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Top 10 interesting facts about Rupert Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-born American businessman, media tycoon, and investor who turned media into a lucrative empire, with holdings all over the world. From The Wall Street Journal to 20th Century Fox, HarperCollins to Fox News, Murdoch has ties to them all.

Murdoch founded the global media holding company the News Corporation Ltd, often called News Corp, in 1979. It focused on publishing after a reorganization in which its media and television holdings were spun off as 21st Century Fox and largely sold in 2019. That sale resulted in the creation of Fox Corporation, which included Fox News and other TV channels.

Below, we discuss the top 10 astonishing facts about Rupert Murdoch;

1. One of the 100 richest people in the world

Rupert Murdoch – Flickr

With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world. To put that in perspective, he’s worth more than the annual gross domestic product of Madagascar, a country of 27 million people.

By 2000, Murdoch’s News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries, with a net worth of over $5 billion.

2. Murdoch is indeed a very powerful man

President Reagan during a meeting with Rupert Murdoch with Charles Wick in the Oval Office – Wikipedia

Murdoch’s tremendous power can make or break politicians, frame news narratives at the stroke of a checkbook, and change once-trusted sources of information into founts of sensationalism and tabloid headlines.

Many of Murdoch’s papers and television channels have been accused of biased and misleading coverage to support his business interests and political allies. Some have credited his influence with major political developments in the UK, US, and Australia.

In November 2015, former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott said that Murdoch “arguably has had more impact on the wider world than any other living Australian”.

鈥淣ews Corp is easily the most powerful political force in Australia 鈥� bigger than the major parties or the combined weight of the unions,鈥� writes 30-year Labor strategist Bruce Hawker in The Rudd Rebellion, his recent book about the 2013 election.

In 2016, Forbes ranked “Rupert Murdoch & Family” as the 35th most powerful person in the world.

3. Murdoch owned his first Newspaper at the age of 21

Keith Murdoch – Wikipedia

After his father’s, Keith Murdoch, death from cancer in 1952, Murdoch was 21, he returned from Oxford to take charge of what was left of the family business.

Murdoch turned its failing newspaper, The Adelaide News, into a success. He began to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion, buying the troubled Sunday Times in Perth, Western Australia and over the next few years acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory, including the Sydney afternoon tabloid, The Daily Mirror.

He then started The Australian, the first national paper in the country. Fifteen years later, he started what would become an international media conglomerate when he purchased London’s News of the World in 1968.

4. Murdoch invented modern tabloid

The Sun Newspaper – Flickr

Tabloid newspapers skyrocketed in popularity in the second half of the 20th century, and Murdoch helped bring those papers into the mainstream. As The Economist puts it, “he invented the modern tabloid newspaper – a stew of sexual titillation, moral outrage, and political aggression.”

Murdoch’s newspapers focused on eye-catching headlines that principally centered around stories of scandal and controversy, resulting in a spike in circulation.

Even Murdoch’s more traditional media holdings have the reputation of being less focused on news and more on competing with sports and entertainment media. Outlets like Fox News have become successful by focusing on infotainment to attract viewers.

5. Poor social media choices

MySpace logo – Flickr

In 2005, Murdoch bought MySpace for $580 million when it was at the height of its success. MySpace amped up its video offerings in 2006, and Murdoch claimed that it would be bigger than rival YouTube in within 60 days.

Despite its early promise, the social networking site could not compete with other social networking sites. In 2008, the website had over 100 million users, but by 2011, that figure had fallen to 30 million.

This resulted in News Corp selling Myspace in 2011 or approximately $35 million to Justin Timberlake and other investors.

6. Murdoch has been married four times

Murdoch with his third wife, Wendi – Wikipedia

In 1956, he married Australian Patricia Booker, a former shop assistant and flight attendant from Melbourne. They had a daughter, Prudence, born in 1958. They divorced 11 years later in 1967.

In that same year, he married Scottish-born Anna Torv, a journalist who was working at The Daily Telegraph. Together they had three children: Elisabeth (1968), Lachlan (1971) and James (1972). They divorced in 1999.

On 25 June 1999, 17 days later, Murdoch at aged 66 married Chinese-born Wendi Deng aged 30. She was a recent Yale School of Management graduate, and a newly appointed vice-president of his STAR TV. They had two daughters: Grace (2001) and Chloe (2003). Murdoch filed for divorce from Wendi in June 2013, reaching a divorce settlement in November.

On 4 March 2016, Murdoch, a week short of his 85th birthday, and 59-year-old Jerry Hall were married in London. Hall filed for divorce on 1 July 2022 citing irreconcilable differences.

7. One of the most expensive divorces

Anna Torv and Murdoch – Twitter

Murdoch married Anna Torv in 1967. They are believed to have met while Torv was working for Murdoch鈥檚 Sydney newspaper, the Daily Mirror, when she had the opportunity to interview him.

Murdoch’s companies published two novels by his then wife: Family Business (1988) and Coming to Terms (1991). She was also a main board director of News Corp from 1990 until the two separated.

Torv once praised her husband as a 鈥渧ery good and moral human being鈥� whose ownership of the Sun newspaper was often taken out of context. 

In 1999, after 32 years of marriage to the News Corp CEO, they divorced. Anna Torv reportedly received $1.7 billion as well as $110 million in cash, making their divorce one of the most expensive ever.

8. Murdoch induced in the hall of fame

Rupert Murdoch – Wikipedia

The Television Academy’s Hall of Fame Selection Committee announced that Murdoch would be inducted into the 23rd Hall of Fame in December 2014.

He is being honoured for launching FOX Broadcasting Company and ‘revolutionising’ the television landscape with ground-breaking shows such as The Simpsons, The X-Files and American Idol among others.

9. He has been publicly pied

Jonnie Marbles pleades guilty – YouTube

In July 2011, Murdoch faced allegations that his companies, including the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty, and public citizens.

While giving testimony before a British parliamentary committee, comedian and activist Jonathan May-Bowles – known as Jonnie Marbles – lunged at Murdoch with a plate full of shaving cream.

Marbles tweeted shortly after the attack: “It is far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat” and was later jailed for six weeks.

10. Reported to have died

Rupert Murdoch at the Les Mis茅rables red carpet movie premiere, Sydney, Australia – Wikimedia Commons

The day before Murdoch, his son James and former CEO Rebekah Brooks were to give testimony about the phone hacking scandal, digital vigilante groups Anonymous and LulzSec hacked the News Corp-owned The Sun website and posted an article on its home page claiming that Murdoch had died.

The story claimed Mr Murdoch had taken his own life by ingesting a large quantity of palladium, a rare earth mineral, before “stumbling into his famous topiary garden late last night”.

The hack was the first that successfully bypassed the security of a major newspaper.