If you are in the US, then the first channel that you switch on to learn about the latest happenings in the world is probably Fox News. The basic cable and satellite television news channel, known as one of the ‘Big Three’ news networks, other two being CNN and MSNBC, is the most-viewed news channel in the US. In 2013, while its viewership declined by approximately 6 percent, it still drew more audience than MSNBC, CNN and HLN combined.
Do you know who owns the news channel that you so religiously watch? Well, you do not need Google as we are here. Through this article, we will not only be telling you the name of the brains behind the media giant, but also various details about him.
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The owner of Fox News is the Australia-born American media mogul, Rupert Murdoch. His father, Sir Keith Murdoch was a reporter, editor, and senior executive for the Herald and Weekly Times publishing company, which covered almost the entire country of Australia.
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After the death of his father in 1952, Rupert Murdoch inherited the News and Sunday Mail. In the 1950s and 1960s, he acquired a plethora of Newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, before finally expanding his business to the United Kingdom in 1969.
(Image Courtesy: The New York Times)
Expanding to Europe, he first took over News of the World, and soon followed it up with the acquisition of The Sun, which was struggling for readers at the moment. Retaining his business entities in Australia and the UK, Murdoch then decided to expand his business empire to another continent and in 1973, acquired the Texas-based tabloid the San Antonio News.
The following year, he established an international tabloid named, the Star, and purchased the New York Post a couple of years after that. 1979 was a huge year for the media magnate as that is when he founded News Corporation, a holding company for his several different media assets.
The 1980s and 1990s saw the Australian acquiring news outlets around the globe including Chicago Sun-Times, New York Magazine and the Village Voice in the US and Times and Sunday Times in the UK. The year 1985 saw him creating an empire in the television and entertainment as well as that is when he was purchasing 20th Century Fox Film Corporation along with numerous independent stations, which he consolidated into Fox Inc.
Murdoch has also made significant investments in the world of sports as he owns an important part of Los Angeles Lakers NBA franchise, Los Angeles Kings NHL franchise along with Fox Sports Radio and foxsports.com. In 2013, he decided to restructure his empire and divided it into two companies, 21st Century Fox Inc. which deals with movies and television, and News Corp, which incorporated newspapers and other publishing assets.
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