News Corporation

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Lore & Background

During the 1980s and 1990s, News Corp acquired Harper & Row for $300 million in 1987 and William Collins, Sons for $721 million in 1989, merging them to form HarperCollins that same year. In 1988, it purchased Triangle Publications (publisher of TV Guide, Seventeen, and Daily Racing Form) for $3 billion. By 1992, large debts—partly from its stake in Sky Television—forced News Corp to sell many American magazine interests to K-III Communications and spin off Australian magazines as Pacific Magazines. In 1996, it launched Fox News Channel on October 7 and acquired New World Communications for $2.48 billion in stock, completing the deal on January 22, 1997. In 2003, News Corp bought a controlling 34% stake in Hughes Electronics (operator of DirecTV) from General Motors for US$6 billion. On June 28, 2012, Rupert Murdoch announced a restructuring into two publicly traded companies, completed on June 28, 2013; the original News Corp was renamed 21st Century Fox, and a new News Corp was formed for publishing and Australian broadcasting assets.

Reader's Guide

News Corporation's significance lies in its transformation of global media through aggressive expansion and consolidation under Rupert Murdoch. It pioneered the fourth U.S. commercial broadcast network with Fox, which launched on October 9, 1986, with Joan Rivers' The Late Show, and began prime-time programming in April 1987. It challenged established news outlets with Fox News Channel, launched October 7, 1996, and dominated newspaper markets in Australia, the UK, and the U.S. with titles like The Times, The Sun, and The Wall Street Journal. Its legacy includes both media innovation and controversy, notably the News of the World phone hacking scandal that led to that paper's closure in July 2011 and shareholder concerns that prompted the 2013 split. The company's complex international structure and use of offshore tax havens allowed it to pay minimal taxes, as reported by The Economist in 1999, which noted that Newscorp Investments had made £11.4 billion ($20.1 billion) in profits over 11 years but paid no net corporation tax. The split into 21st Century Fox and a new News Corp aimed to unlock shareholder value and separate media from publishing assets.

Did You Know?

• News Corp was originally incorporated in Adelaide, South Australia, before re-incorporating under Delaware General Corporation Law on November 12, 2004.
• Rupert Murdoch became a naturalized U.S. citizen on September 4, 1985, to satisfy the legal requirement that only U.S. citizens could own American television stations.
• In 1999, The Economist reported that Newscorp Investments had made £11.4 billion ($20.1 billion) in profits over 11 years but paid no net corporation tax.
• The News of the World phone hacking scandal led to the paper's closure in July 2011.
• The formal split of News Corporation into 21st Century Fox and a new News Corp was completed on June 28, 2013.

From Adelaide to the World: Corporate Origins

The corporate lineage of News Corporation stretches back to 1923, when James Edward Davidson established News Limited in Adelaide, South Australia, with backing from the Collins House mining fortune. The original purpose was publishing anti-union propaganda, though control eventually passed to the Herald & Weekly Times. In 1949, Keith Murdoch seized control of Adelaide's afternoon tabloid The News, and upon his death in 1952, his son Rupert inherited a controlling stake in that paper. This inheritance became the seed from which a global media empire would grow. On March 15, 1980, Rupert Murdoch formally established News Corp Limited as a holding company for News Limited, incorporating in Adelaide. The company would later migrate its legal home to Delaware following a shareholder vote in November 2004, settling its headquarters at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Today, News Limited continues to operate as the Australian arm of the Murdoch media family, publishing The Australian from offices in Surry Hills, Sydney.

American Expansion and the Birth of a Fourth Network

News Limited's first foray into American journalism came in 1973 with the purchase of the San Antonio Express and News, followed by the founding of the National Star supermarket tabloid. The truly transformative move arrived in 1976, when the company bought the New York Post from Dorothy Schiff for $31 million. By 1984, News Corp had added the Chicago Sun-Times for $90 million and, in a landmark deal, acquired a 50% stake in TCF Holdings—the parent of 20th Century Fox—from Marc Rich for $162 million, later buying out the remaining share from Marvin Davis for $325 million. Two months after that Fox stake purchase, Murdoch announced the $3.5 billion acquisition of Metromedia's television stations from John Kluge. To satisfy the legal requirement that only U.S. citizens could own American broadcast stations, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen on September 4, 1985. The Metromedia deal closed in 1986, and on October 9 of that year, the Fox Broadcasting Company went on air, debuting with Joan Rivers hosting The Late Show.

The Wapping War and British Media Power

News Corporation's British operations, channeled through News International, brought both commercial triumph and fierce industrial conflict. In 1986 and 1987, Murdoch moved to overhaul the printing processes of his UK newspapers, challenging the long-standing dominance of the National Graphical Association and the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades. The relocation of London's printing operation to Wapping in the East End triggered nightly confrontations outside the new plant, with delivery vans and depots subjected to repeated violent attacks. The unions ultimately capitulated, and Murdoch brought in senior Australian media figures, including John Dux of the South China Morning Post, to help rebuild the operation. The British portfolio also included The Times, The Sun, and the now-defunct News of the World, whose phone-hacking scandal forced its closure in July 2011. In satellite television, News Corp's stake in Sky Television endured years of heavy losses, subsidized by profits from other holdings, until it compelled rival operator BSB to accept a merger on its terms in 1990, creating BSkyB, which has dominated British pay-TV ever since.

The 2013 Split and a Reshaped Legacy

By the time of its division, News Corporation stood as the world's largest media company measured by total assets and the fourth largest by revenue, with a footprint spanning news, television, film, and print. On June 28, 2012, Rupert Murdoch announced that shareholder concerns over recent controversies and a desire to unlock greater long-term value would drive a restructuring of the company's assets into two separate publicly traded entities. The formal split was completed on June 28, 2013. The original News Corp. was rebranded as 21st Century Fox, retaining the media-oriented properties including the Fox Entertainment Group, which held 20th Century Fox Film Corporation and the Fox Broadcasting Company. The newly formed News Corp absorbed the publishing and Australian broadcasting assets, encompassing News Limited, News International, Dow Jones & Company (publisher of The Wall Street Journal), and the book publisher HarperCollins. This bifurcation effectively separated the entertainment and broadcasting engine from the print and publishing legacy, reshaping the corporate landscape Murdoch had built over more than three decades.

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