Assignment Two: News Corporation. Discuss the growth strategies pursued by Rupert Murdoch for News Corporation between 1960 and the early 1990s. In the world of Rupert Murdoch, ruthlessness is expected; weakness leads to corporate Siberia. (www.bn.com) Rupert Murdoch is the inventor of the modern global information empire. With cable and satellite channels on five continents, Murdoch reaches nearly seventy five percent of the world. Initially building News Corporation (News Corp.) upon a series of smaller acquisitions and brand-new ventures (La Franco, 1998), Murdoch has acquired a taste for corporate cross-pollination (Baker, 1998). By diversifying and vertically integrating News Corp., in addition to forming strategic alliances and pursuing joint ventures, Murdochs corporate strategy allows him to endlessly pursue growth opportunities. The evolution of News Corp.In 1954 Rupert Murdoch inherited two Adelaide newspapers, Sunday Mail and The News. He converted The News into a paper dominated by sex and scandal (www.britannica.com), a strategy that he later successfully applied to other national papers, and subsequently his international publications. Despite local success, Australia was considered too slow and provincial for Rupert who devised a strategy to broaden his media network (Kiernan, p85). In 1969 he acquired his first British newspaper, and in 1973 he entered the American market by purchasing two daily papers. News Corp. includes major holdings in radio and television stations, newspapers and magazines, video and record companies, publishing houses, sports teams, satellite and cable networks, the development of digital broadcasting, the production and distribution of motion pictures and television programming, amongst other investments. The company has a frightfully complex structure, listing roughly 800 subsidiaries.Strategic issues. The strategy issues News Corp. must appraise are consistently changing to address a dynamic...
