Rupert Murdoch biography -
Spreading his world view through his media empire.

Keith Rupert Murdoch was born on March 11, 1931, in Melbourne Australia to parents Keith and Elisabeth Murdoch. His father was a partner with the Adelaide News and he inherited some of his conservative views from his mother Elisabeth.

After school he went to the UK and got a degree from Oxford after which he got work at the Daily Express. This he did for two years until the sudden death of his father in 1952 when he returned to Australia to inherit the Adelaide News - which formed the basis of his News Corporation empire.

He was not a man to rest on the laurels of his inheritance and soon became a significant player in the Australian media market. He bought various media concerns like The Daily Mirror and Festival Records. His speciality was to take loss making media, turn them around, and use the resulting profits for further acquisitions.

His business acquisitions spread to Britain through the acquistion of News of the World, The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times and to the US through The New York Post. He seemingly didn't mind the tabloid image as long as it was highly profitable business. During 1986-87 he had a fever pitch battle with the unions in Britain due to the introduction of the Wapping plant that used newer production methods and a lot less workers. He prevailed and the strangle hold the unions had on the industry, was broken.

In 1985 he also had become a naturalized citizen of the United States since laws only allowed Americans to own television stations in America. He went on to acquire Fox Network and 20th Century Fox.

During the nineties he expanded to satelite through the acquisition in Asia of Star Television with an audience from the Middle East to Japan, BSkyB in Britain, as well as the Foxtel pay network in Australia. In 1996 he introduced Fox 24hr News Channel as direct competitor to Ted Turner's CNN.

Rupert Murdoch, the man, was married three times. His first marriage ended in the late fifties. In 1961 he married Anna Troy with whom he had three children: James (manage Festival Mushroom Records), Lachlan (COO and Executive Vice PResident of News Corporation) and Elisabeth (active in British media business). This marriage ended after 38 years when a long standing affair was discovered. His mistress, Wendi Deng, then became his third wife despite being forty years his junior.

Today, Rupert Murdoch lives with his wife in a penthouse in New York's SoHo district (for which he forked out a record $44 million). In his stable he has News Corporation, LA Dodgers, the National Rugby League (Australia), Broad System, Fox Interactive, BSkyB, HarperCollins Publishing house, just to name a few. No wonder that Rupert Murdoch can influence the way the world views him. You have to admire him for that!

Rupert Murdoch links

• Rupert Murdoch as one of Times' magazines most influential business people of the century.
• Rupert Murdoch biography at Wikipedia.com