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Keith Rupert Murdoch AC KCSG (/ ˈ m ɜːr d ɒ k / MUR-dok; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American business magnate, investor, and media proprietor.
- Wendi Deng
In June 2013, Rupert Murdoch filed for divorce from Deng,...
- Jerry Hall
Jerry Faye Hall (born July 2, 1956) is an American model and...
- Anna Torv
Anna Maria dePeyster DSG (née Torv; formerly Murdoch and...
- Prudence
Prudence "Prue" Murdoch MacLeod (formerly Odey; born 1958)...
- James Murdoch
James Rupert Jacob Murdoch (born 13 December 1972) is a...
- Elisabeth Murdoch
Elisabeth Murdoch CBE (born 22 August 1968) is an...
- Patrick John Murdoch
Patrick John Murdoch (10 June 1850 – 1 July 1940) was a...
- Ivon Murdoch
Murdoch was born in Camberwell, Victoria, the son of an...
- News Corporation
The original incarnation of News Corporation (abbreviated...
- Matthew Freud
Freud's first wife was Caroline Hutton with whom he had two...
- Wendi Deng
- Overview
- Early life and career
- Acquisitions: News of the World, The Sun, and The Times
- 20th Century Fox, Fox News, and The Wall Street Journal
Rupert Murdoch (born March 11, 1931, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) Australian-born American newspaper publisher and media entrepreneur who founded (1979) the global media holding company the News Corporation Ltd.—often called News Corp. It focused on publishing after a reorganization in which its media and television holdings were spun off (2013)...
Murdoch, the son of Sir Keith Murdoch (1886–1952), a famous Australian war correspondent and publisher, studied at Worcester College, Oxford (M.A., 1953), and briefly worked as an editor on Lord Beaverbrook’s London Daily Express, where he first gained practical experience in the sensationalist journalism that would be a major influence early in hi...
By the time that Murdoch acquired his first British newspaper in 1969—the News of the World of London—he had put together a proven formula for boosting circulation, which entailed an emphasis on crime, sex, scandal, and human-interest stories with boldface headlines, prolific sports reporting, and outspokenly conservative editorializing. This formula was successful with both the News of the World and The Sun, a London daily that he acquired the following year.
In 1973 Murdoch entered the American newspaper business by purchasing two San Antonio, Texas, dailies, one of which—the San Antonio News (later the Express-News)—he transformed into a sex-and-scandal sheet that soon dominated the city’s afternoon market. In 1974 he introduced a national weekly sensationalist tabloid, the Star, and in 1976 he purchased the afternoon tabloid New York Post, but in the late 1980s he sold both, profitably; he repurchased the Post in 1993. He also purchased the Boston Herald American from the Hearst Corporation in 1982 and changed the name to the Boston Herald (sold 1994). He bought TV Guide in 1988 (sold 2008). Overall in the 1980s and ’90s he bought and later sold a number of American publications—such as the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York City Village Voice, and New York magazine. Among Murdoch’s diverse publications were a number of more conventional and respected newspapers, such as The Times of London and the Sunday Times (both acquired in 1981) and the Australian (a national daily that he established in 1964). Murdoch took up residence in the United States in 1974 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1985, based in New York City.
In the 1980s and ’90s Murdoch amassed major holdings in other communications ventures, including radio and television stations and video, film, and record companies, as well as book publishing. In 1985 he acquired the Twentieth Century–Fox Film Corporation (later called 20th Century Fox) and bought several independent American television stations from Metromedia, Inc., and then consolidated both these ventures into a new company, Fox, Inc., which has since become a major broadcast television network in the United States, rivaling ABC, CBS, and NBC. He bought the Australian news group the Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. in 1987. He thereafter purchased a number of book-publishing companies—including, in the United States, the prestigious Harper & Row Publishers (1987), the religious publisher Zondervan (1988), and the giant textbook and trade publisher Scott, Foresman & Company (1989), and, in the United Kingdom, the venerable William Collins PLC (1989). These companies and some operations in Australia and New Zealand were merged in 1990 as HarperCollins Publishers. In Britain in 1989 Murdoch inaugurated Sky Television, a four-channel satellite service, which merged with the rival British Satellite Broadcasting in 1990 to become British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). In 2014 the company was renamed Sky after it acquired various sister companies in Europe.
This heady expansion burdened Murdoch’s international media conglomerate with a heavy debt, which he reduced by selling off New York, Seventeen, the Daily Racing Form, and several other American magazines. In 1993 he purchased Star TV, a pan-Asian television service based in Hong Kong, as part of his plan to build a global television network. In 1995 the News Corporation entered into a partnership with MCI Communications Corporation, a major provider of long-distance telecommunications services in the United States. The following year Murdoch sought to expand his presence in American television with the launch of Fox News, a news and political commentary channel that became highly influential. He subsequently looked to increase his company’s Internet holdings, and in 2005 he bought Intermix Media, owner of Myspace.com, a social networking site that had more than 30 million members. Two years later he made news with the announcement that the News Corporation was acquiring Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, for $5 billion. Myspace suffered declining membership with the rise of rival social networking site Facebook, and News Corporation sold the site in 2011 for $35 million, hundreds of millions of dollars less than its purchase price.
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- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Sep 21, 2023 · Learn about the life and career of Rupert Murdoch, the Australian-born media mogul who built a global empire of newspapers, TV stations, and film studios. Find out his latest news, net worth, children, and wives.
Sep 21, 2023 · Rupert Murdoch, the 92-year-old media tycoon who announced his retirement on Thursday, spent the past 70 years building a global media empire that gave him influence in journalism, politics and...
Sep 23, 2023 · Sky News analysis of the media mogul's legacy, from his Australian roots to his global empire. Learn how he shaped newspapers, broadcasting and politics in the UK, the US and Australia, and faced scandals and challenges.
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Jun 11, 2015 · From his roots in an Australian newspaper family, Rupert Murdoch has built a powerful international media empire that has considerably altered the journalistic landscape in many countries,...
Apr 3, 2019 · As the head of a sprawling global media empire, he commanded multiple television networks, a global news service, a major publishing house and a Hollywood movie studio.
