| overview
holdings
landmarks
related:
Fox
H&WT
INL
|
landmarks
This chronology is indicative only. It covers -
- the
father - Keith Murdoch and antecedents,
1788-1952
- Rupert
in Australia (1954-1964)
- expansion
into the UK (1963-1985)
- and
into the US (1985-1996)
- global
media (1997)
- expatriation
(2003)
Context
is provided by the broader communications and media timeline
on this site.
the father
1788 London Daily Universal Register becomes The
Times
1840 Port Philip Herald (later Melbourne Herald)
first published
1850 Harper's magazine founded in US
1869 Herald becomes evening paper
1885 Keith Murdoch born in Melbourne
1902 Herald & Weekly Times (H&WT)
group formed
1903 Keith Murdoch begins work for the Age
1907 Rothermere buys The
Times
1908 spends two years in Fleet Street
1915 becomes manager of United Cable Service, Australian
news service based in London
1915 Murdoch's reports on Gallipoli lead to dismissal
of Ian Hamilton, British commander in the Dardanelles
1916 William Fox starts film production in Los Angeles
1919 establishment of Gordon and Gotch Australasia
Ltd
1921 Keith becomes Editor-in-Chief of Herald,
which becomes highest circulation paper in Australasia
1922 Hugh Dennison's Sun Newspaper Company (est 1910)
launches Melborne Sun News-Pictorial
1925 H&WT buys Sun Newspaper Co.
1931 Rupert Keith Murdoch born in Melbourne
1933 Keith is knighted, becomes principal owner of Brisbane
Courier-Mail
1935 Australian Associated Press formed
1938
Australian Newsprint Mills formed
1940
Australia's wartime Director-General of Information
1941 Ezra Norton founds Sydney Daily Mirror
1949 gains majority interest in Adelaide News
1952 Rupert graduates from Oxford, having spent
summers working in Fleet Street
1952 Sir Keith dies, most of holdings sold
in Australia
1954
Murdoch takes over Adelaide News
1956 H&WT founds HSV-7 commercial television station
1956 Murdoch marries Patricia Booker
1958 Southern Television Corporation subsidiary gets one
of two commercial TV licences in Adelaide
1958 Murdoch takes minority stake in Perth Sunday
Times
1959 birth of daughter Prudence
1960 Murdoch buys NSW suburban newspaper chain Cumberland
Newspapers (24 papers)
1960 buys Sydney Daily Mirror from Fairfax
and Melbourne and Brisbane Truth
1962 buys 25% share in Packer-controlled
Nine Network stations in Sydney and Melbourne,
and Wollongong television station
1962 Harper & Bros merge with Row, Peterson & Co.
to become Harper & Row
1963 Thomson buys the Sunday
Times
1964 launches The Australian
expansion into the UK
1963 Thomson buys The
Times
1964 News buys 24% of Wellington Publishing (later Independent
Newspapers or INL - New Zealand's
largest media company), subsequently increased to 49%
1966 buys Centralian Advocate
1966 Murdoch divorces Patricia, marries Anna Torv
1968 birth of daughter Elisabeth
1969 beats off Maxwell in fight
for UK News of the World and The Sun
1970
buys stake in London Weekend Television (sold 1979)
1972 buys Sydney Daily Telegraph and Sunday
Telegraph from Packer
1972 buys 46% stake in Sydney Channel Ten television,
sells Wollongong station
1972 Herald & Weekly Times buys Crawford Productions
1973 Hector Crawford buys back Crawford Productions
1973 enters US market with purchase of San Antonio Express
and News from Harte-Hanks
1973 acquires rest of Perth Sunday Times
1974 launch of National Star in competition with
schlocky National Enquirer
1976 buys the New York Post from Dorothy Schiff
for US$30m
1976 buys New York magazine, Village Voice
and New West magazine for US$26m
1976 buys The Times, Sunday Times and associated
papers from Thomson for £12m
1977 sells WIN-TV, buys stake in TEN Sydney
1979 unsuccessful bid for H&WT, gains control of Channel
Ten Melbourne and 50% of Ansett
Transport Industries (defeating Holmes a
Court bid for ATI)
1980
News Corporation established
1981 sells Berrows group (inc Worcester Journal)
to Reed
1982 Hector Crawford sells 40% of Crawford Productions
to Herald & Weekly Times and 10% to Gordon & Gotch
1982 Murdoch buys Boston Herald American
from Hearst for US$1m
1983 buys Chicago Sun-Times for US$90m
1984 buys Townsville Bulletin
1984 sells interests in Reuters
during public float
1984 buys Ziff-Davis business
magazines for US$350m
1985 establishes aircraft leasing division, Ansett World
Wide Aviation Services (AWAS), with partner TNT
and into the US
1985
buys TCF Holdings (parent company
of Twentieth Century Fox Film)
1985 buys seven US television stations from Metromedia
for US$2bn to form Fox Television
1985 sells the Village Voice
1985 becomes US citizen in line with regulations barring
foreign ownership of television stations
1986 News sells stake in Network Ten Holdings to Westfield
Capital Corporation for $840m
1986 moves London newspapers to new facilities in Wapping
1986 H&WT buys Hobart Mercury
1986 Murdoch launches Fox television
network in US
1986 sells Chicago Sun-Times and associated papers
for US$145m
1986 News Corp is listed on New York Stock Exchange
1987 gains control of H&WT for
$1.8bn after bid by Robert Holmes a Court's Bell
1987 sells HSV-7 Melbourne to Fairfax
for $320m
1987 sells radio 3DB to Albert family (station ultimately
becomes Mix 101.1 FM)
1987 sells 50% stake in Crawford Productions to Skase's
Qintex
1987
buys South China Morning Post
1987 buys UK Today from Lonrho for £38m
1987 pays £250m for 14.9% stake in Pearson
(subsequently sold)
1987 buys Harper & Row, later merged with William
Collins as HarperCollins
1988
announces plans for Sky Television, a UK satellite-based
network
1987 sells Provincial Newspapers to O'Reilly
family
1988 buys Triangle Publications, which includes TV
Guide, from Walter Annenberg
for US$3bn
1988 sells New York Post
1988
closes Brisbane Telegraph
1989 launch of Sky Television - reaches million
viewers within year
1989 The Simpson's premiere on Fox Television
1989 Harper & Row and William Collins merge, buy Scott,
Foresman and Little Brown
1990 BSkyB formed through merger of Sky Television and
British Satellite Broadcasting (in which Pearson
and Granada had stakes)
1990 Herald is merged with Sun News-Pictorial
as Melbourne's first 24-hour newspaper
1990 News announces US$1bn Sky Cable four-year direct-broadcast
satellite (DBS) joint venture with Hughes, NBC
and Cablevision - partnership
later dissolved
1990 Harper & Row and William Collins become HarperCollins
Publishers, sells Gower Medical to Kluwer,
buys Unwin Hyman for £16m
1991 launches Super!Zeitung (closed 1992) in
partnership with Burda
1991
sells most US magazines - including New York, Seventeen,
Soap Opera Digest, Soap Opera Weekly, Seventeen, Automobile,
New Woman, Premiere and Daily Racing Form
- to Primedia
1991 floats printer, distributor and magazine publisher
PMP Communications
1991 sells Unwin Hyman academic division to Thomson
1992
family's stake in News reduced from 43% to 35%
1993
pays US$525m for 63.6% stake in Hong Kong-based satellite
broadcaster Star TV
1993 sells majority interest in South China Morning
Post
1993 buys Delphi Internet Services
1993 pays $1.6bn for rights to broadcast US pro football
on Fox
1993 rebuys New York Post
1994
agrees to pay US$500m to New World
Communications Group for affiliate agreements from its
12 current network affiliates, takes 20% stake
1994 sells Boston Herald to Patrick Purcell
1994 buys 49.9% stake in VOX satellite TV station from
Bertelsmann
1994 forms Broadsystem Ventures (later News Optimus) as
a provider of discount telephony services to residential
market
1994 BSkyB floated with value of £4.5bn
1994 Indovision joint venture in Indonesia with Datakom
Asia - dissolved in 1998
1995 sells Harvill books
1996 Softbank and News team
up for 21% stake in Japan's Asahi National Broadcasting
1996 News Corporation pays £506m for 18% of News International
that it did not own
1996 sells HarperCollins US education interests to Pearson
for US$580m
1996 Festival Records acquires Larrikin Records
global media
1997 News buys Heritage Media coupon insert business for
US$1.4bn
1997 sells 50% stake in Australian Newsprint Mills for
$293m
1997 sells stake in PMP Communications
1997 buys remaining 80% of New World
Communications (10 US television stations) for US$2.5bn
1997 buys LA Dodgers baseball team and Dodger Stadium
for US$350m
1997 agrees to buy International Family Entertainment
cable network (renamed Fox Family Worldwide) for US$1.9bn
1998 sells DIMAC Direct Marketing
1998 sells TV Guide to United Video Satellite
Group, which becomes TV Guide Inc
1998 sells Heritage's radio and television broadcast properties
to Sinclair for US$630m
1998 floats 18% of Fox Entertainment Group
1999 Liberty Media Corp takes
stake in News
1999 sells 49.9% stake in German broadcaster VOX to Bertelsmann's
CLT-UFA for US$340m
1999 takes 24% stake in German pay-tv channel Premiere,
controlled by Kirch
1999 buys William Morrow and Avon Books from Hearst
for US$180m
1999 buys Ecco Press
1999 Broadsystem acquire ADS telemarketing services and
AIM
1999 sells yacht Morning Glory to Berlusconi
for £4.5m
1999 takes stake in Norwegian digital technologies group
Tandberg Television through sale of Digital Broadcasting
Business (DBB)
2000 Broadsystem acquires HDM Worboys
2000 sells 50% stake in Ansett
2000 takes 10% stake in Healtheon/WebMD
2000 buys Chris-Craft Industries, BHC Communications and
United Television (10 television stations) for US$5.35bn
2000 TV Guide Inc acquired by Gemstar
2000 Murdoch sells FS Falkiner
2000 HarperCollins buys Fourth Estate
2000 INL sells Gordon & Gotch Australia to PMP
2001 News sells 49.5% stake in Fox Family Worldwide to
Disney for US$5.3bn
2001 increases stake in Gemstar-TV Guide to 38% by issuing
shares to Liberty
2001 swaps KTVX-TV Salt Lake City and KMOL-TV in San Antonio
for Clear Channel's WFTC-TV Minneapolis
2001 swaps KBHK-TV San Francisco for two Viacom
stations: WDCA Washington and KTXH Houston
2001 sells stake in Tandberg
2001 sells FOX 8 in the Netherlands to SBS
2001 launches MX in Melbourne
2002 with Telecom Italia buys Telepiu Italian pay tv from
Vivendi Universal and Canal+
for €920m, combines it with Stream as Sky Italia
2002 Fox Entertainment Group buys WPWR-TV Chicago from
Newsweb Corporation for US$425m
2002 swaps KPTV-TV in Portland, Oregon for Meredith’s
WOFL-TV in Orlando and WOGX-TV in Ocala Florida
2003 buys 34% controlling stake in Hughes Electronics
(satellite broadcaster DirectTV) for US$6.6bn
expatriation
2003 Fairfax pays $1bn for most
publishing interests of New Zealand's Independent Newspapers
Ltd (INL), at that time around 50%
owned by News
2004 Fox Entertainment Group sells Los Angeles Dodgers
and Dodger Stadium to property developer Frank McCourt
for US$430m
2004 John Malone's Liberty becomes
second largest shareholder in News (9% voting interest,
17% economic interest)
2004 News announces plans to shift domicile from Australia
to US and buy out Murdoch family's 58% interest in Queensland
Press
2004 DirecTV sells 80.5% stake in PanAmSat (29 satellites
with 2,100 channels) to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts for US$4.3bn
2004 pays Telecom Italia £60m for remaining 19.9%
of Sky Italia
2004 family holding company Kayarem moved to Bermuda (avoiding
potential US$1.1bn tax as News shifts from Australia to
US) and renamed Karlholt
2005 acquires remaining 18% of Fox Entertainment Group
2005 sells 38% stake in UK broadcaster The Wireless Group
to UTV
2005 launches MX in Sydney
2005 pays US$580m for Intermix Media
2005 pays US$650m for IGN Entertainment Inc
2005 pays US$25.3m for propertyfinder.com
2005 sells TSL Education division (inc Times Educational
Supplement, Times Higher Education Supplement
and Nursery World) to Exponent Private Equity
for £235m
2005 BSkyB pays £211m for UK broadband ISP Easynet
2006 TMG and ING reach agreement
to acquire Sky Radio (Sky Radio 101FM, Radio Veronica
and Classic FM in Netherlands plus Sky Radio Hessen in
Germany) for a total enterprise value of €190m
2006 News pays US$3.5m for stake in Simply Hired
2006 sells 19.9% stake in Phoenix Satellite Television
of Hong Kong to China Mobile for US$180m
2006 agrees to spend £44m for 56.5% of Turkish national
tv channel Turkish Huzur Radyo TV (launched 1993)
2006 pays US$188m for 51% of VeriSign's Jamba ('Crazy
Frog' ring-tones)
2006 buys TimesLedger newspaper group (16 weekly newspapers
in Queens, inc The Flushing Times, Astoria
Times and Glen Oaks Ledger) from Steven
Blank and Courier-Life newspaper group (11 Brooklyn newspapers,
inc Bay News, Brooklyn Heights Courier
and Flatbush Life) from Clifford Luster for US$16m
2006 buys 7.5% stake in Fairfax
for $360m, sells stake after Fairfax-Rural Press merger
2006 BSkyB buys 17.9% stake in ITV for £940m
2006 News Limited pays $180m for 25 magazines from Federal
Publishing Company (inc Delicious, Australian
Golf Digest and Vogue Australia)
2006 Fox Cable Networks (FCN) acquires Turner South cable
network from Time Warner's Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc
2006 buys 9% of Israel's Channel 10
2006 announces US$11bn swap with Liberty
2007 closes Inside Out magazine in UK
2007 acquires advertising technology company Strategic
Data Corporation
2007 forms joint venture with VeriSign through combination
of Jamba and Fox Mobile Entertainment
2007 launches US$5bn unsolicited bid for Dow
Jones
2007 buys photo-sharing site Photobucket and image-editing
tool Flektor for US$250m
2007 buys The Bronx Times and The Bronx Times
Reporter from Kiesman & Collazzi
2007 Sky buys Amstrad for £125m
2007 News acquires Dow Jones
2007 Macrovision agrees to buy Gemstar-TV Guide International
for US$2.8bn
2007 News agrees to sell eight Fox-affiliated television
stations in US (WJW Cleveland, KDVR Denver, KTVI St Louis,
WDAF Kansas City, WITI Milwaukee, KSTU Salt Lake City,
WBRC Birmingham, WGHP Greensboro) to Oak Hill Capital
Partners for US$1.1bn
2008 agrees to buy 14.6% stake in German pay-TV operator
Premiere for €287m from cable operator Unitymedia
2008 Elizabeth Murdoch's Shine Group buys Ben Silverman
production company Reveille for US$125m
2008 News increases Premiere stake to 19.9%
2008 Liberty Media completes swap of 16.3% of News for
control of DirecTV, three regional sports networks and
US$465m cash
2008 Dow Jones acquires Betten Financial News BV Dutch-language
corporate news service
::
|
|
