1. Business Areas
   1. Newpapers
   2. film and TV production
   3. major tv channels
      1. terrestrial, satellite, cable
      2. 3 continents, dozens of countries
   4. US TV stations
   5. book and magazine publishing
   6. Minor
      1. free standing inserts and coupons
      2. conditional access software for digital TV services
2. Resources
   1. Broadest global presence
   2. Control of entire supply chain
      1. Large retail suppliers - 50,000 in UK
      2. Set retail margins and cover price
   3. Valuable content - syndication
3. Strategy
   1. Acquire financially struggling firms
   2. Content
      1. Produce politially aware, outspoken news, not on the fence, not boring, more sensational content
      2. Extremely popular content (Sports ) exclusive deals
   3. Create leaner organisation
   4. Share expertise, ideas, computer systems and press purchasing, across different countries
      1. Expertise and ideas sharing - Transfer of skills
4. Timeline
   1. 1954
      1. Took over Adelaide News
   2. 1956
      1. 2 year circulation battle with Adelaide Advertiser, made it merge with News under Murdoch
   3. 1968
      1. Acquired News of the world
   4. 1973
      1. Acquired Express, News and combined sunday paper
   5. 1976
      1. Acquired NY post
   6. 1981
      1. Acquired Times and Sunday Times
      2. All London Papers suffering financially
      3. Unions demand increase of 70 jobs in London
   7. 1982
      1. New printing plant in Wapping, meant to increase capacity
   8. 1983
      1. All US papers earning significant profits
      2. Became US Citizen
      3. Sold NY Post
      4. $75M stake in inter-ameria satellite TV
   9. 1985
      1. Stopped Compromising with Unions
      2. Equipped Wapping plant with capability of producing all 4 papers
      3. Acquired 50% of 20th century Fox and rest 8 months later
   10. Mid 1980s
       1. Times 30% market share
       2. Sunday times Largest selling sunday paper with 4 million copies sold
       3. invests in Sky TV
   11. 1986
       1. Fox TV Network launch
   12. 1987
       1. Agreement with print union to pay 60m pounds - half of what they would have got without a strike
       2. UK profit increases by 85%
   13. 1988
       1. Worlds largest english language newpaper publisher
       2. Acquired Triangle Group
   14. 1989
       1. Launched SKY
   15. 1990
       1. Acquired Publishing houses HarperCollins and others
   16. 1993
       1. Allowed to reacquire NY Post
   17. 1994
       1. Acquired smart source
   18. 2001
       1. Withdraws bid for direct TV
5. Acquisitions
   1. Adelaide Advertiser
   2. News of the world
      1. increased shareholdings beyond the promised 40%
      2. forced out the editor
      3. Created a leaner cost structure
      4. politically outspoken editorials
   3. Daily Herald
      1. Relaunched as Sun
      2. Serious minded left wing paper
      3. targeting upwardly mobile young people
      4. Politically mightily aware, never sit on fence, which he considered boring
   4. Times and Sunday Times
      1. Britain's most respected papers
   5. The Express, the News and their combined Sunday paper
      1. Financially weak papers
      2. Relaunched with sensational content
      3. backed by promotions, commercials and contests
   6. 1976-New york post
      1. Tabloid with left wing slant
      2. 1983 - sold off to satisfy FCC regulations
      3. 1993 - new ownership fails and Murdoch allowed to repurchase it
   7. NY magazine
      1. struggling financially
   8. Triangle Group 1988
      1. $3B cash purchase
      2. Largest media purchase
      3. Became Largest publisher of consumer magazines
      4. TV Guide - circulation of 17M homes and 20% of magazine market
   9. 1990 HarperCollins, later other publishing houses
      1. Became one of the worlds largest publishers
      2. Average Operating margins of 10.5% - highest in the industry
   10. 1994 - Smart source
       1. coupon business
       2. no synergies
       3. now too valuable
   11. 1985 - 20th century fox
       1. was primarily a domestic operation
       2. very valuable library
       3. Started targetting international market
          1. 60% for film returns by 1997
   12. 1986 - Fox TV Network
       1. Targeted younger audience - racy and provocative shows
   13. 1983 - inter-america satellite TV
       1. $20M Loss
6. Direct TV Acquisition
   1. Reasons
      1. Has satellite dist network in Europe and Asia but not in US
      2. no more reliance on cable operators
      3. DTV's large subscriber base
      4. Diversification of revenue stream
      5. Reduce reliance on Adv revenue in US
7. Unions
   1. 1981 - Printing union demand increase of 70 jobs in London
   2. Taking on Print Union The Wapping Plant
      1. Murdoch convinced Journalist's union to join Wapping in secracy from print unions
      2. Electrition's union from southhampton sworn to secracy
      3. Since print union controlled rail union, abandoned Rail distr in favour truck distr
         1. Spent 7M Pounds on 800 trucks and vans
      4. When Print union went on strike, transferred operations seamlessly to wapping
      5. No settlement for 2 years
      6. Print workers from over 2000 to 570, packers from 1469 to 132
8. S/S/P
   1. Structure
      1. Divisional
         1. Every division is out to maximize its own bottom line