Kane once put it: "If the
headline is big enough, it makes the news
big enough." Murdoch
went from strength to strength. Moving to
New York in the '70s, he snapped up, and
revitalized, both the New York Post and
New York
magazine.
------But
it was the 1980s which, in many people's
minds, defined Murdoch.
Leaving
Fleet Street for good, he relocated to
Wapping in London's East End, refused to
recognize unions and sacked 5000
workers.
------Vowing
to "shock people into a new attitude,"
Murdoch fought a year-long battle which,
though eventually victorious, made him
into a bogey-man for many on the
left.
------But
Andrew Neil, his former right-hand man at
the Sunday Times and Sky Television,
called Murdoch "probably the most
inventive, the bravest deal-maker the
world has ever
known."
------Profits
from Murdoch's lower-cost newspaper empire
offset the losses he accrued at Sky
Television, allowing him to buy the rights
to Premiership football and revolutionize
the sport, to many people's disgust.
CLICK
FOR
MORE
Part
02 /
TIMELINE
-
Life
- ACHIEVEMENTS -----1931
- Rupert Murdoch was born in
Melbourne, Australia,
-----1953
- After earning his degree at Oxford
University, Murdoch remained in England to
work as a junior editor for the London
Daily Express. The major factor that
guided Rupert into the field of
Journalism, was a. his father. Sir Keith
died, when Rupert was just 22. Sir Keith
had been the CEO of Australia's largest
newspaper chain. The Murdoch family's
inheritance included a remote radio
station and the weakest papers of the
group, the Adelaide News and
Sunday Mail.
------In
1954
Murdoch
returned to Australia
and took charge of the Adelaide News,
stimulating circulation of many of his
newspapers by creating a tabloid mix of
sex, crime, and sports stories topped with
giant sensationalized headlines. He sold
Adelaide News in 1987. (Name
changed, in 1992), -----In
1956, Murdoch started building his
media empire with the purchase of a Perth
Sunday newspaper in 1956, and
in -----
1960
he entered the Sydney market by acquiring
the Sydney Daily and Sunday
Mirror. His hard-sell promotions and
lurid stories boosted the circulation's of
both papers.
------
In
1964 Murdoch founded Australia's first
national newspaper, The Australian, which
featured national and international news,
investigative reporting, local issues and
'Sleaze'.Soon he had expanded his legacy into a
nationwide business, encompassing
newspapers, magazines and television
stations.
Even
then, he was accused of peddling sleaze.
He responded with typical
directness,
-- "I'm
rather sick of snobs who tell us they're
bad papers, snobs who only read papers
that no-one else wants," he
said -----
By
1968 his Australian empire of
newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting
stations was worth an estimated $50
million. He married his second wife,
Anna.
------
In 1973 he made his first U.S.
acquisition with the purchase of the
San Antonio Express and
News.
------This
was followed by the founding of TheNational Star (later shortened to
The Star), a supermarket tabloid.
Murdoch's next inroad into American
journalism was his purchase of the New
York Post
------
in
1976, quickly followed by the
takeover of a company that published
New York Magazine, the Village
Voice, and New West.
------
In
1981 Murdoch bought control of the
renowned London Times and Sunday
Times.
Highlights
of the early 80s
showed
the world that sensationalism made
headlines. His London papers aimed at the
working classes, and the foundering
London Daily Sun, a stodgy liberal
paper, became king. Murdoch applied his
tabloid mix of sex, crime, and sports
topped with huge headlines. Circulation
soared, and he went on to purchase other
British newspapers and broadcasting
interests. "But
it was the 1980s", said Al Preiss, in his
TVInews reports, when "in many people's
minds, they defined Murdoch as a Union
buster".
------
Leaving
Fleet Street for good, in 1984, he
relocated his operations to Wapping in
London's East End. He refused to recognize
unions and sacked 5000 workers to keep the
papers in business. "Rupert Murdoch, is a
political visionary similar to Barry
Goldwater's conservative ideology" says,
entertainment attorney, Pat Maginnis. "He
was not a curmudgeon, and he treated his
employees very well, but he was also a
bottom liner who felt government that
governs least governs best. Like
Goldwater, he was not for pork barrel
spending and he abhorred government
subsidies and union control of any kind.
His work: "Why Not Victory," is a mirror
image of the hard driving life story of
presidential hopeful and businessman,
Barry Goldwater".
------
In1985, he becomes a United States
citizen, to
comply with the country's media ownership
laws.
------Highlights
of the
mid-80s.
-----
His
holdings
expanded
to
include Fox Broadcasting Studios, in
Hollywood.
As
owner of Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox
television network, Hollywood has given
him credit for both the hit TV show,
"Simpsons", and the blockbuster feature
film,
"Titanic".
------
Adelaide
News(sold in
1987 and closed in
1992). Murdoch purchased
Adelaide in 1954. It was a
marginally profitable afternoon daily
paper. Applying his Daily Express
experience, he created the giant
sensationalized headlines that were to
become his trademark, and the paper's
readership soared.
------
In
1987, TVI Magazine, in an
interview with Murdoch, predicts the
success of his forth network, and the
expansion of Desk Top Publishing into
every office -- and its uses to transfer
information over the telephone land
line.
------
In
1988 His holdings
expandedto
include Fox Broadcasting
Company, for which he assumed the
chairman and chief executive roles in
1992.
------In
1988 TV Guide was acquired. By
1989 Murdoch's empire included newspapers,
television stations, a movie studio,
publishing houses, magazines, and large
shares in news
services.
-----
But
by 1991 his Australia-based News
Corporation, Limited had accumulated
immense debts, which resulted in his
selling most of his American magazine
holdings.
-------
In
1995 the Federal Communications
Commission (FCC) ruled that News Corp. had
proven that its ownership of Fox
Broadcasting was in the public's best
interests, even though News Corp.'s share
of the station exceeded the limit for
foreign ownership of a broadcasting
station. In the same year Murdoch
announced that he would fund a new, weekly
conservative magazine about politics, and
News Corp. and MCI agreed to form a new
company to electronically supply
information
worldwide.
------
The
Dirty Digger of popular repute now enjoys
a global reach, using a sophisticated
system of communications satellites to
reach his audience, whether in Baltimore,
Pasadena or
Beijing.
------Domestically,
though, Murdoch's life has been
complicated, to say the least. After a
short-lived early marriage, he and his
second wife, Anna,
------
divorced
in 1999, after 31
years.
------
Three weeks
later he married, Wendi Deng,
a
Chinese-born News Corp executive. He was
68, she 32.
------
SkyFORUM
seminars commenced in April 2001, New York
City. MORE
STORY - SKY
FORUM-
------Rupert
and Wendi's
child,
Grace,
was born in November 2001.
ByLines:
Related Stories
MORE
STORY - SKY FORUM
"You see things
that are and ask why. I see things that
never were and say why not?" - George
Bernard Shaw. It was in the 1980s, when Al
Preiss, the co-founder of TVI, first
became interested in the life of Rupert
Murdoch, and we have followed his
accomplishments ever since.
