News Corportation - What does Murdoch Own?

List of assets owned by News Corporation:

Film
20th Century Fox
Fox Studios (Australia, Los Angeles)
Fox Television Studios
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Twentieth Century Fox Television

Television
20th Century Fox Television
bTV
Foxtel (Australian cable and satellite TV provider)
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Television
STAR TV (Asian)
British Sky Broadcasting

Cable Assets
Big Ten Network (45%)
Fox Business Network
Fox College Sports
Fox Movie, News, Soccer Channels
FUEL TV (US Extreme sports channel)
FX Networks
National Geographic Channel (UK - 50%)
Speed Channel
LAPTV (Latin American)

Direct Broadcast Satellite Assets
BSkyB (UK 39.1%)
Sky Deutschland (39.96%)
Sky Italia
Sky Network Television (New Zealand - 43.65%)
Foxtel (Australia - 25%)
Star TV (India and China - 100%)
Tata Sky (India - 20%)

Internet
Fox Interactive Media -

• AmericanIdol.com
• AskMen.com
• Direct2Drive
• Fox.com
• GameSpy
• Hulu.com
• IGN
• kSolo
• Drownedinsound.com
• MySpace
• MyNetworktv.com
• NewRoo.com
• Strategicdatacorp.com
• Scout.com
• SpringWidgets
• WhatlfSports

Beliefnet
News Digital Meida
Slingshot Labs
Authonomy

Magazine and Inserts
Alpha
Australian Football Weekly, Golf Digest, Good Taste, Parents
Best of the Gold Coast Magazine
Big League
Chopper
Country Style
delicious (with ABC)
Gardening with Australia
GQ Australia
Inside Out
Lifesyle Pools + Outdoor Design
Live to Ride
MasterChef Magazine
Modern Boating, Fishing
News America Marketing
Overlander 4WD
SmartSource
Super Food Ideas
Tatto
Truck & Tralier Australia
Truckin' Life
Two Wheels, Scooter
Vogue Australia, Entertaining + Travel

Newspapers and Information Services
UK -

News International

• The Sun
• News of the World
• The Times
• Sunday Times
• thelondonpaper (free newspaper which closed in Sept 2009)

Australia -

News Limited
Australian State Newspapers including papers for National, New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Tasmania and Northern Territory
Communiry suburban newspapers including papers for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin

Papua New Guinea -
Papua New Guinea Post-Courier

Fiji -
The Fiji Times

International
Dow Jones & Company

• Consumer Media Group (which own The Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Marketwatch, Far Eastern Economic Review and Financial News)
• Enterprise Media Group
• Local Media Group
• Strategic Alliances

Books
HarperCollins
HarperCollins India (40%)
Zondervan Publishing

Miscellaneous
National Rugby League (50%)
Ansett Australia (50%)
Fox Music
Jamba!
NDS Group (49%)

*The only other media industry which Murdoch does not have a major stake in, is the music industry, though his recent acquisition of MySpace may venture towards this.

News and Global Media

Why is the news interesting as a case study for global media?

News broadcasters have a global objective and news agenda which have their own cultural and political influences, such as Russia Today which would be state-biased. Fox News (and the Fox Network) and The Sun newspaper both owned by media tycoon, Rupert Murdoch, who is been accused of being too cosy with the people in Government. This can cause biases in the news broadcasting programmes as government influence controls what is being shown and hidden to the public. The news is a device which is meant to feed the world with global occurrences, though culture and politics in certain countries can cause restrictions, which would shield the public from stories which could cause scandal on the country or of the people in the 'inside'. What can stop these top secret stories from leaking out on the world wide web?

The Herald Scotland's headline on 29tg July 2010 reads:
"BBC news still showing bias in favour of English stories"

Story by Phil Miller, Arts Correspondent

According to the story - "Some BBC news items still do not make clear to which part of the UK they are referring, and are reported as if they apply to the whole of the UK when they only apply to England and Wales."

The BBC Trust member for Scotland ,told The Herald that he was annoyed by news reports that fail to mention different conditions or laws in Scotland.

In 2003, a widely-cited public opinion study conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, documents the correlation between the news sources and certain misconceptions about the Iraq war. The polls asked Americans whether they believed the statements about the war that were known to be false. They were also asked which was their primary news source (Fox News, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN or NPR). The study showed that higher numbers of Fox News watchers held certain misconceptions about the Iraq war.

CNN vs. Fox News

Is CNN more liberal than Fox News? The following link shows the two in comparison regarding their web sites, the content and focuses and their political leanings.

News Corp debate + Articles

Rough Transcript of Radio 4 debate on Rupert Murdoch

Should Rupert Murdoch News Corp take over the 61% of Sky that it doesn't already own? Does it matter that he would have more control over the news in this country?

Brendan O'Neil:

• Murdoch - very influential
• Conspiracy theory? He has politics in the palm of his hand
• The idea that someone behind the scenes if controlling political affairs and the public
• Anti-Murdoch mania - slightly unhinged chattering classed conspiracy theory
  

Prof. Steven Barnet:

• Political figures worried about the amount of power being concentrated on a single organisation being controlled by single person
• In a democracy - you have multiple leavers of influence and multiple layers of public opinion
  

Brendan O'Neil:

• Worried about Ofcom rather than Murdoch - it clamps down on programs, it censors material
• Murdoch bashing makes people blind
  
• The Guardian is obsessed with "getting one over on Murdoch" - causing police to investigate other journalists, possibly imprison News of the World journalists
  
• Supposedly liberal media demanding the state to punish journalists
  

Prof. Steven Barnet:

• What is appropriate in a democracy for a single organisation/single person to control
• News Corp. controls 37% of national newspaper circulation, if they took over BskyB could ultimately control the only news/radio operation

Should anybody have that much control over the news?

Brendan O'Neil:

• In favour of open media and freedom of speech
• Is worried about somebody having so much control over media
  

Even The Sun recognised its own power in determining the election?

Prof. Steven Barnet:

• Lance Price: Only 3 people that mattered in Tony Blair's cabinet -Gordon Brown, John Prescott and Rupert Murdoch - unelected, non-politician - though every decision had pass by Murdoch
  

Since then, the approach of Prime Ministers to Rupert Murdoch

Prof. Steven Barnet:

• 2nd person into 10 Downing St. after David Cameron was elected by the back door? - Rupert Murdoch
• They're convinced that Murdoch is important. Prime Ministers and Cabinet ministers pay more homage than they need to because they're convinced he can win or loose election
• The influence is real and the volume of ownership is real

Brendan O'Neil:

• All the reports of who has dinner with James Murdoch when Rupert Murdoch went to 10 Downing St.? - get a grip.

Both Prof. Steven Barnet and Brendan O'Neil seem to think Murdoch has political influence and that he shouldn't be given so much political power since he is not an elected member of parliament. Brendan O'Neil thinks one person should have so much control over the media. Prof. Steven Barnet believes the influence is real.


2 articles published on 27/1/2011 -

The Guardian

The Independent

Both relate to the phone hacking scandal, where News of the World reporters tapped the phones of politicians and celebrities then printed the conversations.

Convergence Culture

Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide by Henry Jenkins on Prezi

Two Step Flow and the News

Two Step Flow and the News on Prezi