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Public ( NYSE : NWS )
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Adelaide , Australia ( 1979 )
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Incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware , USA , headquartered in New York City
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Rupert Murdoch , CEO<br> Peter Chernin , COO<br> David DeVoe , CFO
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Mass Media
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Film and television production, television networks, satellite television, newspapers and magazines, book publishing, sports, websites
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USD $23859 billion (YE 30 June 2005 )
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38,000 ( 2004 )
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(abbreviated to '''News Corp''') () is one of the world's largest
Media Conglomerate s. Its
Chief Executive Officer is
Rupert Murdoch , an influential and controversial media
Tycoon .
News Corporation is a
Public Company listed on the
New York Stock Exchange and as a secondary listing on the
London Stock Exchange (). Formerly incorporated in
Adelaide ,
Australia , the company was re-incorporated in the
United States state of
Delaware after a majority of shareholders approved the move on
12 November 2004 . The company is still listed on the
Australian Stock Exchange ().
News Corporation's United States headquarters is on Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) in
New York City , in the 1960s-1970s portion of the
Rockefeller Center complex.
Revenue for the year ended
30 June 2005 was
$ 23.859 billion. This does not include News Corporation's share of the revenue of businesses in which it owns a minority stake, which include two of its most important assets,
DirecTV and
BSkyB . Almost 70% of the company's sales come from its US businesses.
''See
News International ,
News Limited and
Rupert Murdoch for more history.''
News Corporation was created in 1979 by Rupert Murdoch as a
Holding Company for
News Limited . News Limited was created by Murdoch from the assets he inherited in 1952 following the death of his father, Sir
Keith Murdoch , and subsequent expansion. The main asset left to him was ownership of the ''
Adelaide News ''.
In
1986 and
1987 , News Corp (through
Subsidiary News International ) moved to adjust the production process of its British newspapers, over which the printing unions had long maintained a highly restrictive grip. A number of senior Australian media moguls were brought into Murdoch's powerhouse, including the infamous
John Dux , who was managing director of the South China Post. This led to a confrontation with the printing unions
NGA and
SOGAT . The move of News International's London operation to
Wapping in the East End resulted in nightly battles outside the new plant. Delivery vans and depots were frequently and violently attacked. Ultimately the unions capitulated and other media companies soon followed Murdoch's lead in the
Wapping Dispute .
Murdoch had made his first acquisition in the
United States in 1973, when he purchased the ''
San Antonio News ''. Soon afterwards he founded the ''
National Star '', a
Supermarket Tabloid , and in
1976 he purchased the ''
New York Post ''. In
1981 News Corp. bought half the movie studio
20th Century Fox , buying the other half in
1984 . In
1985 News Corp. announced it was buying the
Metromedia group of stations, setting the stage for the launch of a fourth U.S. broadcast network. On
September 4 ,
1985 , Murdoch became a
Naturalized Citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only United States citizens could own American television stations. In
1986 , the Metromedia deal closed, and the
Fox Broadcasting Company was launched. This network, known on-screen only as "Fox", can now be picked up in over 96% of U.S. households. In
1987 he bought The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd in Australia, the company that his father had once managed. By
1991 , his Australian-based News Corp. had amassed huge debts, which forced Murdoch to sell many of the American magazine interests he had acquired in the mid-1980s. Much of this debt came from his British-based
Sky Television satellite network, which incurred massive losses in its early years of operation, which (like many of his business interests) was heavily subsidized with profits from his other holdings until he was able to force rival satellite operator
British Satellite Broadcasting to accept a merger on his terms in 1990. (The merged company,
BSkyB has dominated the British pay-TV market since).
In
1995 , the Fox network became the object of scrutiny from the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) when it was alleged that its Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. The FCC, however, ruled in Murdoch's favor, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the public's best interests. In the same year News Corp announced a deal with
MCI Communications to develop a major news
Website as well as funding a conservative news magazine, ''
The Weekly Standard ''. In the same year, News Corp launched the
Foxtel pay television network in Australia in a partnership with
Telstra and
Publishing And Broadcasting Limited .
In
1996 , Fox established the
Fox News Channel , a 24-hour
Cable News station. Since its launch it has consistently eroded
CNN 's market share, and it now bills itself as "the most-watched cable news channel." This is due in part to recent ratings studies, released in the fourth quarter of 2004, showing that the network had nine of the top ten programs in the "Cable News" category.
In
1999 , News Corp significantly expanded its music holdings in Australia by acquiring the controlling share in a leading Australian independent label,
Michael Gudinski 's
Mushroom Records ; he merged the two as
Festival Mushroom Records (FMR). Both Festival and FMR were managed by Murdoch's son
James Murdoch for several years.
In late
2003 , News Corp acquired a 34 percent stake in
Hughes Electronics , operator of the largest American satellite TV system,
DirecTV , from
General Motors for $6 billion (USD).
Murdoch's pan-continental media empire has proved a source of concern for those political commentators who believe he is a significant, surreptitious
Conservative force in Western politics. However, the Murdoch family's recently decreased involvement with the company (see below) has helped to allay some of these fears. This has helped to put the company in a more positive light.
As of August 2005 the Murdoch family owns about 29% of the company. Nearly all of these shares are voting shares, and Rupert Murdoch retains effective control of the company. Nonetheless
John Malone of
Liberty Media has built up a larger stake of 32%, but only around half of these shares are voting shares. However, Rupert Murdoch is reported to be concerned that he may lose control of the business, and to have prepared a
Poison Pill defence.
Source .
Current members of the ,
Chase Carey ,
Peter Chernin ,
Kenneth Cowley ,
David DeVoe ,
Viet Dinh ,
Rod Eddington ,
Andrew Knight ,
Lachlan Murdoch ,
Rupert Murdoch (chairman),
Thomas Perkins ,
Stanley Shuman ,
Arthur Siskind , and
John Thornton
- Fox College Sports , College Sports Network that consisits of 3 regionally aligned channels
- Fox Movie Channel , an all-movie channel that airs Commercial -free movies from 20th Century Fox film library
- Fox News Channel , a 24-hour news channel
- Fox Reality , a 'Reality TV'-themed channel
- Fox Sports Net , a chain of US regional cable television networks broadcasting local sporting events linked together by national sports news programming. Local channels include "Fox Sports Southwest", "Fox Sports Bay Area", etc. (some affiliates still owned by Cablevision ).
- Fox Soccer Channel , a United States Digital Cable network specializing mainly in Soccer .
- Fox Sports En Español , a Spanish-language North American cable sports network; its sports lineup is tailored to appeal to a Latin America n audience.
- Fox Sports En Latinoamérica , a Mexico -based Latin America n satellite and cable sports network.
- Foxtel (25%), Australia's largest satellite and cable pay TV provider, a joint venture with Telstra and Publishing And Broadcasting Limited
- FX Networks , a cable network broadcasting reruns of programming previously shown on other channels, but recently creating its own programming, including the Emmy Award -winning program '' The Shield ''.
- National Geographic Channel (joint venture with National Geographic Magazine)
- SPEED Channel
- MySpace - Social networking website. Previously owned by Intermix.
- IGN Entertainment - Internet entertainment portal
- News.com.au - Australian-oriented news website
- Grab.com - Entertainment/Games. Previously owned by Intermix along with MySpace.
- TehInter.net - Everything/Nothing (E/N) entertainment website.(Question mark if this is true)
- (NDS) - Conditional access technology and personal digital video recorders (PVRs)
