RUPERT MURDOCH

"All power corrupts, absolute power is even more fun" -Simon Travaglia

Rupert Murdoch is a man with such kind of power. My god then he must be having loads of fun. Born on March 11th,1931, he has grown the giant mammoth of a media company ‘the News Corporation’ into one of the largest and most influential media groups in the world from a small town newspaper in Australia. Beginning with newspapers, magazines and television stations in his native Australia, Murdoch expanded into British and American media, and in recent years has become a powerful force in satellite television, the film industry, the Internet, and other forms of media. His tentacles have spread everywhere in the globe.

Murdoch was born in Melbourne(famous for MCG among other scenic attractions) and studied at Oxford University on UK. His father died in 1952 and left a will stating that Rupert should begin his career at The News "if they consider him worthy of support." At that time Rupert had written in Oxford student newspapers and had worked for a number of newspapers in a junior capacity. At the tender age of 23, he became the managing director of ‘The News’ and immediately developed an enthusiasm for the newspaper business that was not there before. His drive and energy infected the staff and the paper's circulation and advertising revenue began to grow. He began to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion. He bought a rundown Sunday Newspaper in Perth, Western Australia, and, using the tabloid techniques that Northcliffe had taught his son, made it a roaring success.

Over the next few years, Murdoch established himself in Australia as a dynamic business operator, expanding his holdings by acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory. including the Sydney afternoon tabloid, The Daily Mirror, as well as a small Sydney-based recording company, Festival Records. His acquisition of the Daily Mirror allowed him to challenge two powerful rivals in Australia's biggest city and to outwit his afternoon rival in a long circulation war.

The departure in 1966 of the Liberal Prime Minister Robert Menzies saw a chaotic six years of politics after Menzies' chosen successor Harold Holt drowned, to be replaced by John Gorton and then William McMahon. In 1972, Murdoch acquired the Sydney morning tabloid The Daily Telegraph. In that year's election, Murdoch threw his growing power behind the Australian Labor Party under the leadership of Gough Whitlam and duly saw it win power. As the Whitlam government suffered a great loss of public support following its 1974 re-election, Murdoch soon turned against Whitlam and supported the Governor-General's dismissal of the Prime Minister.In the meantime, Murdoch turned his attention overseas. His business success in Australia and his fastidious policy of prompt periodic repayments of his borrowings had placed him in good financial standing with the Commonwealth Bank and he obtained its support for his biggest venture yet, the takeover of a family company which owned The News of the World, the Sunday newspaper with the biggest circulation in Britain.

When the daily newspaper The Sun came on the market in 1969, Murdoch went to his bankers again and snapped up what had been a money-losing upmarket broadsheet with a declining circulation and relaunched it as a cheap racy tabloid which by 2006 was selling three million copies a day. Murdoch's biggest thrill came the day he was able to take over The Times, the paper his father's mentor Viscount Northcliffe, had once owned. The distinction of owning The Times came to him through his careful cultivation of the owner who had grown tired of losing money on the property. During the 1980s and early 90s, Murdoch's publications were generally supportive of the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. At the end of the Thatcher/Major era, Murdoch switched his support to Labor and the party's leader Tony Blair. The closeness of his relationship with Blair and their secret meetings to discuss national policies was to become a serious political issue in Britain particularly with regard to Murdoch's enthusiasm for the invasion of Iraq.

Murdoch acquired Star TV from a Hong Kong company in 1993 created offices for it throughout Asia. Including Singapore, China, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, etc. It is one of the biggest Satellite TV networks in Asia.

The effect that Rupert Murdoch has had on media and entertainment industry is massive. Along the way he created an empire that has gone from strength to strength, securing positions in every important media and country. he has married three times(goodness gracious) first in 1956 to Patricia Booker, divorced her in 1967, went on to marry Anna Tõrv on the same year. Anna and Rupert divorced acrimoniously in June, 1999. Seventeen days after the divorce, on June 25, 1999, Murdoch, then 68, married Chinese born Deng Wendi, later changed to Wendi Deng. She was then 30, a recent college graduate from Yale and newly appointed vice-president of STAR TV. Anna Murdoch was also remarried, in October 1999, to William Mann. aye that sure sounds different in India but as Goundamani says in one of his films “this and all is normal in political life my friend” .

With his great success and power he has also created a lot of critics but Murdoch continues to brush them all aside and is happily living his life with his young wife and continuing to grow his global empire.