Rupert Murdoch

                                              

Australian-American media mogul and the Chairman and CEO of News Corporation,Keith Rupert Murdoch has an estimated net worth of $11.9 billion as of December 2015, according to Bloomberg. Beginning with one newspaper in Adelaide, Murdoch acquired and started other publications in his native Australia before expanding News Corp into the United Kingdom, United States and Asian media markets. Although it was in Australia in the late 1950s that he first dabbled in television, he later sold these assets, and News Corp’s Australian current media interests (still mainly in print) are restricted by cross-media ownership rules. Murdoch’s first permanent foray into TV was in the USA, where he created Fox Broadcasting Company in 1986.

Murdoch’s Fox News generated $700 million in operating profit in 2010, crushed the competition in ratings and may have put the Republicans over the top in the midterms. The Super Bowl, on Fox, kicked off with Bill O’Reilly interviewing the president and wound up as the most-watched TV broadcast ever. The circulation of the Wall Street Journal, already the biggest U.S. newspaper, keeps expanding while almost every other daily shrinks. Thanks to a close relationship with Apple, News Corp. became the first publisher to sell digital subscriptions on the iPad with the $30 million launch of The Daily in February. The $673 million purchase of daughter Elisabeth’s production company in February furthered his dream of a Murdoch dynasty. Winning full control of British Sky Broadcasting UK in the face of political opposition would be an even bigger triumph. Australia-born tabloid titan inherited one newspaper at age 23.