Keith Rupert Murdoch

Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KCSG, born in Melbourne on March 11, 1931, usually known as Rupert Murdoch, is an Australian-American global media tycoon. In 1937 he moved to Britain where he was raised and eventually attended Oxford University. Billionaire Australian, American publishing magnate. He is the major shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation (News Corp).

Beginning with newspapers, magazines and television stations in his native Australia, Murdoch expanded News Corp into the UK and US and Asian media markets. In recent years has become a leading investor in satellite television, the film industry, the Internet and media. News Corp is based in New York.

His father Sir Keith Murdoch became Australia’s most influential newspaper executive, directing the Melbourne-based Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. After his father’s death in 1952, Rupert returned to Australia to take over the running of his business and to inherit a considerable fortune but was left with a relatively modest inheritance.

In an effort to expand his television interests further in the United States Rupert Murdoch became an American citizen in 1985. Throughout the 80s his Australian listed Media company the News Corporation continued to grow rapidly, acquiring interests in newspapers, magazine, book publishing, television stations, film and more

The rapid growth of News Corporation and expansion into satellite TV also brought massive loans. During a downturn in the early 90s Murdoch and his media empire had difficulty paying its bills. Many of his American magazine interests were sold to pay off some of the loans and things eventually turned around for Murdoch.

In 1995 News Corporation with the backing of Telstra launched the Foxtel pay TV network in Australia, and then a year later Foxtel launched the Fox News Channel, a 24 hour news channel which reflected Murdoch’s conservative views. Fox News has consistently taken ratings from CNN and is now considered the most watched cable news channel.

In 1999 Murdoch extended his music interests in Australia by acquiring Mushroom Records which he merged with his Festival Records company as Festival Mushroom Records (FMR). In recent years Rupert Murdoch’s son Lachlan Murdoch has started to take over management of News Corporation and will eventually take over his father’s role.

Murdoch’s personal life has suffered 2 failed marriages with his first marriage ending after only a few years. His second marriage was to journalist Anna Murdoch one of his employee’s to whom he had 3 children. However they were divorced in 1998 after Murdoch had an affair with another employee, Wendi Deng who was 40 years his junior, they married soon afterwards. Rupert Murdoch’s net worth is estimated at 6.9 billion.