News Corporation

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Rupert Murdoch holding a copy of The Times newspaper, 2011.

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News Corporation (“News Corp”) is a multinational media and information services conglomerate that was originally founded in Australia in 1980, was reincorporated in 2013, and is headquartered in New York City. It was founded and headed by Rupert Murdoch and comprises news, book publishing, and television companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. 

The company’s origins lie in News Limited, created in 1923 by James Edward Davidson to purchase two small newspapers in New South Wales and South Australia. Keith Murdoch, who had become chief editor of the Melbourne Herald in 1921, began a campaign of buying other Australian newspapers, and this led to his becoming a major shareholder in News Limited. Murdoch-owned newspapers gained a reputation for supporting conservative policies and politicians. They also engendered criticism for stripping the newspapers of their editorial independence.

When Murdoch died in 1952, his son, Rupert Murdoch, inherited two Adelaide newspapers, The News and the Sunday Mail, and the following year he joined the board of News Limited.

Rupert Murdoch focused The News on gossip and scandal, which proved to be a lucrative strategy. He set about buying newspapers in the major cities of Australia and using the same approach to increase circulation. In 1960 News Unlimited made the crucial acquisitions of the Daily Mirror and the Sunday Mirror in Sydney. In another watershed event, the company launched a national newspaper, The Australian, in 1964. Murdoch’s newspapers emphasized crime, scandal, human interest stories, and sports, and they maintained a politically conservative editorial stance.

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Rupert Murdoch, shown in 1978, built a media empire from a newspaper he inherited from his father. He took a hands-on approach, often writing the scandalous headlines himself.

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In 1969 Murdoch and News Limited were able to add the London papers News of the World and The Sun to their portfolio. Murdoch then immersed himself in political editorializing in Australia before turning his attention to the U.S., where he bought two daily newspapers in San Antonio, Texas, in 1973 and added the New York Post in 1976. Back in Australia, in 1979 Murdoch gained control of television stations in Sydney and Melbourne, and the following year he established News Corporation as a holding company.

In 1981, News Corporation acquired, via its British subsidiary, The Times of London and The Sunday Times. As the decade continued, the company acquired what was then called Twentieth Century–Fox Film Corporation and several independent American television stations and folded them into a new company, Fox Inc., which became the fourth major broadcast network in the U.S.

News Corporation also acquired a group of American trade publications, including Travel Weekly and Aviation Daily. Murdoch also purchased several prestigious book publishing companies in the U.S., Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, and merged them (in 1990) into HarperCollins Publishers.

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Fox News Channel logo.

Peter Bond

Through the 1990s, News Corporation began focusing more on television than on newspapers, most notably in 1996, when it established the Foxtel pay television network in Australia and debuted the Fox News Channel in the U.S. The company also bought and later sold several American newspapers. In 2005 News Corporation paid $580 million to acquire the pioneering social network Myspace, and two years later, added Dow Jones & Company, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, to its portfolio of subsidiaries.

In June 2010, News Corporation launched a bid for television, broadband, and telephone conglomerate British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). Soon after, however, events began to go less smoothly for the company.

In July 2011, News Corporation officially abandoned its bid for BSkyB.

In 2013 the company was split into two: its print holdings were gathered into a company that was also named News Corporation (styled as News Corp), while the media and television assets were held by 21st Century Fox. Murdoch remained chairman of both companies.

In 2016 a former host on Fox News, Gretchen Carlson, filed a sexual harassment suit against Roger Ailes, who in 1996 was selected by Murdoch to head the fledgling Fox News and served as its president for 20 years. Carlson alleged that Ailes had made unwanted sexual advances and had engaged in sexist behavior. Other women reportedly made similar claims, including top television personality Megyn Kelly. Although Ailes denied the accusations, he resigned in July 2016.

In 2017 the Disney Company announced plans to acquire 21st Century Fox in a deal valued at $52.4 billion. The deal would close in March 2019. At the same time, American broadcast sports and news assets, including Fox News, were spun off from 21st Century Fox as a new company, Fox Corporation, headed by Murdoch.

In September 2023 Rupert Murdoch stepped down as chairman of News Corp, succeeded by his son, Lachlan Murdoch, who had already taken over as Fox Corporation CEO during the 2019 transition.