News Corporation


News Corporation (abbreviated to News Corp) (, , , ) is one of the world's largest media conglomerates. Its chief executive officer is Rupert Murdoch.

News Corporation is a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Australian Stock Exchange and as a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange. Formerly incorporated in Adelaide, Australia, the company was re-incorporated in the United States state of Delaware after a majority of shareholders approved the move on November 12 2004.

News Corporation's headquarters is at 1211 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Ave), in New York City, in the newer 1960s-1970s corridor of the Rockefeller Center complex.

Revenue for the year ended June 30 2005 was US$23.859 billion. This does not include News Corporation's share of the revenue of businesses in which it owns a minority stake, which include two of its most important assets, DirecTV and BSkyB. Almost 70% of the company's sales come from its US businesses.

History

News Corporation was created in 1980 by Rupert Murdoch as a holding company for News Limited. News Limited was created by Murdoch from the assets he inherited in 1952 following the death of his father, Sir Keith Murdoch, and subsequent expansion. The main asset left to him was ownership of the Adelaide News.

In 1986 and 1987, News Corp (through subsidiary News International) moved to adjust the production process of its British newspapers, over which the printing unions had long maintained a highly restrictive grip.[1] A number of senior Australian media moguls were brought into Murdoch's powerhouse, including John Dux, who was managing director of the South China Post. This led to a confrontation with the printing unions NGA and SOGAT. The move of News International's London operation to Wapping in the East End resulted in nightly battles outside the new plant. Delivery vans and depots were frequently and violently attacked.[2] Ultimately the unions capitulated and other media companies soon followed Murdoch's lead in the Wapping dispute.

Controversies

Over its many years and spheres of operation, News Corporation has attracted a number of allegations:

Moving into the United States

News Corp made its first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when it purchased the San Antonio Express-News. Soon afterwards it founded the National Star, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976 it purchased the New York Post. In 1981 News Corp bought half the movie studio 20th Century Fox, buying the other half in 1984. In 1985 News Corp announced it was buying the Metromedia group of stations, setting the stage for the launch of a fourth U.S. broadcast network. On September 4 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only United States citizens could own American television stations. In 1986, the Metromedia deal closed, and the Fox Broadcasting Company was launched.

This network, known on-screen as "Fox", can now be picked up in over 96% of U.S. households. In 1987 News Corp bought The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. in Australia, the company that Rupert Murdoch's father had once managed. By 1991, News Corp had amassed huge debts, which forced it to sell many of the American magazine interests it had acquired in the mid-1980s. Much of this debt came from its stake in the Sky Television satellite network in the UK, which incurred massive losses in its early years of operation, which (like many of its business interests) was heavily subsidized with profits from its other holdings until it was able to force rival satellite operator British Satellite Broadcasting to accept a merger on its terms in 1990. (The merged company, BSkyB has dominated the British pay-TV market since.)

In 1995, the Fox network became the object of scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) when it was alleged that its Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. The FCC, however, ruled in Murdoch's favor, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the public's best interests. In the same year News Corp announced a deal with MCI Communications to develop a major news website as well as funding a conservative news magazine, The Weekly Standard. In the same year, News Corp launched the Foxtel pay television network in Australia in a partnership with Telstra and Publishing and Broadcasting Limited.

In 1996, Fox established the Fox News Channel, a 24-hour cable news station.

In 1999, News Corp significantly expanded its music holdings in Australia by acquiring the controlling share in a leading Australian based label, Michael Gudinski's Mushroom Records; merging it with already held Festival Records to create Festival Mushroom Records (FMR). Both Festival and FMR were managed by Rupert Murdoch's son James Murdoch for several years.

In late 2003, News Corp acquired a 34% stake in Hughes Electronics, operator of the largest American satellite TV system, DirecTV, from General Motors for US$6 billion.

Shareholders

As of August 2005 the Murdoch family owns about 29% of the company. Nearly all of these shares are voting shares, and Rupert Murdoch retains effective control of the company. Nonetheless John Malone of Liberty Media has built up a larger stake of 32%, but only around half of these shares are voting shares. Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal who is an investing tycoon and chairman of the Kingdom Holding Company said in an interview with Charlie Rose that he had about a 6-7% stake in News Corp..[5][6]

Corporate governance

Current members of the board of directors of News Corporation are: Peter Barnes, Chase Carey, Peter Chernin, Kenneth Cowley, David DeVoe, Viet Dinh, Rod Eddington, Andrew Knight, Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch (chairman), Rod Paige, Thomas Perkins, Arthur Siskind, Jose Maria Aznar, and John L. Thornton.

Holdings

Books

Newspapers

Magazines

Music / Radio

Sport

Studios

TV

Broadcast

Satellite television

Cable

CHANNELS

Internet

Other assets

See also

External links

Citations