25 Facts about Rupert Murdoch’s Media Empire.

1. Founder of the News Corporation Ltd. which has holdings in cable, film, television, internet, direct broadcast satellite television, sports, publishing and other fields,
2. His company (News Corporation) is the second biggest media conglomerate of the world
3. The focus of his company was publishing after it was reorganised due to its media and television holdings were spun off in 2013 as 21st Century Fox and mainly sold in 2019.
4. The former sale resulted in Fox Corporation being created, which included Fox Tv as well as other TV channels.
5. In 1955 he inherited the tiny Adelaide News from his father and created an international communications empire which over time published more than 80 papers and magazines on three continents
6. In 1956 Murdoch bought and built up the Perth Sunday Times
7. In 1960 he bought the significantly declining Sydney Daily and Sunday Paper which he turned into the largest selling newspaper in Australia by employing aggressive promotion and a racy tabloid style
8. In 1964 he started The Australian, a national paper targeted at a more serious audience
9. In early 1969 Murdoch debuted as a London publisher when he gained control of the Sunday paper News of the World, the largest-circulation English-language paper in the world. 
10. Later in 1969 he bought cheaply a tired liberal paper, the Sun, which he radically transformed into a sensationalistic tabloid featuring daily displays of a topless girl on page three.
11. The Sun became the most profitable paper in his empire. 
12. . In 1983, it had circulation around four million, it earned $50 million, more than 40 percent of News Corp.’s annual profits. 
13. In 1981 Murdoch purchased the failing but prestigious London Times.
14. Murdoch expanded into the American market in 1973 when he acquired the San Antonio (Texas) Express and News. 
15. In early 1974 he began the weekly tabloid the National Star (later renamed Star) to compete with the popular Enquirer. It started as a weak imitation of the Sun, however it used a format based on celebrity gossip, health tips, and self-help advice which increased its circulation to almost four million.
16. In his endeavours to gain a big-city audience, Murdoch surprised the publishing world in 1976 when he bought the New York Post, a highly regarded liberal paper. By transforming its image he nearly doubled the circulation.
17. In 1977 he took control from Clay Felker of the New York Magazine Corp., which included the trendy New York magazine, New West, and the radical weekly the Village Voice. 
18. Focusing on the struggling paper in competitive urban markets, Murdoch extended his holdings by buying the ailing Boston Herald in 1982 and the modestly-profitable Chicago Sun-Times in 1983.
19. From his first involvement in publishing, Murdoch applied a recognizable formula to most of his papers. His trademark operations included rigid cost controls, circulation gimmicks, flashy headlines, and a steady emphasis on sex, crime, and scandal stories. Reminiscent of the personalized style of the fictional Citizen Kane.
20. Murdoch’s uninhibited sensationalism was scorned as vulgar and irresponsible by his peers.Murdoch’s uninhibited sensationalism was scorned as vulgar and irresponsible by his peers. Murdoch’s uninhibited sensationalism was scorned as vulgar and irresponsible by his peers. Murdoch’s uninhibited sensationalism was scorned as vulgar and irresponsible by his peers.
21. In 1983 Murdoch purchased a controlling interest in Satellite Television, a London company supplying entertainment programming to cable-television operators in Europe.
22. His plan for beaming programs from satellites directly to homes equipped with small receivers did not progress, and his attempt to gain control of Warner Communications and its extensive film library did not succeed. 
23. However, in 1985 he did purchase the film company Twentieth Century Fox. 
24. Murdoch’s business interests included two television stations in Australia, half ownership in the country’s largest private airlines, book publishing, records, films (he co-produced Gallipoli), ranching, gas and oil exploration, and a share in the British wire service Reuters News Corp. Ltd. which earned almost $70 million in 1983. 
25. His holdings rivaled such U.S. giants as Time, Inc. and the Times Mirror (now Time Warner) Company. In 1988, in connection with his television network, he bought Triangle publications—with holdings that included TV Guide, the leading television program listing publication— from Walter Annenberg for $3 billion.