Rupert Murdoch: The Wapping Dispute, a Citizenship Switch and Phone Hacking

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Rupert Murdoch inherited a controlling interest in The News, an Adelaide afternoon tabloid, in 1952 after the death of his father, Keith Murdoch, and used News Limited from 1954 to build a chain of Australian papers. In the 1960s he moved into Britain with The Sun and the News of the World. In 1986 and 1987 he broke the print unions, the National Graphical Association and SOGAT, by secretly building an automated plant in Wapping, moving production overnight and replacing striking workers through months of violent clashes. In the United States he bought the San Antonio Express and News in 1973 and the New York Post for $31 million in 1976.

In 1985 he bought 20th Century Fox and paid $3.5 billion for the Metromedia stations, becoming a U.S. citizen on September 4, 1985, to meet rules barring foreign ownership of TV stations, and launched the Fox Broadcasting Company in 1986. Sky Television losses left News Corporation deep in debt by 1992 until a merger with British Satellite Broadcasting created BSkyB; Star TV followed in 1993 and Fox News Channel in 1996. MySpace, bought for $580 million in 2005, sold for $35 million in 2011. The 2011 phone hacking scandal closed the News of the World and ended the bid for full control of BSkyB, and in 2013 the company split into 21st Century Fox and News Corp before Disney bought 21st Century Fox for over $71 billion in 2019.

• Fox's broadcast network started with a late-night show hosted by Joan Rivers.
• Murdoch argued that satellite television threatened totalitarian regimes by letting viewers bypass state-controlled TV.
• The News of the World hacked voicemails of the royal family, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and the families of dead soldiers and 9/11 victims, along with missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
• Les Hinton, chief executive of Dow Jones, resigned, and the NDS Group subsidiary faced allegations of using hackers against rival pay TV operators.
• After the Disney sale the Murdoch family kept 39% voting power across the remaining companies.