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From the Magazine | TIME 100 Rupert Murdoch
He turned a small-town newspaper into a diverse media empire that informs and entertains half the world By WILLIAM SHAWCROSS
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 3, 1999
Press barons have always been feared, even hated, for the power they can wield over us. But until recently they have been the creatures of the neighborhood. Rupert Murdoch is the first press baron to be a monster of the entire world. That's globalization for you.
And monster is how many people do see Murdoch. He is subjected to far more criticism, if not abuse, than any other contemporary media mogul (except perhaps Bill Gates, and in both cases, mythomania plays a part). Throughout his life he has been attacked for his right-wing politics and for allegedly lowering the standards of everything he touches. Now he is criticized for apparently kowtowing to China, where he is building up his television interests.
The brickbats keep on coming, but Murdoch's great strength is that he does not care. Unlike many moguls, he does not try to cow critics by casting libel writs like confetti. Nor, conversely, does he try to convert his critics--though his charm in private is legendary. He just carries on and does exactly what he likes. He told me recently that he saw himself pretty much as a libertarian: "What does libertarian mean? As much individual responsibility as possible, as little government as possible, as few rules as possible. But I'm not saying it should be taken to the absolute limit."
Rupert Murdoch's achievement is that he is the only media mogul to have created and to control a truly global media empire. He understood sooner than anyone else the opportunities offered by new technology--computers, satellites, wireless communications--to create first an international press and then a television domain.
Although now an American citizen (he made the change so he could buy American television stations in the 1980s), Murdoch was born in Australia and into the newspaper industry. In the 1950s he inherited his first paper, the Adelaide News, from his father, Melbourne publisher Sir Keith Murdoch; it was the town's sleepy second paper, and he shook it by the scruff of the neck and unleashed it on the competition--if only to gain the means to escape from Adelaide.
His life since then can be seen as a series of international leaps in which he's acquired more and more properties, jazzing them up or dumbing them down, according to your taste. In the '60s, it was Sydney (the Mirror), London (the News of the World and the Sun); in the '70s, New York (the New York Post which he turned from a staid liberal matron into a provocative conservative roustabout); in the '80s, Hollywood (20th Century Fox and Fox TV) and again London (acquiring the Times and Sunday Times, facing down the unions at Wapping and launching satellite television, later called BSkyB, in Britain); in the '90s, Asia (Star Television). Murdoch himself has called these acquisitions a series of battles in an unending war for more.
At the beginning of the '90s the empire nearly came to pieces as Murdoch's vast expenditures on satellite TV in Britain, coupled with the recession, meant that for the first time in his career he was at risk of defaulting on his huge loans around the world. There were cliffhanging moments as he sought to have them all rescheduled. Eventually, because most bankers had reason to trust Murdoch (unlike, say, his great rival Robert Maxwell), they agreed to roll over his debts and the empire that was on the brink of becoming a fire sale was reprieved.
Since then, its comeback has been sensational. The News Corp holdings now include a lion's share of the newspaper industry in Australia, about one-third of British newspapers (including raunchy, intrusive tabloids and the broadsheet Times) and BSkyB, which is now immensely successful. In the U.S. he has film and TV interests, newspapers, book publishers, sports teams, and much more. In Asia he has Star Television.
Of all these, Star, which Murdoch bought in 1993, has been the most difficult to grow. Its potential is vast: the footprint of its satellites extends from Japan to the Middle East via Southeast Asia and covers two-thirds of the world's population. But Murdoch soon discovered that there is no pan-Asian audience, only local audiences. In India cricket will sell hundreds of thousands of dishes; in Japan, not one. It is trying to build an audience in China that has landed Murdoch in more controversy.
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From the Oct. 25, 1999 issue of TIME magazine
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