News Limited
Encyclopedia
News Limited is one of Australia
's largest diversified media
companies. The publicly listed company's
interests span newspaper
and magazine
publishing
, Internet
, Pay TV
, National Rugby League
, market research
, DVD
and film distribution
, and film and television production trading assets.
News Limited owns approximately 146 daily, Sunday, weekly, bi-weekly and tri-weekly newspapers, of which three are free commuter titles and 102 are suburban publications (including 16 of which News Limited has a 50% interest). News Limited publishes a nationally distributed newspaper in Australia, a metropolitan newspaper in each of the Australian cities of Sydney
, Melbourne, Brisbane
, Adelaide
, Perth
(Sundays only), Hobart
and Darwin
and a suburban newspaper in the suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. The company publishes a further thirty magazine titles across Australia.
With interests in digital media
, the company's sites include carsguide.com.au, news.com.au, MOSHTIX.com.au, GetPrice.com.au and truelocal.com.au, and has a 50% stake in CareerOne.com.au, and a share in REA Limited that operates www.realestate.com.au, as well as websites for most newspaper and magazine titles. The company's other Australian assets include part-shares in subscription television provider FOXTEL
and the National Rugby League
together with shares in two teams in the NRL.
Until the formation of the News Corp Limited
in 1979, News Limited was the principal holding company
for the business interests of Rupert Murdoch
and his family. Since then, News Limited has been wholly owned by News Corp Limited. In 2004, News Corp Limited announced its intention to reincorporate to the United States
. On 3 November News Corp Limited ceased trading on the Australian Stock Exchange
; and on 8 November, News Corporation Inc. began trading on the New York Stock Exchange
.
, a daily newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia
. Sir Keith Murdoch
acquired a minority interest in the company in 1949. Following the death of his father, Sir Keith, in 1952, Rupert Murdoch inherited The News, which has been described by Bruce Page as the "foundation stone" of News Limited (and News Corporation).
Over the next few years, Murdoch gradually established himself as one of the most dynamic media proprietors in Australia, quickly expanding his holdings by acquiring a string of daily and suburban newspapers in most capital cities, including the Sydney afternoon paper, The Daily Mirror
, as well as a small Sydney-based recording company, Festival Records. His acquisition of the Mirror proved crucial to his success, allowing him to challenge the dominance of his two main rivals in the Sydney market, the Fairfax Newspapers
group, which published the hugely profitable The Sydney Morning Herald
, and the Consolidated Press
group, owned by Sir Frank Packer, which published the city's leading tabloid paper, The Daily Telegraph
.
In 1964, News Limited made its next important advance when it established The Australian
, Australia's first national daily newspaper, based first in Canberra
and later in Sydney. The Australian, a broadsheet
, gave News Limited a new respectability as a quality newspaper publisher, and also greater political influence since The Australian has always had an elite readership, if not always a large circulation.
In 1972, News Limited acquired The Daily Telegraph from Sir Frank Packer, making Murdoch one of the "big three" newspaper proprietors in Australia, along with Fairfax Media in Sydney and his father's old Herald and Weekly Times Ltd
in Melbourne. In the 1972 elections
, Murdoch swung his newspapers' support behind Gough Whitlam
and the left wing
Australian Labor Party
, but by 1975 he had turned against Labor, and since then has almost always supported the rightist Liberal Party
.
Over the next ten years, as his press empire grew, Murdoch established a hugely lucrative financial base, and these profits were routinely used to subsidise further acquisitions. In his early years of newspaper ownership Murdoch was an aggressive, micromanaging entrepreneur. His standard tactic was to buy loss-making Australian newspapers and turn them around by introducing radical management and editorial changes and fighting no-holds-barred circulation wars with his competitors. By the 1970s, this power base was so strong that Murdoch was able to acquire leading newspapers and magazines in both London and New York, as well as many other media holdings.
On the 12 July 2006, News Limited announced the creation of a new division, News Digital Media to manage the operations of the news site NEWS.com.au; the online marketplace sites, carsguide.com.au, truelocal.com.au and careerone.com.au as well as the partly owned realestate.com.au, foxsports.com.au and related activities involving FOXTEL and the company’s newspapers and the Australian versions of Fox Interactive Media sites MySpace
and IGN. Chairman and chief executive of News Limited, John Hartigan, announced the appointment of Richard Freudenstein as chief executive of the division.
In the wake of the News International phone hacking scandal in the United Kingdom, in July 2011 News Limited announced a review of all payments in the previous three years. On 22 July it was reported that two retired Victorian Supreme Court judges, Frank Vincent AO
QC
and Bernard Teague AO, were appointed to act as independent assessors of the conduct of the review and also assess the outcome. The editorial and financial review concluded in early November and found no evidence of phone hacking or payments to public officials, with Vincent and Teague declaring that the review process did not bring ".....to light any systemic issues with respect to the making of payments to third parties and any substantial amounts paid to individuals in respect of illegitimate activities."
, and within a few years it had become the leading local recording company. He also bought a television station in Wollongong, New South Wales, hoping to use it to break into the Sydney television market, but found himself frustrated by Australia's cross-media ownership laws, which prevented him from owning both a major newspaper and television station in the same city. Since then he has consistently lobbied, both personally and through his papers, to have these laws changed in his favour. This occurred in 2006 when the Liberal-National Coalition Government, having gained control of both houses of the Australian Parliament, introduced reforms to cross-media ownership and foreign media ownership laws. The laws came into effect in early 2007.
News Limited has nearly three-quarters of daily metropolitan newspaper circulation and so maintains great influence in Australia. Internal News Limited documents reveal a brazen offer during the 2001 Federal election campaign to promote the policies of a major party in its best-selling newspapers nation-wide for almost A$500,000. Other documents include a marginal seats guide written by a senior business manager for internal use. It evidences a corporate strategy to target marginal seats at the 2004 election. Some of the documents appeared on Media Watch but received very little coverage.
, and The Sun
in 1969 and The Times
and The Sunday Times
in 1981, which he bought in 1981 from the Thomson
family. Both takeovers further reinforced his growing reputation as a ruthless and cunning business operator. His takeover of The Times aroused great hostility among traditionalists, who feared he would take it "downmarket." This led directly to the founding of The Independent
in 1986 as an alternative quality daily.
in 1973, when he purchased the San Antonio News. Soon afterwards he founded the National Star
, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976 he purchased the New York Post
. Subsequent acquisitions were undertaken through News Corporation.
) as well as large stakes in several other newspaper publishers. News Limited went on to acquire the remaining shares of Brisbane's Queensland Newspapers (owner of The Courier-Mail
), Adelaide's Advertiser Newspapers (owner of The Advertiser) and Hobart's Davies Brothers (owner of The Mercury
).
In 1991 News Limited spun off its longtime magazine house, Southdown Press, as Pacific Magazines and Printing
, and sold the former Advertiser magazines, renamed Murdoch Magazines
, to Matt Handbury. News Limited reentered the magazine market in 2000 with the start of News Magazines. In 2006, News Limited returned to being a major player in the Australian magazine business with the purchase of Independent Print Media Group's FPC Magazines (Delicious, Super Food Ideas, Vogue Australia).
National
New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
South Australia
Western Australia
Tasmania
Northern Territory
Melbourne
Brisbane
Adelaide
Perth
Queensland
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
's largest diversified media
Media conglomerate
A media conglomerate, media group or media institution is a company that owns large numbers of companies in various mass media such as television, radio, publishing, movies, and the Internet...
companies. The publicly listed company's
Limited company
A limited company is a company in which the liability of the members or subscribers of the company is limited to what they have invested or guaranteed to the company. Limited companies may be limited by shares or by guarantee. And the former of these, a limited company limited by shares, may be...
interests span newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
and magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
publishing
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
, Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, Pay TV
Pay TV
Pay television, premium television, or premium channels refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by both analog and digital cable and satellite, but also increasingly via digital terrestrial and internet television...
, National Rugby League
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...
, market research
Market research
Market research is any organized effort to gather information about markets or customers. It is a very important component of business strategy...
, DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and film distribution
Film distribution
The distribution of a film is the process through which a movie is made available to watch for an audience by a film distributor...
, and film and television production trading assets.
News Limited owns approximately 146 daily, Sunday, weekly, bi-weekly and tri-weekly newspapers, of which three are free commuter titles and 102 are suburban publications (including 16 of which News Limited has a 50% interest). News Limited publishes a nationally distributed newspaper in Australia, a metropolitan newspaper in each of the Australian cities of Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Melbourne, Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
, Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
(Sundays only), Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
and Darwin
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory, Australia. Situated on the Timor Sea, Darwin has a population of 127,500, making it by far the largest and most populated city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, but the least populous of all Australia's capital cities...
and a suburban newspaper in the suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth. The company publishes a further thirty magazine titles across Australia.
With interests in digital media
Digital media
Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital form. It can refer to the technical aspect of storage and transmission Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored in digital (as opposed to analog) form. It can refer to the technical aspect of...
, the company's sites include carsguide.com.au, news.com.au, MOSHTIX.com.au, GetPrice.com.au and truelocal.com.au, and has a 50% stake in CareerOne.com.au, and a share in REA Limited that operates www.realestate.com.au, as well as websites for most newspaper and magazine titles. The company's other Australian assets include part-shares in subscription television provider FOXTEL
Foxtel
Foxtel is an Australian pay television company, operating cable, direct broadcast satellite television and IPTV services. It was formed in 1995 through a joint venture established between Telstra and News Corporation....
and the National Rugby League
National Rugby League
The National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...
together with shares in two teams in the NRL.
Until the formation of the News Corp Limited
News Corporation
News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
in 1979, News Limited was the principal holding company
Holding company
A holding company is a company or firm that owns other companies' outstanding stock. It usually refers to a company which does not produce goods or services itself; rather, its purpose is to own shares of other companies. Holding companies allow the reduction of risk for the owners and can allow...
for the business interests of Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
and his family. Since then, News Limited has been wholly owned by News Corp Limited. In 2004, News Corp Limited announced its intention to reincorporate to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. On 3 November News Corp Limited ceased trading on the Australian Stock Exchange
Australian Stock Exchange
The Australian Securities Exchange was created by the merger of the Australian Stock Exchange and the Sydney Futures Exchange in July 2006. It is the primary stock exchange group in Australia....
; and on 8 November, News Corporation Inc. began trading on the New York Stock Exchange
New York Stock Exchange
The New York Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located at 11 Wall Street in Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA. It is by far the world's largest stock exchange by market capitalization of its listed companies at 13.39 trillion as of Dec 2010...
.
History
News Limited was established in 1923, publishing The NewsThe News (Adelaide)
The News was an afternoon daily tabloid newspaper in the city of Adelaide, South Australia.The newspaper was established in 1869 as the Evening Journal. In 1933, a controlling stake was taken by The Advertiser, controlled by the Herald and Weekly Times. HWT sold off The News in 1949, and Sir Keith...
, a daily newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
. Sir Keith Murdoch
Keith Murdoch
Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch was an Australian journalist and the father of Rupert Murdoch, the CEO and Chairman of News Corp.-Life and career:Murdoch was born in Melbourne in 1885, the son of Annie and the Rev...
acquired a minority interest in the company in 1949. Following the death of his father, Sir Keith, in 1952, Rupert Murdoch inherited The News, which has been described by Bruce Page as the "foundation stone" of News Limited (and News Corporation).
Over the next few years, Murdoch gradually established himself as one of the most dynamic media proprietors in Australia, quickly expanding his holdings by acquiring a string of daily and suburban newspapers in most capital cities, including the Sydney afternoon paper, The Daily Mirror
The Daily Mirror (Australia)
The Daily Mirror was an afternoon paper established by Ezra Norton in Sydney, Australia in 1941, gaining a licence from the Minister for Trade and Customs, Eric Harrison, despite wartime paper rationing. In October 1958, Norton and his partners sold his newspapers to the Fairfax group, which...
, as well as a small Sydney-based recording company, Festival Records. His acquisition of the Mirror proved crucial to his success, allowing him to challenge the dominance of his two main rivals in the Sydney market, the Fairfax Newspapers
Fairfax Media
Fairfax Media Limited is one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. The group's operations include newspapers, magazines, radios and digital media operating in Australia and New Zealand. Fairfax Media was founded by the Fairfax family as John Fairfax and Sons, later to become John...
group, which published the hugely profitable The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
, and the Consolidated Press
Publishing and Broadcasting Limited
Publishing and Broadcasting Limited was one of Australia's largest companies, with interests primarily in media and gaming. The company demerged in late 2007, spinning out its gaming interests into Crown Limited...
group, owned by Sir Frank Packer, which published the city's leading tabloid paper, The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph (Australia)
The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
.
In 1964, News Limited made its next important advance when it established The Australian
The Australian
The Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
, Australia's first national daily newspaper, based first in Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
and later in Sydney. The Australian, a broadsheet
Broadsheet
Broadsheet is the largest of the various newspaper formats and is characterized by long vertical pages . The term derives from types of popular prints usually just of a single sheet, sold on the streets and containing various types of material, from ballads to political satire. The first broadsheet...
, gave News Limited a new respectability as a quality newspaper publisher, and also greater political influence since The Australian has always had an elite readership, if not always a large circulation.
In 1972, News Limited acquired The Daily Telegraph from Sir Frank Packer, making Murdoch one of the "big three" newspaper proprietors in Australia, along with Fairfax Media in Sydney and his father's old Herald and Weekly Times Ltd
The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd
The Herald and Weekly Times Limited is a newspaper publishing company based in Melbourne, Australia. It is owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch's News Limited, who purchased HWT in 1987.-Newspapers:...
in Melbourne. In the 1972 elections
Australian federal election, 1972
Federal elections were held in Australia on 2 December 1972. All 125 seats in the House of Representatives were up for election. The Liberal Party of Australia had been in power since 1949, under Prime Minister of Australia William McMahon since March 1971 with coalition partner the Country Party...
, Murdoch swung his newspapers' support behind Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
and the left wing
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
Australian Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
, but by 1975 he had turned against Labor, and since then has almost always supported the rightist Liberal Party
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
.
Over the next ten years, as his press empire grew, Murdoch established a hugely lucrative financial base, and these profits were routinely used to subsidise further acquisitions. In his early years of newspaper ownership Murdoch was an aggressive, micromanaging entrepreneur. His standard tactic was to buy loss-making Australian newspapers and turn them around by introducing radical management and editorial changes and fighting no-holds-barred circulation wars with his competitors. By the 1970s, this power base was so strong that Murdoch was able to acquire leading newspapers and magazines in both London and New York, as well as many other media holdings.
On the 12 July 2006, News Limited announced the creation of a new division, News Digital Media to manage the operations of the news site NEWS.com.au; the online marketplace sites, carsguide.com.au, truelocal.com.au and careerone.com.au as well as the partly owned realestate.com.au, foxsports.com.au and related activities involving FOXTEL and the company’s newspapers and the Australian versions of Fox Interactive Media sites MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
and IGN. Chairman and chief executive of News Limited, John Hartigan, announced the appointment of Richard Freudenstein as chief executive of the division.
In the wake of the News International phone hacking scandal in the United Kingdom, in July 2011 News Limited announced a review of all payments in the previous three years. On 22 July it was reported that two retired Victorian Supreme Court judges, Frank Vincent AO
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
and Bernard Teague AO, were appointed to act as independent assessors of the conduct of the review and also assess the outcome. The editorial and financial review concluded in early November and found no evidence of phone hacking or payments to public officials, with Vincent and Teague declaring that the review process did not bring ".....to light any systemic issues with respect to the making of payments to third parties and any substantial amounts paid to individuals in respect of illegitimate activities."
Influence in Australia
Murdoch's desire for dominant cross-media ownership manifested in early 1961 when he bought an ailing Australian record label, Festival RecordsFestival Records (Australia)
Festival Records was an Australian music recording and publishing company which was founded in Sydney in 1952 and operated until 2005....
, and within a few years it had become the leading local recording company. He also bought a television station in Wollongong, New South Wales, hoping to use it to break into the Sydney television market, but found himself frustrated by Australia's cross-media ownership laws, which prevented him from owning both a major newspaper and television station in the same city. Since then he has consistently lobbied, both personally and through his papers, to have these laws changed in his favour. This occurred in 2006 when the Liberal-National Coalition Government, having gained control of both houses of the Australian Parliament, introduced reforms to cross-media ownership and foreign media ownership laws. The laws came into effect in early 2007.
News Limited has nearly three-quarters of daily metropolitan newspaper circulation and so maintains great influence in Australia. Internal News Limited documents reveal a brazen offer during the 2001 Federal election campaign to promote the policies of a major party in its best-selling newspapers nation-wide for almost A$500,000. Other documents include a marginal seats guide written by a senior business manager for internal use. It evidences a corporate strategy to target marginal seats at the 2004 election. Some of the documents appeared on Media Watch but received very little coverage.
Britain
Murdoch moved to Britain and rapidly became a major force there after his acquisitions of the News of the WorldNews of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...
, and The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
in 1969 and The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
in 1981, which he bought in 1981 from the Thomson
Roy Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet
Roy Herbert Thomson, 1st Baron Thomson of Fleet GBE was a Canadian newspaper proprietor and media entrepreneur.-Career:...
family. Both takeovers further reinforced his growing reputation as a ruthless and cunning business operator. His takeover of The Times aroused great hostility among traditionalists, who feared he would take it "downmarket." This led directly to the founding of The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
in 1986 as an alternative quality daily.
United States
Murdoch made his first acquisition in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1973, when he purchased the San Antonio News. Soon afterwards he founded the National Star
Star (magazine)
Star is an American celebrity tabloid magazine.-History:Star was founded by Rupert Murdoch in 1974 as competition to the tabloid National Enquirer with its headquarters in New York City. In the late 1980s it moved its offices to Tarrytown, NY and in 1990 Murdoch sold the magazine to The Enquirers...
, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976 he purchased the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
. Subsequent acquisitions were undertaken through News Corporation.
Australia
News Limited expanded its newspaper holdings in 1987 when it acquired The Herald and Weekly Times, which published two newspapers in Melbourne (in 1990 these papers would be combined to form the Herald SunHerald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
) as well as large stakes in several other newspaper publishers. News Limited went on to acquire the remaining shares of Brisbane's Queensland Newspapers (owner of The Courier-Mail
The Courier-Mail
The Courier-Mail is a daily newspaper published in Brisbane, Australia. Owned by News Limited, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner northern suburbs, and it is printed at Murarrie, in Brisbane's...
), Adelaide's Advertiser Newspapers (owner of The Advertiser) and Hobart's Davies Brothers (owner of The Mercury
The Mercury (Hobart)
The Mercury is a daily newspaper, published in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, by Davies Brothers Pty Ltd, part of News Limited and News Corporation...
).
In 1991 News Limited spun off its longtime magazine house, Southdown Press, as Pacific Magazines and Printing
Pacific Magazines
Pacific Magazines is a magazine publisher operating in Australia and New Zealand, owned by Seven Media Group. It has it roots in the Southdown Press, the publishers of New Idea and long owned by the Murdoch family...
, and sold the former Advertiser magazines, renamed Murdoch Magazines
Murdoch Books
-History:The company had its beginnings when The Advertiser of Adelaide started printing magazines. Advertiser Magazines was renamed Murdoch Magazines in 1988. It published Australian editions of such magazines as Better Homes and Gardens and Marie Claire.Matt Handbury, a nephew of Rupert Murdoch,...
, to Matt Handbury. News Limited reentered the magazine market in 2000 with the start of News Magazines. In 2006, News Limited returned to being a major player in the Australian magazine business with the purchase of Independent Print Media Group's FPC Magazines (Delicious, Super Food Ideas, Vogue Australia).
Metropolitan
- The AustralianThe AustralianThe Australian is a broadsheet newspaper published in Australia from Monday to Saturday each week since 14 July 1964. The editor in chief is Chris Mitchell, the editor is Clive Mathieson and the 'editor-at-large' is Paul Kelly....
including weekly insert magazine The Deal and monthly insert magazine (wish)- The Weekend Australian including insert magazine The Weekend Australian Magazine
- Australian Associated PressAustralian Associated PressAustralian Associated Press is Australia's national news agency. The organisation was established in 1935 by Fairfax and The Herald and Weekly Times.AAP employs more than 175 journalists who work in bureaux in all Australian states and territories...
(45%)
New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
- The Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph (Australia)The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
- The Sunday TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph (Australia)The Daily Telegraph is an Australian tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, by Nationwide News, part of News Corporation.The Tele, as it is also known, was founded in 1879. From 1936 to 1972, it was owned by Frank Packer's Australian Consolidated Press. That year it was sold to...
including insert magazine sundaymagazine - mX (Sydney)MX (newspaper)mX is an Australian free afternoon daily newspaper in the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, owned and produced by News Limited. Targeted at commuters, its main channels of distribution are inner-city railway stations, tram and bus stops, and major CBD intersections.-Beginnings:The first mX...
Victoria
- Herald SunHerald SunThe Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
- Sunday Herald Sun including insert magazine sundaymagazine
- mX (Melbourne)MX (newspaper)mX is an Australian free afternoon daily newspaper in the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, owned and produced by News Limited. Targeted at commuters, its main channels of distribution are inner-city railway stations, tram and bus stops, and major CBD intersections.-Beginnings:The first mX...
Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
- The Courier-MailThe Courier-MailThe Courier-Mail is a daily newspaper published in Brisbane, Australia. Owned by News Limited, it is published daily from Monday to Saturday in tabloid format. Its editorial offices are located at Bowen Hills, in Brisbane's inner northern suburbs, and it is printed at Murarrie, in Brisbane's...
including weekly insert magazine QWeekend- The Sunday MailThe Sunday Mail (Brisbane)The Sunday Mail is Brisbane's only Sunday newspaper. The Sunday Mail is published in tabloid format, comprising several sections that can be extracted and read separately.-Publishing:...
- The Sunday Mail
South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
- The AdvertiserThe Advertiser (Australia)The Advertiser is a daily tabloid-format newspaper published in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. First published as a broadsheet named "The South Australian Advertiser" on 12 July 1858, it is currently printed daily from Monday to Saturday. A Sunday edition exists under the name of the Sunday...
including the monthly insert the Adelaide* magazine- Sunday Mail
Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
- The Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times (Western Australia)The Sunday Times, owned by News Limited, is a tabloid Sunday newspaper printed in Perth and distributed throughout Western Australia.-History:...
Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
- The MercuryThe Mercury (Hobart)The Mercury is a daily newspaper, published in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, by Davies Brothers Pty Ltd, part of News Limited and News Corporation...
- The Sunday Tasmanian
Northern Territory
Northern Territory
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...
- Northern Territory NewsNorthern Territory NewsThe Northern Territory News is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Darwin, Australia. It is a subsidiary of News Limited, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. It primarily serves Darwin and the rest of the Northern Territory...
- The Sunday Territorian
Community
Sydney- Cumberland-Courier Community Newspapers
- Inner West Courier
- North Shore TimesNorth Shore TimesThe North Shore Times is an Australian local newspaper, serving the local government areas of Willoughby, Ku-ring-gai, Lane Cove and part of North Sydney....
- The Manly DailyManly DailyThe Manly Daily is an Australian local newspaper, covering the local government areas of Manly, Pittwater and Warringah.The paper is one of News Limited's community newspapers in New South Wales...
Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
- Leader (Vic) newspapersLeader Community NewspapersThe Leader Community Newspaper group publishes 33 titles covering metropolitan Melbourne.It is has a circulation of 1.94 million readers per week...
Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
- Quest (QLD) newspapersQuest Community NewspapersQuest Community Newspapers is a newspaper company in Stafford, Queensland, Australia. It is owned and operated by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation....
Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
- Messenger (SA) newspapersMessenger NewspapersMessenger Newspapers is the publisher of 11 free suburban weekly newspapers together covering the Adelaide metropolitan area. Established by Roger Baynes in Port Adelaide in 1951, Messenger has since acquired other independent suburban titles to become Adelaide's only suburban newspaper group...
Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
- Community (WA) newspapersCommunity Newspaper GroupThe Community Newspaper Group is a community newspaper business in Perth, Western Australia, Western Australia.It publishes seventeen community newspapers within the metropolitan region of Perth....
Regional
Victoria- Geelong AdvertiserGeelong AdvertiserThe Geelong Advertiser is a daily newspaper servicing Geelong, Victoria, Australia, the Bellarine Peninsula and surrounding areas. The Geelong Advertiser is the oldest newspaper title in Victoria and the second oldest in Australia, and was first published on 21 November 1840. The newspaper is...
- Geelong NewsGeelong NewsThe Geelong News is a free weekly paper delivered to houses in the Geelong region. It is published on Wednesdays with a circulation of over 70,000 copies. The focus of moststories are local community issues and sport...
- Geelong News
Queensland
- Gold Coast Bulletin
- Tablelands AdvertiserTablelands AdvertiserThe Tablelands Advertiser is the weekly newspaper published for residents of the Atherton Tableland and Mareeba area.The Tablelands Advertiser has a home delivery system that covers around four times the area of any other publication in the region...
- The Cairns PostThe Cairns PostThe Cairns Post is a major News Corporation newspaper in Far North Queensland that exclusively serves the Cairns area. It has daily coverage on local, state, national and world news, plus a wide range of sections and liftouts covering health, beauty, cars and lifestyle.It is the oldest business in...
- Townsville BulletinTownsville BulletinThe Townsville Bulletin is a daily newspaper published in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. It is the only daily paper that serves the northern Queensland region. The paper has a print edition, a free World Wide Web edition, and a subscription digital edition.The newspaper is published by The...
- Tablelands Advertiser
Websites
- news.com.au publishes news stories and multimedia created by a team of about 25 journalists as well as journalism from Murdoch's AustraliaAustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n newspaperNewspaperA newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s. News.com.au is Australia's 3rd most popular news service with 4.5 million monthly unique browsers (Nielsen Market Intelligence, October 2009). The other major Australian news sites are (according to Nielsen Market Intelligence): news.ninemsn.com (#1), smh.com.au (#2), theage.com.au (#4) and Yahoo7.com.au (#5)). News.com.au is also a portal to the sites of other News Limited mastheads and associated companies such as Fox SportsFox Sports (Australia)Fox Sports is an Australia group of sports channels. They are owned by the Premier Media Group, which is in turn owned by News Corporation, and Consolidated Media Holdings. Its main competitors are ESPN, which has little local content and the free-to-air digital channel One HD...
and the CareerOne job advertisement service. - The Punch is an opinion and news website. Stories are created by a small team of journalists and takes submissions from a large pool of leading Australian writers. The website has a strong emphasis upon a community of commenters. The Punch was founded in 2009.
NRL properties
- Brisbane Broncos LtdBrisbane BroncosThe Brisbane Broncos are an Australian professional rugby league football club based in the city of Brisbane, the capital of the state of Queensland. Founded in 1988, the Broncos play in Australasia's elite competition, the National Rugby League premiership. They have won six premierships and two...
(68.87%) - Melbourne Storm Rugby League Club LtdMelbourne StormThe Melbourne Storm are an Australian professional rugby league club based in the city of Melbourne. They are the first fully professional rugby league team based in the Australian rules football-dominated state of Victoria....
(100%) - National Rugby LeagueNational Rugby LeagueThe National Rugby League is the top league of professional rugby league football clubs in Australasia. The NRL's main competition, called the Telstra Premiership , is contested by sixteen teams, fifteen of which are based in Australia with one based in New Zealand...
(50%)