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TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > Media Studies > Rupert Murdoch
- An Australian-born American citizen based in NY. A major shareholder and the Chairman and Managing Director of News Corporation.
- He took over his father’s business in 1952 when he suddenly died.
- Over the next few years he gradually est himself as one of the most dynamic media proprietors in the country, quickly expanding his holdings by daily and suburban newspapers in most capital cities.
- The Australian is a broadsheet that gave him a reputation of a new respectable “quality” publisher and greater political influence as it had an elite readership
- He acquired the Sydney-based style Daily telegraph making him on of the “big three” newspapers proprietors in Australia. In 1972 he became very left labour.. then by 1975 he turned against labour and was very right liberal party.
- By whichever methods his success was achieved, by the 1970s, Murdoch's power base was so strong that he was able to acquire leading newspapers and magazines beyond Australia in both London and New York, as well as many other media holdings.
- Murdoch moved to Britain in the mid 1960s and rapidly became a major force there after his acquisitions of the News of the World, The Sun and later The Times and The Sunday Times, which he bought in 1981 from the Thomson family, who had bought it from the Astor family in 1966.
- Both takeovers further reinforced his growing reputation as a ruthless and cunning business operator. His takeover of The Times aroused great hostility among traditionalists, who feared he would take it "downmarket." This led directly to the founding of The Independent in 1986 as an alternative quality daily.
- Murdoch has a particular genius for tabloid newspapers. The Sun in London, reputedly makes a million pounds cash a week for News Corporation.
- Despite his personal conservatism, he allowed his editors to exploit the selling power of soft-core erotica in the form of topless page three girls (such as Samantha Fox and Jordan) to increase circulation. As a result, Auberon Waugh of Private Eye dubbed him "The Dirty Digger", a nickname that has endured. ("digger" was originally a colloquial term for an Australian soldier).
- In Britain, he formed a close alliance with Margaret Thatcher, and The Sun was widely credited with helping John Major win an unexpected election victory in the 1992 general election. However, in the general elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005, Murdoch's papers were either neutral or supported Labour under Tony Blair.
- In a speech in New York, Rupert Murdoch said that the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said the BBC coverage of the Hurricane Katrina disaster was full of hatred of America. Mr. Murdoch is a strong critic of the BBC, which he believes has a liberal bias.
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