Murdoch - media boss

BOOKMARK

Since book publishing, newspapers, films and television all have to do with words and pictures, or both, the lot has been lumped together under the rubric, Communications Industry. And the big boss of the whole show is Rupert Murdoch.

In fact, Murdoch's global reach is such that he's the only media baron who could say to William Randoph Hearst (RIP) who told his underlings (when asked to produce photographs of the abortive Cuban insurrection in 1898), "You supply the pictures and I'll supply the war."

As Bruce Page tells us in The Murdoch Archipelago (Simon and Schuster, £ 20) Murdoch is the media magnate with a finger on all communication networks to the extent that in his latest divorce proceedings neither he, nor his ex-wife, really knew what his assets were.

For once, Murdoch must have spoken the whole truth because his archipelago is as extensive as the Gulag with the same ramifications, skullduggery and vulgarity that characterised the Great Terror.

So, who is Murdoch and how did he get up there? It is impossible to say something conclusive, a summing-up thing about him since the range of his business interests are so diverse, almost to defy listing. But here are some facts.

He is an Australian who became an American citizen in 1985. He owns News Corp in Australia which means 70 per cent of Australian newspapers plus newspapers, magazines and tabloids worldwide. Among these are the Sun, News of the World, The Times and Sunday Times and The Times Educational, Higher Education and Literary Supplements, in Britain.

Among the publishers we know, he owns HarperCollins and Fourth Estate which means best-selling authors like Jack Higgins and Jonathan Franzen. Murdoch also controls multi-channel TV networks which includes Star satellite networks in Asia, Twentieth Century Fox which together have sponsored some of the greatest blockbusters like Titanic.

On the financial side, Murdoch's accountants obviously know a thing or two about accounting practices in different parts of the world and about moving money between networks of trusts and offshore entities in order to minimise the company's liabilities for tax.

Page has provided figures of profits of News Corp between 1992 and 1997 but after a good deal of financial wizardry, Murdoch ended up by paying no tax which provided "savings to over a billion pounds worth of unpaid tax."

Ownership in Murdoch's case means a 35 per cent stake held by him and the rest by News Corp and Cruden Investments which was set up by Murdoch's father and which in turn is held by another trust. It's all wheels within wheels that are run by a clutch of lawyers and accountants.

This suits Murdoch fine. On the one hand he can appoint and sack trustees at will which gives him complete control, and on the other, he can say what suits him best to save tax.

For instance, in America he can say that he is an Australian and subject to Australian tax laws which are more flexible; in Australia he can he claim that his profits are held by various trusts and therefore end up paying very little tax.

If Murdoch has got what he has, it is because of two reasons. First, he recognised as far back as the 1960s that the presentation of news had to become a sub-division of the entertainment industry; second, with advances in communications technology, a modern media company had to be global in its reach.

Put the two factors together, push politics to the backburner or at least use political contacts only to advance business interests and you have the recipe for Murdoch's successes. Business comes first, everything else later. Someone said Murdoch's strategy was simple: Put all the (communication) eggs in one basket and then watch the basket.

To an extent this is true. Murdoch hasn't diversified outside the communications network. All he has done is taken existing ideas and made them louder and more vulgar.

Given the fact that we are all similar in our prurient interests even as we are sharply differentiated in our civilised concerns, Murdoch's dumbing down suits the 'climate' of the times.

After all, the whole idea that the media shouldn't cater to public taste at the lowest level and instead try to improve that taste has been tossed aside as too antiquated "" not to mention patronising.