Is this the beginning of the end of Rupert Murdoch's media empire?

Forums: Media, Notw, News Of The World, Rupert Murdoch, Closure
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Maybe just wishful thinking on my part?

Or too early to tell?

But this is a huge blow to Rupert Murdoch's reputation & ambitions. Sunday will be the last edition of Britain's biggest (tabloid) newspaper, the News of the World, following a massive public backlash to revelations of phone hacking scandals by the paper.

Quote:

News of the World shuts amid hacking scandal
Updated 1 hour 0 minutes ago

Britain's biggest-selling (tabloid) newspaper the News of the World is being shut down following a scandal over phone hacking, owner Rupert Murdoch's son James Murdoch said.

As allegations multiplied that its journalists hacked the voicemails of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of Britain's war dead, the tabloid had haemorrhaged advertising, alienated millions of readers, and posed a growing threat to Rupert Murdoch's hopes of buying broadcaster BSkyB. ........

Advertisers have withdrawn from the News of the World in droves:

Quote:

The death blow for the tabloid came on Thursday, when veterans' charity the Royal British Legion and a flood of businesses joined a boycott of the newspaper. .......

Supermarket giant Sainsbury's, mobile phone operator O2, energy supplier Npower and high street stores Dixons, Boots and Specsavers became the latest companies to pull advertising from the paper.

They joined major brands such as Ford, Vauxhall and Mitsubishi, the Halifax bank and Virgin Holidays.

The British government also said it was urgently reviewing its own advertising contracts with the News of the World......

Recently Murdoch planned to buy UK broadcaster BSkyB. It's likely there will be considerable opposition to that .

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/08/3264142.htm

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@msolga,

Detailed report from the BBC News, including analysis & video reports:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14070733

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@msolga,

I haven't been following the story but one can't be too naive when it comes to Rupert Murdoch. Remember he's a multi-headed hydra of a multimedia empire where a loss of a single head would only be a minor wound when he still has another dozen or so fire breathing heads remaining.

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@msolga,

I was just reading a piece at nymag.

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/07/damage_control_james_murdoch_a.html

I'm interested in how this piece of family theatre plays out.

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@msolga,

Quote:

But this is a huge blow to Rupert Murdoch's reputation & ambitions.

Says who? Murdock his whole career has made it clear that he will do anything for either a buck or to stroke his ego so this affair is not a knock on him anymore than all the rest of the stuff he does. AND he has economized his newspaper operation, which he was looking to do anyways. Most reports I am seeing have closing down the paper being another Murdock masterstroke.

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@tsarstepan,

I agree that one can't be too naive when it comes to Rupert Murdoch, tsar.
He's a very cunning operator & the closure of the News of The World (a 160 years + British newspaper) could simply be a strategic move. Already there's talk of a 7 day a week internet replacement.
But, that will require advertisers to survive, yes?
And at the moment he is very much on the nose in the UK.
This is story huge in Britain & getting bigger & more damning by the day.
It certainly will be interesting to see how he will respond to this.
(Interesting that the Guardian broke the initial hacking story at a time when Murdoch was making a bid to purchase another media outlet, BSkyB.)

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

Most reports I am seeing have closing down the paper being another Murdock masterstroke.

Which reports have you read, hawkeye?
The way I see it, he had no choice but to close down the News of the World, as the hacking scandal revelations caused such revulsion & outrage in the UK. And his advertisers deserted him, as a result.
It is a huge loss to his UK media empire, both financially & to his reputation. It is highly unlikely he would have considered closing it prior to the hacking scandal breaking.
But it will certainly be interesting to see what strategies he employs from here.

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

Interesting article, ehBeth.
Thanks for posting it.
Interesting that it was James Murdoch who made the closure (of the NOTW) announcement ...

Quote:

Damage Control: James Murdoch and the Family Business

Britain's phone-hacking scandal has already closed a 167-year-old paper, wounded the British prime minister, and may yet cause Rupert Murdoch to jettison a favored lieutenant. But could it split the Murdoch family?

Succession seemed settled after James was elevated to News Corp.'s deputy chief operating officer and the chairman of News International. But that was before the current scandal gained its full momentum, with the revelation that the company's reporters had hacked the voice mail of a teenage murder victim and committed other acts of journalistic mayhem. ..... Cont

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/07/damage_control_james_murdoch_a.html

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@msolga,

Quote:

Which reports have you read, hawkeye?

http://news.yahoo.com/uk-tabloid-closure-points-murdoch-savvy-211802604.html

though now that I look further it appears that most analysis has it that Murdock overall has a lot of problems right now. The family problems are nothing new, but the bath he took on MySpace was an embarisment and the hate that he generates is starting to effect his ability to do deals.

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But, as well as watching the UK NOTW scandal unfold, I am also very interested in how the latest developments will influence Murdoch's ever expanding monopoly of world media.

Will governments actually start to intervene <gasp> in his endless acquisition of media outlets?

Just this week (before the NOTW scandal had received so much publicity) the Australian government intervened (& also changed the tendering process) which temporarily thwarted his bid for Australia's television service rights to Asia, particularly in China. Which would have given his company, Sky News, incredible influence in the region. Instead, the rights will remain with the ABC (Oz national broadcaster), for the time being, instead.
And quite rightly so, I think.

Quote:

Move to block TV bid
Daniel Flitton
July 4, 2011/the AGE

Blocked: the government recoiled from Rupert Murdoch's plans to set up a new Australian Network channel for China.

Rupert Murdoch at the launch of a Chinese TV station earlier this year. Photo: Reuters

THE Gillard government has made an extraordinary intervention in an official tender process to stop Rupert Murdoch's part-owned Sky News Australia winning a $223 million contract to broadcast Australia's overseas television service.

An aggressive bid to expand Australia's presence in China helped push Sky News over the line in a fierce contest with the ABC to win the rights to the station, known as Australia Network.

An independent panel of public servants set up to evaluate the competing tenders saw Sky's as the better bid, only for the government to baulk at the prospect of stripping the contract from the publicly funded ABC to hand it to a company part-owned by Mr Murdoch's News Ltd, Channel Seven and the Nine Network. Labor then made late changes to the tender rules, sidelining the role of the independent panel and throwing the legitimacy of the process into doubt.

Australia Network broadcasts news, drama and sport to 44 countries in Asia and the Pacific, as well as programs to teach English-language skills, targeting the emerging middle-class audience in the region.

At present the ABC holds the rights to broadcast the network, but the government put a new 10-year deal out to competitive tender in February with an outcome originally set for May 2.

It is understood Sky News proposed setting up a dedicated channel for China to run separately from the rest of the network as a way of expanding Australia's reach in the Asian powerhouse, where censorship limits foreign news broadcasts.

No licences to broadcast into China have been granted in recent years but the Foreign Affairs Department has said it is keen to gain access for Australia's public diplomacy channel.

The China proposal was only part of the reason Sky was favoured, with the full tender details still secret.

The winner of the contract remains in doubt after the government used the cover of recent upheaval in the Middle East and Africa to request more information from the ABC and Sky News. Canberra has also asked the bidders to explain their operations ''in light of the increasing influence of key emerging markets on the global economy'' - a phrase often used to describe China. ...<cont>

http://www.theage.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/move-to-block-tv-bid-20110703-1gxcj.html

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@msolga,

nymag has been publishing interesting pieces on the Murdoch clan since at least the late 1990's

searching the mag archives for Murdoch brings up a treasure trove

the mag was briefly owned by Murdoch, so there are more than a few former insiders with tales to tell there

(or is that axes to grind - and no fear?)

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

Quote:

... the bath he took on MySpace was an embarisment and the hate that he generates is starting to effect his ability to do deals.

I think it's more than that.
Or I hope it is!
I'm hoping that there has also been a backlash to his ever growing monopoly of world media & how that's corrupted the news for his own powerful interests.
Murdoch is responsible for News Limited in Australia <shudder>, Fox News & News of the World in the UK, say nothing of all the rest .....
God forbid that his influence becomes even more pervasive!
It is simply unhealthy for any one media corporation to have so much power & influence.

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@ehBeth,

Thank you, ehBeth.
Will do.

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@msolga,

a somewhat random selection from 26 pages of links in the nymag archives with Murdoch references

1998 http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medialife/2524/

2005 http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/11673/

2010 http://nymag.com/news/media/64305/

2005 http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/14302/ (one of my personal favs)

2002 http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medialife/5766/

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I posted this article from the New Statesman earlier this week on another thread.

Pretty incredible!

Hugh Grant, who'd been bugged by News of the World himself, decided to turn the tables on a NOTW journalist & tape a private conversation with him ..... and found out some very interesting things indeed!

Wow, Hugh Grant, I never would have thought I had it in you to do such a thing! Surprised

Well done!

Quote:

World exclusive: Hugh Grant turns the tables on the phone-hackers

The bugger, bugged.
Posted by New Statesman - 06 April 2011 22:11

Hugh Grant. Credit: Getty Images

In this week's New Statesman, the actor Hugh Grant secretly records the former News of the World journalist Paul McMullan discussing phone-hacking and David Cameron's relationship with the Murdochs and News International. ......

http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/04/phone-hacking-world-bugger

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@msolga,

Here's the article in full:

http://www.newstatesman.com/newspapers/2011/04/phone-yeah-cameron-murdoch

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@msolga,

Sadly no, I would say to your question.

I think it's just a drama filled jettisoning of a scapegoat so he can get what he wants re television rights, which are more important to the empire.

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@ehBeth,

Very interesting reading, ehBeth!
(And I'm only into your first link! Wink

)

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@dlowan,

Well I hope (as you probably wish!) that you're wrong about that, Deb.

It gives me some hope that the BSkyB purchase in the UK is receiving opposition & that the Oz government has temporarily stymied his bid for Asian/Chinese television rights in favour of the ABC.
I'm hoping other governments will follow suit.

What does the man want?
Total world control?

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But back to the UK:

Quote:

Phone hacking: full list of the victims identified so far

Who was targeted by the News of the World?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/sep/10/phone-hacking-victims-list

1 Reply

Is this the beginning of the end of Rupert Murdoch's media empire?

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