The Biography of Rupert Murdoch : Net Worth, Career and Business

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian- born American businessman and media entrepreneur. He is commonly known for founding News Corp where he served as the former CEO but retains his position as executive chairman from 2013 to date. He also served as the executive chairman of 21^st Century Fox (2015-2019). He is an active board member of the News Corps and Fox Corporation.

Murdoch’s father, Sir Keith Murdock was a war correspondent who had his own newspaper publishing firm and rose to a senior executive at The Herald and Weekly Times publishing company. After his death, Murdoch’s late father left his two newspaper publishing outfits, the Sunday Mail and the News, to Murdoch as an inheritance. Rather than continue with his father’s business legacy, Murdoch founded his own company, News Limited. In 1979, he founded News Corporation Ltd, a global media conglomerate also known as News Corp. As the years rolled by, starting from the 1950s, Murdoch began expanding his business by buying off newspapers all over Australia first, then New Zealand before expanding to other countries like the United Kingdom and U.S. Murdoch’s company had acquired a lot of companies that by 2000 its subsidiary companies count was 800 in over 50 countries.

Net worth

$17.6B as of May 27, 2020.

 

Early life and education

 Keith Rupert Murdoch was born on March 11, 1931, to Dame Elisabeth and Sir Keith Murdoch in Melbourne, Australia. He attended Worcester College, Oxford where he studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economy. His keen interest in politics began at an early age, and he became part of the Oxford University Labour Party by the time he got into school. He both served as the Secretary of the party and manager of the Oxford Student Publications Limited.

 

How he built his business empire

After graduating from Worcester College, Murdoch worked at Lord Beaverbrook’s London Daily Express as a sub-editor for a short while before returning to Australia to inherit his father’s business in 1954. Working at the Daily Express exposed Murdoch to sensationalist journalism which he would later capitalize on in his early media business life.

While Running the News of the World and The Sun (both London based newspapers), Murdoch devised a new way of topping the publishing market. Murdoch’s strategy for doing business in the media world and promoting circulation was through the use of captivating human-interest stories such as sex, scandal, and crime. The notorious and scandalous stories seemed to circulate faster compared to daily news, and Murdoch went all out to take advantage of it. His published papers were centered on sex and scandal, unlike his father who focused on war reports and news. Gradually, his newspapers began accommodating sports sections.

 

He gained entrance into the American market through his purchase of the San Antonio News and another San Antonio, Texas daily. Using his devised strategy, Murdoch converted the San Antonio News into yet another sex and scandal paper. In 1974, he introduced The Star, a national weekly sensationalist tabloid, and two years later he purchased New York Post, an afternoon tabloid, selling both tabloids in the late 1980s only to buy back the New York Post in 1993.

By the early 1980s, Murdoch expanded his business operations beyond newspaper print to book publishing, radio, television, and record companies. In 1985, Murdoch voluntarily dropped his Australian citizenship in exchange for American citizenship by naturalization. This was to enable him to easily operate his business in America. Later that year, through his holding company News Corporation, Murdoch acquired Twentieth Century- Fox Film Corporation (later known as 20^th Century Fox) and acquired HarperCollins two years later. He also acquired The Wall Street Journal in 2007 for $5 billion. By purchasing companies from Metromedia Inc., Murdoch was able to acquire other American televisions stations which were all incorporated into one body called Fox Inc.

In the early 1990s, Murdoch created BSkyB, a British broadcaster after acquiring the company, Sky television. The company had suffered losses from the inception. Murdoch stepped in by striking a deal between Sky and its rival television network British Satellite Broadcasting, thereby, creating the BSkyB (later renamed Sky News) which eventually expanded its operations to American and Asian networks. Murdoch owned about 39% of the BSkyB network but was prevented from claiming the rest of the stake when he showed interest due to uncertainty of market dominance and censorship issues. A compromise was made on the grounds that Murdoch would have to sell Sky News to Walt Disney; it was a deal that never actualized as Comcast, a rival company eventually earned control of BSkyB with Murdoch selling off his shares to the company.

As part of his global expansion plans, Murdoch purchased a Hong-Kong based Asian television station called Star TV in 1993, and by 1995, News Corps partnered with MCI Communications Corporation to provide long-distance telecommunications services. In 1996, Murdoch decided to have an official television broadcasting news outfit and Fox News was created. Unlike his regular sex and scandal technique, Murdoch allowed Fox News air political issues and commentary. Fox News has since then become one of the most influential news networks. Often times, Murdoch is still being criticized over his political views and personal interest getting in the way of Fox News.

Due to slight financial challenges, Murdoch had to sell off some of his companies including Daily Racing Farm, Seventeen, and his valued New York. After dominating much of the media, Murdoch’s next business expansion step was social media. In 2005, he purchased Intermix Media which owned Myspace.com, a social media platform. As at the time, Myspace.com had over 30 million registered users. With a fast rise in Facebook popularity, Myspace eventually lost its members until it was eventually sold off at a loss of $35 million in 2011.

Murdoch’s eye for scandalous news eventually landed News Corps in a legal problem as there were reports of phone hacking and privacy invasion of celebrities, royalty, and politicians. This led to an immediate shutdown of The News of the World.

 

Murdoch has remained relevant in the media world as he owns a majority of the publishing houses and media companies within America, Australia, Europe, and some parts of Asia. In 2013, he divided his company into two parts—namely 21^st Century Fox Inc. and News Corp. to clearly define the business interest.