Rupert Murdoch biography

Synopsis

Profile

Murdoch, the son of Sir Keith Murdoch (1886–1952), a famous Australian war correspondent and publisher, studied at Worcester College, Oxford (M.A., 1953), and briefly worked as an editor on Lord Beaverbrook's London Daily Express, where he first gained practical experience in the sensationalist journalism that would be a major influence early in his career as a publisher. His father having died, he returned to Australia in 1954 to take over his inheritance, the Sunday Mail and The News, both of Adelaide; he quickly converted the latter into a paper dominated by news of sex and scandal, often writing its banner headlines himself. The News's circulation soared, and he then went about instituting similar changes in papers that he bought in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, and Brisbane.

By the time that Murdoch acquired his first British newspaper in 1969—the News of the World of London—he had put together a proven formula for boosting circulation, which entailed an emphasis on crime, sex, scandal, and human-interest stories with boldface headlines, prolific sports reporting, and outspokenly conservative editorializing. This formula was successful with both the News of the World and The Sun, a London daily that he acquired the following year.

In 1973 Murdoch entered the American newspaper business by purchasing two San Antonio, Texas, dailies, one of which—the San Antonio News (later the Express-News)—he transformed into a sex-and-scandal sheet that soon dominated the city's afternoon market. In 1974 he introduced a national weekly sensationalist tabloid, the Star, and in 1976 he purchased the afternoon tabloid New York Post, but in the late 1980s he sold both, profitably; he repurchased the Post in 1993. He also purchased the Boston Herald American from the Hearst Corporation in 1982 and changed the name to the Boston Herald (sold 1994). He bought TV Guide in 1988. Overall in the 1980s and '90s he bought and later sold a number of American publications—such as the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York City Village Voice, and New York magazine. Among Murdoch's diverse publications were a number of more conventional and respected newspapers, such as The Times of London and the Sunday Times (both acquired