- published: 03 Apr 2008
- views: 20631
News Corporation (NASDAQ: NWS, NWSA, ASX: NWS, ASX: NWSLV) or News Corp. is an American multinational diversified mass media corporation headquartered in New York City, United States. It is the world's second-largest media group as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster. The company is controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family members through a stock structure which gives him and family members most of the voting shares in News Corp.
News Corporation is a publicly traded company listed on the NASDAQ, with secondary listings on the Australian Securities Exchange. Formerly incorporated in South Australia, the company was re-incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law after a majority of shareholders approved the move on 12 November 2004. At present, News Corporation is headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, in New York City, in the newer 1960s–1970s corridor of the Rockefeller Center complex.
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG (born 11 March 1931) is an Australian American media mogul. Murdoch became managing director of Australia's News Limited, inherited from his father, in 1952. He is the founder, Chairman and CEO of global media holding company the News Corporation, the world's second-largest media conglomerate.
In the 1950s and '60s, he acquired various newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World followed closely by The Sun. He moved to New York in 1974 to expand into the US market and became a naturalised US citizen in 1985. In 1981, he bought The Times, his first British broadsheet.
In 1986, keen to adopt newer electronic publishing technologies, he consolidated his UK printing operations in Wapping, causing bitter industrial disputes. His News Corporation acquired Twentieth Century Fox (1985), HarperCollins (1989) and The Wall Street Journal (2007). He formed BSkyB in 1990 and during the 1990s expanded into Asian networks and South American television. By 2000 Murdoch's News Corporation owned over 800 companies in more than 50 countries with a net worth of over $5 billion.