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overview
This profile considers Rupert Murdoch and the News group.
It covers -
There
are supplementary profiles on New Zealand's Independent
Newspapers Ltd (INL), on the Herald
& Weekly Times (H&WT) group
and on 20th Century Fox and the
Fox Network.
introduction
News Corporation is one of the three largest international
media groups, operating in most sectors and most continents.
Its main site
includes the group's annual report and information about
its global holdings. In 2000 the group had assets of around
US$36 billion and annual revenue of US$14 billion. At
the beginning of 2003 assets were around US$42 billion,
with revenues of US$16 billion. By April 2004 some 75%
of revenue was attributable to operations in the US. At
that time News announced plans to shift its corporate
domicile from Australia to the US (which would facilitate
access to capital) and to buy the Murdoch family's controlling
stake in Queensland Press, which was partly owned by News
and had a substantial stake in News.
The announcement followed agreement by News in 2003 to
acquire 34% of Hughes Electronics for US$6.6 billion,
buying GM’s 19.9% stake in Hughes and a further
14.1% from other Hughes shareholders. That 34% stake was
to be transferred to Fox Entertainment Group, Inc, an
80.6%-owned News subsidiary, increasing News Corp.'s equity
interest in FEG to approximately 82%. The Hughes acquisition
includes satellite broadcaster DIRECTV (over 11 million
subscribers in the US), an 81% equity holding in satellite
operator PanAmSat and Hughes Network Systems, the world's
leading provider of broadband satellite network solutions.
News announced disposal to Fairfax
of its 50% stake in New Zealand's Independent Newspapers
Ltd (INL), a deal that added 80
newspaper and magazine titles to Fairfax's operations,
including The Dominion Post,The Press, Sunday News,
The Sunday Star-Times, seven regional dailies, 61
community publications, 13 magazine titles, commercial
printing interests and the Gordon & Gotch distribution
business in New Zealand.
In 2005 it sold the TSL Education division (inc Times
Educational Supplement, Times Higher Education
Supplement and Nursery World) to Exponent
Private Equity for £235
million. That unit had pre-tax profits of £23m on
sales of £56m in 2004.
In December 2006 News agreed to buy out Liberty's
stake in that company in exchange for sale to Liberty
of News' 39% stake in DirecTV, US$550 million cash and
other assets (with an aggregate value of US$11 billion).
That transaction will allow both sides to avoid paying
taxes and represent a gain of around US$5 billion on News'
investment in DirecTV. The expectation was that News Corporation
will retire Liberty's 19% voting stake in a major share
buyback that will increase the Murdoch family's stake
to around 36%.
In 2007 News acquired Dow Jones
(centred on the Wall Street Journal and Barrons)
for around US$5 billion. The same year saw Macrovision
agree to buy Gemstar-TV Guide International (41% held
by News) for US$2.8bn
News
history
A
chronology of the group's development is here.
News
holdings
An indication of News holdings
is here.
They encompass film production and distribution, television
production and broadcasting, advertising, newspaper
and magazine publishing, book publishing, football teams
and other sports ownership, multimedia, information technology
and music publishing.
At various times the group has also included substantial
pastoral, bauxite mining, airline and aircraft leasing
interests, reflecting opportunistic investment and acquisition
of groups such as Ansett that included media assets.
the family
George Munster's A Paper Prince (Melbourne:
Viking 1985), Neil Chenoweth's Virtual Murdoch: Reality
Wars on the Information Highway (London: Secker &
Warburg 2001) and Bruce Page's The Murdoch Archipelago
(New York: Simon & Schuster 2003) are arguably the
most perceptive biographies of Rupert Murdoch. They are
more insightful - or merely less respectful - than Murdoch
(London: Chatto & Windus 1992) by the otherwise excellent
William Shawcross.
Munster's observation, courtesy of former Murdoch cohort
Richard Searby, that Murdoch is a fidget, a man going
for a random walk with a line (and his own money, unlike
many of the moguls), holds true. In a June 2002 FT
interview Murdoch commented that
We
start with the written word. Then we get to TV, originally
with the idea that it will protect the advertising base
and it then progresses into a medium of its own with
news, programmes and ideas. You then look at TV and
you say: 'Look, we don't want to just buy programmes
from a Hollywood studio, we'd better have one.' Then
comes the issue of people who are going to deliver your
programmes. Cable is consolidating ... Instead of having
20 gatekeepers, you are going to have three or four.
For content providers, that is very bad news. So, you
try to protect yourself in having some distribution
power.
Richard
Stott, in criticising Page's biography in 2003, commented
that Murdoch
is
shown to be manipulative, devious, bullying, ruthless
and unscrupulous. But that just makes him a newspaper
proprietor. What makes him special is that he isn't
interested in the usual playthings of newspaper owners
such as Beaverbrook, Northcliffe and William Randolph
Hearst, namely political power for mischievous personal
ends. For him it is the currency to secure a bigger
and better deal or to consolidate current ones.
Whether
the dynasty will last beyond the third generation is another
question altogether. Wendy Rohm's The Murdoch Mission:
The Digital Transformation of A Media Empire (New
York: Wiley 2001) appears to have high hopes for Rupert's
kids, Paul Barry's
Rich Kids (Sydney: Bantam 2002) more incisive study
of the One.Tel
debacle is less positive.
An insight - more of a squint - into the family dynamics
is provided by John Monks' soft-focus biography Elizabeth
Murdoch (Sydney: Pan 1995) of Rupert's mum.
As we have suggested in the more detailed profile on the
Heralfd & Weekly Times group, father Sir Keith Murdoch
has yet to receive the biography that he deserves. Scholars
are perforce reliant on the entry in volume 10 of the
Australian Dictionary of Biography (Melbourne:
Melbourne Uni Press), the reverential Keith Murdoch:
Founder of a Media Empire (Sydney: HarperCollins
2003) by RM Younger and the shorter In Search of Keith
Murdoch (Macmillan: South Melbourne 1980) by Desmond
Zwar.
studies
Murdoch-watching has become a minor industry. Among
the more entertaining products are the batch from News
executives, including Full Disclosure (London:
Macmillan 1996) by former Economist and Sunday
Times editor Andrew Neil; Good Times, Bad Times
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1983) by former editor
Harold Evans; the less splenetic Sundry Times (London:
John Murray 1986) by former editor Harold Giles and Rupert's
Adventures in China: How Murdoch Lost a Fortune and Found
a Wife (London: Mainstream 2008) by Bruce Dover.
There is a more positive account in Dennis Hamilton's
Editor-in-Chief: Fleet Street Memoirs (London:
Hamish Hamilton 1989), Chance Governs All (London:
Macmillan 2001) by Marmaduke Hussey and The Pearl of
Days: An Intimate Memoir of The Sunday Times 1822-1972
(London: Hamish Hamilton 1972) by Harold Hobson, Phillip
Knightley & Leonard Russell.
Among journalistic bios we have read but don't recommend
Thomas Kiernan's bracing Citizen Murdoch (New York:
Dodd Mead 1986), the superficial Murdoch (London:
Piatkus 1989) by Jerome Tuccille and the doom-&-gloom
Murdoch: The Decline of An Empire (London: Macdonald
1991) by Richard Belfield, Christopher Hird & Sharon
Kelly: the show isn't over until the fat lady (or corporate
receiver) sings.
Barefaced Cheek: Rupert Murdoch (London: Hodder &
Stoughton 1983) is a glib effort by Michael Leapman, better
known for his more interesting Treachery: The Power
Struggle at TV AM (Unwin Hyman, London 1989), an account
of gameplaying by David Frost, Murdoch, Bruce Gyngell
and others. Rupert Murdoch: A Business Biography
(London: Angus & Robertson 1976) by Simon Regan has
an in-house flavour midway through Murdoch's colonisation
of the UK.
Tabloid Baby: An Uncensored Account of Revolution That
Gave Birth to 21st Century Television News Broadcasting
(New York: Celebrity Books 1999) by Burt Kearns is
a tabloid-flavoured expose of the birth of the Fox
television network, now the fourth member of the 'Big
Three' national networks in the US.
It replaces Alex Block's Outfoxed: Marvin Davis, Rupert
Murdoch, Joan Rivers & the Inside Story of America's
4th Television Network (New York: St Martins 1990). That
was news but is now heading, like most tabloids, to fish
& chip wrapper status. Matthew Horsman's Sky
High (London: Orion 1998) is a more positive account
of BSkyB, the Murdoch-dominated satellite broadcaster,
than Dished! The Rise and Fall of the British Satellite
Broadcasting (London: Simon & Schuster 1991) by
Peter Chippindale & Suzanne Franks.
Stuart Crainer's Business the Rupert Murdoch Way: 10
Secrets of the World's Greatest Dealmaker (Oxford:
Capstone 1999) is disappointing, consistent with others
in the series such as Business the Bill Gates Way
(one secret of Bill = "Be True To Yourself").
Save your money and buy Jock Given's The Death of Broadcasting
(Sydney: Uni of NSW Press 1999). Trevor Barr's thoughtful
Newmedia.com.au: The Changing Face of Australia's Media
and Communications (St Leonards: Allen & Unwin
2000) is essential reading in understanding the interaction
between politicians, bureaucrats, business, consumers
and technology.
AFR journalist Mark Westfield offers a blow by
blow account of Foxtel and News' local pay television
adventures in The Gatekeepers: The Global Media Battle
to control Australia's Pay TV (Annandale: Pluto Press
2000). There's a dry account of Foxtel in Cento Veljanovski's
72 page IPA paper (PDF)
on Pay TV in Australia: Markets & Mergers.
Both should be read in conjunction with Vertical Integration
in Cable Television (Cambridge: MIT Press 1997) by
David Waterman & Andrew Weiss.
Murdoch will remain of significance as the catalyst for
restructuring Fleet Street (with just a little help from
his friends Margaret Thatcher and the electricians union).
As a starting point consult Timothy Marjoribank's News
Corporation, Technology & the Workplace: Global Strategies,
Local Change (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni Press 2000).
Charles Wintour's The Rise & Fall of Fleet Street
(Hutchinson: London 1989) and The Market For Glory
(London: Faber 1986) by Simon Jenkins offer perspectives
on 'old media' in the UK, further explored in the Fleet
Street page.
For the Sun see Stick It Up Your Punter: The
Uncut Story of the Sun Newspaper (London: Simon &
Schuster 1999) by Peter Chippindale & Chris Horrie.
There is an elegant account of the TLS in Critical
Times: The History of the Times Literary Supplement
(New York: HarperCollins 2001) by Derwent May. For the
New York Post ('headless body in topless bar'),
the Star and trash-tv show Hard Copy see
Jeannette Walls' Dish: How Gossip became the News and
the News became just another Show (New York: Perennial
2000), discussed here.
For the New York Post see The Lady Upstairs:
Dorothy Schiff and The New York Post (New York: St
Martin's Press 2007) by Marilyn Nissenson.
Andrew Harris' Selling Hitler (London: Faber 1987),
about the 'Hitler Diaries' fiasco, is a romp. All in all,
Murdoch comes out of that hoax looking quite astute, which
is more than can be said for patricians and experts such
as Hugh Trevor-Roper and William Rees-Mogg.
For HarperCollins see Eugene Exman's The Brothers Harper:
a unique publishing partnership and its impact upon the
cultural life of America from 1817 to 1853 (New York:
Harper & Row 1965), David Keir's The House of Collins
(London: Collins 1952) and works such as John Tebbel's
four volume A History of Book Publishing In America
(New York: Oxford Uni Press 1972-81) or Thomas Whiteside's
The Blockbuster Complex: Conglomerates, Show Business
& Book Publishing (Middletown: Wesleyan Uni Press
1981).
For Ansett see Ansett: The Collapse (South Melbourne:
Lothian 2002) by Geoff Easdown & Peter Wilms. Media
Mayhem: Playing with the Big Boys in Media (Melbourne:
Brolga 2005) by former H&WT chief executive John D'Arcy
offers insights on the Herald & Weekly Times takeover.
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