Rupert Murdoch

Keith Rupert Murdoch (born on March 11, 1931), is an Australian-born American media proprietor who is the majority shareholder and managing director of News Corporation, one of the world's largest and most influential media corporations. He is one of the few chief executives of any multinational media corporation who (through his family company) has a controlling ownership share in the companies he runs. Beginning with newspapers, magazines and television stations in his native Australia, Murdoch expanded into British and American media, and in recent years has become a powerful force in satellite television, the film industry and other forms of media.

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March 11 - 1931 - Australia - American - Media proprietor - Majority shareholder - News Corporation - British - American media

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Murdoch is generally regarded as the single most politically influential media proprietor in the world, and is regularly courted by politicians in the United States, Britain and Australia.

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United States - Britain - Australia

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Murdoch was born in Melbourne, Australia. His father was Sir Keith Murdoch, a stern and somewhat distant figure who was the son of a Presbyterian minister from Scotland. The elder Murdoch worked as a journalist and adviser to Billy Hughes, the Prime Minister of Australia during World War I, and became Australia's most influential newspaper executive, directing the Melbourne-based Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. He was reportedly often frustrated by young Murdoch's early progress and despaired of his son being able to take over from him. Rupert Murdoch was deeply influenced by his father, and although he clearly wished to emulate him, he often rebelled.

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Melbourne - Australia - Sir Keith Murdoch - Presbyterian - Scotland - Billy Hughes - Prime Minister of Australia - World War I - Herald and Weekly Times Ltd

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Murdoch's mother is Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, born Elisabeth Greene, who was the daughter of an Irish Protestant father and a mother who came from an upper-class family of English descent. (It is sometimes asserted, usually by anti-Semitic groups, that she is of Jewish origin: this is untrue). Dame Elisabeth, at 96, remains a strong influence on Rupert, usually in the direction of moderation.

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Dame Elisabeth Murdoch - Irish - English - Anti-Semitic - Jewish

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The young Murdoch was educated at Geelong Grammar School and later at Worcester College at the University of Oxford. After his father's sudden death in 1952, Rupert returned to Australia to take over the running of his father's business. Although he had expected to inherit a considerable fortune and a prominent position,he was left with a relatively modest inheritance—after death duties and taxes, the main legacy was ownership of the Adelaide News (which gave its name to his company).

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Geelong Grammar School - Worcester College - University of Oxford - 1952

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Over the next few years, Murdoch gradually established himself as one of most dynamic media proprietors in the country, quickly expanding his holdings by acquiring a string of daily and suburban newspapers in most capital cities, including the Sydney afternoon paper, The Daily Mirror, as well as a small Sydney-based recording company, Festival Records. His acquisition of the Mirror proved crucial to his success, allowing him to challenge the dominance of his two main rivals in the Sydney market, the Fairfax Newspapers group, which published the hugely profitable Sydney Morning Herald, and the Consolidated Press group, owned by Sir Frank Packer, which published the city's leading tabloid paper, the Daily Telegraph.

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Sydney - The Daily Mirror - Festival Records - Fairfax Newspapers - Sydney Morning Herald - Consolidated Press - Sir Frank Packer - Daily Telegraph

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In 1964, Murdoch made his next important advance when he established The Australian, Australia's first national daily newspaper, based first in Canberra and later in Sydney. The Australian, a broadsheet, gave Murdoch a new respectability as a "quality" newspaper publisher, and also greater political influence since The Australian has always had an elite readership, if not always a large circulation.

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1964 - The Australian - Canberra - Sydney - Broadsheet

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In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph from Sir Frank Packer, making him one of the "big three" newspaper proprietors in Australia, along with Sir Warwick Fairfax in Sydney and his father's old Herald and Weekly Times Ltd in Melbourne. In the 1972 elections, Murdoch swung his newspapers' support behind Gough Whitlam and the leftist Australian Labor Party, but by 1975 he had turned against Labor, and since then has almost always supported the rightist Liberal Party.

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1972 - Daily Telegraph - Sir Frank Packer - Sir Warwick Fairfax - Herald and Weekly Times Ltd - 1972 elections - Gough Whitlam - Leftist - Australian Labor Party - 1975 - Liberal Party

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Over the next ten years, as his press empire grew, Murdoch established a hugely lucrative financial base, and these profits were routinely used to subsidize further acquisitions. In his early years of newspaper ownership Murdoch was an aggressive, micromanaging entrepreneur. His standard tactic was to buy loss-making Australian newspapers and turn them around by introducing radical management and editorial changes and fighting no-holds-barred circulation wars with his competitors. By the 1970s, this power base was so strong that Murdoch was able to acquire leading newspapers and magazines in both London and New York, as well as many other media holdings.

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Murdoch's desire for dominant cross-media ownership manifested early—in 1961 he bought an ailing Australian record label, Festival Records, and within a few years it had become the leading local recording company. He also bought a television station in Wollongong, New South Wales, hoping to use it to break into the Sydney television market, but found himself frustrated by Australia's cross-media ownership laws, which prevented him from owning both a major newspaper and television station in the same city. Since then he has consistently lobbied, both personally and through his papers, to have these laws changed in his favor.

Related Topics:
Festival Records - Wollongong - New South Wales

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