News Corporation

News Corporation
Type Public: (NYSENWS, NYSENWSA, ASX:NWS, LSE: NCRA)
Founded Flag of Australia Adelaide, Australia (1979)
Headquarters Flag of the United States New York City, formerly in Sydney, Australia
Key people Rupert Murdoch
Peter Chernin
David DeVoe
Lawrence Jacobs
James Murdoch
Industry Broadcasting, Publishing, Media, Internet, Entertainment
Products Films, Television, Cable Programming, Satellite Television, Magazines, Newspapers, Books, Sporting Events, Websites
Revenue $28.66 billion USD (March 21, 2008)[1]
Employees 64,000 (2008)[2]
Website www.newscorp.com
1211 Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), where News Corporation is based

News Corporation (often abbreviated to News Corp) (NYSENWS, NYSENWSA, ASX:NWS, LSE: NCRA) is one of the world's largest media conglomerates. The company's Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Founder is Rupert Murdoch and the President and Chief Operating Officer is Peter Chernin.

News Corporation is a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Australian Securities Exchange and as a secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange. Formerly incorporated in South Australia, the company was re-incorporated in the United States state of Delaware after a majority of shareholders approved the move on 12 November 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 30 June 2008 was US$32.996 billion with an operating income of US$5.381 billion. Almost 70% of the company's sales come from its US businesses.

Contents

History

News Corp 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.[3] A number of senior Australian media moguls were brought into Murdoch's powerhouse, including John Dux, who was managing director of the South China Morning 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.[4] Ultimately the unions capitulated.

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 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalised 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 1992, 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 subsidised 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. It was also noted that the stations themselves were owned by a separate company whose chief shareholder was U.S. citizen Murdoch, although nearly all of the stations' equity was controlled by News Corp. 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 DirecTV, from General Motors for Electronics, operator of the largest American satellite TV system, US$6 billion.

In 2007 News Corporation reached an agreement to purchase Dow Jones, publishers of the Wall Street Journal for an estimated $5.6 billion. On 15 October 2007 the corporation spun off a business news channel from Fox News - Fox Business Network.[5] The channel's lawyers were "reviewing all of the fine details of the contract" between Dow Jones and CNBC, said Alexis Glick, Fox Business Network's vice president of business news and the channel's morning anchor. But, she added, "we will actively use" the other Dow Jones properties.[6] "...this new channel is a bit tedious. Somehow, business is more interesting when treated in a business-like way", commented Rob Carrick in 16 October's Toronto Globe and Mail.[7] On February 8, 2007, Murdoch promised guests at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit that, "a Fox channel would be more business-friendly than CNBC. That channel leap[s] on every scandal, or what they think is a scandal,' he said." [8]

Shareholders

Corporate governance

The company's Board of Directors consists of 15 individuals:

Office of the Chairman

Holdings

Books

Newspapers

Magazines

Music / Radio

Sport

Studios

TV

News Corp agreed to sell eight of its television stations to Oak Hill Capital Partners for approximately $1.1 billion as of 22 December 2007. The stations are US FOX affiliates.[12]

Broadcast

Satellite television

Cable

CHANNELS

PLATFORMS

Internet

Other assets

Annual conference

News Corporation organises an annual management conference, discussing media issues related to geopolitics. Attendees include News Corporation executives, senior journalists, Politicians and Celebrities. Previous events were in Cancun, Mexico, and the Hayman Island off the coast of Australia. The events are private and secretive, there are no records available for the agenda or talks given at the conferences, and no uninvited journalists are permitted access.[13]

The 2006 event in Pebble Beach, California was led by Rupert Murdoch. According to a copy of the agenda leaked to the Los Angeles Times and other media accounts,[14] issues discussed related from Europe to broadcasting and new media, terrorism to the national policy.[15] The event included speeches from Rupert Murdoch, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bono, Al Gore, Senator John McCain and Bill Clinton while Israeli vice-premier, Shimon Peres, will appear on a panel named Islam and the West. The Other notable attendees include Newt Gingrich and Nicole Kidman.

See also

References

External links