Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KCSG (born 11 March, 1931 in Melbourne, Victoria), usually known as Rupert Murdoch, is an Australian-born global media mogul. He owns media outlets and is a major shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation (News Corp). Beginning with one newspaper in Adelaide, Murdoch acquired and started other publications in his native Australia before expanding News Corp into the UK, US and Asian media markets. It was in the UK that he diversified into TV, creating Sky Television in 1989. In recent years he has become a leading investor in satellite television, the film industry, the Internet and the media.

According to the 2009 Forbes 400, Murdoch is the 132nd-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $4 billion.

While CEO of News Corp. in 2008, K. Rupert Murdoch earned a total compensation of $30,053,157, which included a base salary of $8,100,000, a cash bonus of $17,500,000, and stocks granted of $4,049,988.

Early life and family

At the time of his death Keith Murdoch was heavily in debt, but possessed within a private family trust a considerable number of newspaper shares, some of which may have actually belonged to The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. The trustees, in consultation with Keith's widow and Rupert's mother, Lady Murdoch, were forced to sell many of the shares and other property in order to pay death duties (inheritance taxes) and repay debt. Elisabeth was able to retain only the family home, Cruden Farm, plus the shares in News Limited and its subsidiaries, a Melbourne magazine publishing company named Southdown Press and The Barrier Miner, a regional newspaper at Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Start of business career

Rupert Murdoch returned from Oxford to become managing director of News Limited in 1953. He began to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion. He bought the Sunday Times in Perth, Western Australia and, using the tabloid techniques of his father's mentor Lord Northcliffe, made it a success.Fact: date=February 2008

Over the next few years, Murdoch established himself in Australia as a dynamic business operator, expanding his holdings by acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory, including the Sydney afternoon tabloid, The Daily Mirror, as well as a small Sydney-based recording company, Festival Records. His acquisition of the Daily Mirror allowed him to challenge two powerful rivals in Australia's biggest city and to outmaneuver his afternoon rival in a lengthy circulation war.Fact: date=February 2008

His first foray outside Australia involved the purchase of a controlling interest in the New Zealand daily The Dominion. In January 1964, while touring New Zealand with friends in a rented Morris Minor after sailing across the Tasman, Murdoch read of a takeover bid for the sleepy Wellington paper by the British-based Canadian newspaper magnate, Lord Thomson of Fleet. On the spur of the moment, he launched a counterbid. A four-way battle for control ensued in which the 32-year-old Murdoch, in a pointer of things to come, comprehensively outwitted his rivals. He took an active interest in the paper, at least until distracted by bigger undertakings, and remained the dominant shareholder in New Zealand's Independent Newspapers Limited - the nationwide media group that ultimately developed from his takeover of The Dominion - until 2003.