Boycott Murdoch’s Media Monopoly!

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His influence today extends across the globe from Fox in the US to Star TV in Asia, and the Sun and Sky in the UK. He is courted by presidents and prime ministers, and his personal fortune is estimated at $7.8bn, or £4.53bn.

Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 11 March 1931, Rupert Murdoch is an Australian global media executive and is the controlling shareholder, chairman and managing director of News Corporation, based in New York City in the United States.

Murdoch began his career with newspapers, magazines and television stations in his native Australia, but soon expanded into the British and American media market. John Pilger’s film ‘Breaking the Mirror’ looks back on how Murdoch broke into the British market.

Breaking The Mirror by John Pilger*

Over the last twenty five years his company News Corporation has become an omnipotent force in satellite television, the film industry, the Internet, and other forms of media. Murdoch is one of the few chief executives of any multinational media corporation who has a controlling ownership share in the corporation. In Murdoch’s case, it is via a family corporation. His power, control and influence is virtually unparalleled in the world today (see holdings listed below). Murdoch uses his media empire to promote his own view of the world – pro-war, anti-union, anti-Europe, anti-minorities. His biggest business interest is government and making sure that he is on the side of the winner.

Media Monopoly

News Corporation uses the combined power of its consolidated media assets to push out rivals and with its combined holdings worldwide has virtually a monopoly of control over the mass media. An ever tightening stranglehold on what people see, read, think and know about the world that they live in. Murdoch talks of a ‘level playing field’ but in fact has acted to set up monopolies and destroy diversity. For example, he has tried to destroy his competitors in British satellite broadcasting and some 5 years ago tried to destroy the British newspaper The Independent by selling the Times below cost.

The truth is the very nature of capitalism is to move towards monopoly if not regulated and the idea that markets function better without state interference is nonsense. Without interference, markets turn into monopolies. Murdoch’s power is literally out of control and there are no moral constraints at all.


An example of Sky’s reporting of world news: George Galloway interview 2006

His media advocate anything that will please the powerful – from baiting the left on Fox or Sky News (see above) to creating anti-asylum hysteria. News Corp manufactures politics and social values. Tabloids like ‘The Sun’ in the UK, condition the social values of children and adults alike. Murdoch’s media has been a major force in creating more conservative and far right politics across the globe. They have almost single-handedly in their radio and television dominance, produced a coarse and vulgar culture that celebrates the most demeaning characteristics in the human psyche — greed, deceit, and cheating as a legitimate way to win (as in the various “reality” shows).

The following interviews are taken from the film “Outfoxed”. They provide an in-depth look into how News Corp’s Fox News operates and expose the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public’s right to know. The film explores the impact on society when a broad swath of media is controlled by one person.

Media experts, including Jeff Cohen (FAIR) Bob McChesney (Free Press), Chellie Pingree (Common Cause), Jeff Chester (Center for Digital Democracy) and David Brock (Media Matters) provide context and guidance for the story of Fox News and its effect on society.

This documentary also reveals the secrets of Former Fox news producers, reporters, bookers and writers who expose what it’s like to work for Fox News. These former Fox employees talk about how they were forced to push a “right-wing” point of view or risk their jobs. Some have even chosen to remain anonymous in order to protect their current livelihoods. As one employee said “There’s no sense of integrity as far as having a line that can’t be crossed.”

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism (Interviews)

The Outfoxed interviews are available under a Creative Commons license allowing anyone to sample them freely in their own works. Even Fox News.

Director Robert Greenwald

For more information See Outfoxed

An example of how Fox slant their news:

Boycott Murdoch’s

Media Monopoly!

Take note of and boycott all Murdoch’s media listed below!

Below is a country by country list of News Corporation’s holdings:

Books

Newspapers

Magazines

  • News America Marketing (Smartsource) (weekly Sunday newspaper coupon insert/website)
  • Australian
    • Alpha Magazine
    • Australian Country Style
    • Australian Golf Digest
    • Australian Good Taste
    • Big League
    • BCME
    • Delicious
    • Donna Hay
    • Fast Fours
    • GQ (Australia)
    • Gardening Australia
    • InsideOut (Aust)
    • Lifestyle Pools
    • Live to Ride
    • Notebook
    • Overlander 4WD
    • Modern Boating
    • Modern Fishing
    • Parents
    • Pure Health
    • Super Food Ideas
    • Truck Australia
    • Truckin’ Life
    • twowheels
    • twowheels scooter
    • Vogue (Australia)
    • Vogue Entertaining & Travel
    • Vogue Living
  • InsideOut (UK Based Magazine)

Music and radio

Sport

Studios

TV

News Corp agreed to sell eight of its television stations to Oak Hill Capital Partners for approximately $1.1 billion as of 22 December 2007. The stations are US Fox affiliates.[18]

Broadcast

Satellite television

Cable

Cable channels owned (in whole or part) and operated by News Corporation include:

PLATFORMS

  • India
    • Hathway Cable & Datacom (22.2%), India’s 2nd largest cable network through 7 cities including Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai & Pune
  • Taiwan
    • Total TV (20%), Pay TV platform with JV partner KOO’s Group majority owner (80%). News Corp also has a 20% interest in the KOO’s Group directly

Internet

  • Fox Interactive Media
    • Foxsports.com – website with sports news, scores, statistics, video and fantasy sports
    • MySpace – Social networking website, general interest website acquired through purchase from Intermix Media
    • MySpace TV, a video site which will host amateur videos, contents from net and studios that competes with Google’s YouTube
    • Photobucket – Photo sharing website.
    • Beliefnet – Largest online faith and spirituality network.
    • Hulu (45%) – online video download site in partnership with NBC Universal and The Walt Disney Company.
    • Flektor – provides Web-based tools for photo and video editing and mashups.
    • IGN Entertainment – Internet entertainment portal (Includes the sites IGN, GameSpy, Rotten Tomatoes, TeamXbox, and Askmen.com)
    • Slingshot Labs – web development incubator (Includes the sites DailyFill).
    • Strategic Data Corp – interactive advertising company which develops technology to deliver targeted internet advertising.
    • Scout.com
    • WhatIfSports.com – sports simulation and prediction website. Also provides fantasy-style sports games to play.
  • Indya.com – ‘India’s no. 1 Entertainment Portal’
  • ROO Group Inc (5% increasing to 10% with performance targets)
  • News Digital Media
  • REA Group (60.7%)
    • Realestate.com.au
    • Casa.it (69.4%), Sky Italia also holds a 30.6% share
    • atHome group, operator of leading realestate websites in Luxembourg, France, Belgium and Germany.
      • Altowin (51%),provider of office management tools for realestate agents in Belgium.
    • Propertyfinder.com(50%), News International holds the remaining 50%
      • Sherlock Publications, owner of hotproperty.co.uk portal and magazine titles ‘Hot Property’, ‘Renting’ and ‘Overseas’
      • ukpropertyshop.co.uk, most comprehensive UK estate agent directory.
    • PropertyLook, property websites in Australia and New Zealand.
    • HomeSite.com.au, home renovation and improvement website.
    • Square Foot Limited, Hong Kong’s largest English Language property magazine and website
      • Primedia – Holding co. of Inside DB, a Hong Kong lifestyle magazine.
  • TadpoleNet Media (10%) Hosts of ArmySailor.com
  • New Zealand

Other assets

  • NDS– Conditional access technology and personal digital video recorders (PVRs) (49%)
    • Jungo
    • Timothy Coville
    • ITE, publisher of Playstation and Mobile games, and interactive television
    • Orbis Technology, supplier of online gambling software
  • Broadsystem Ltd (UK) – Telephony provider for media companies, bought in 1991
  • Broadsystem Australia (Australia)
  • Broadsystem Ventures (UK) – provider of cheap-rate telephone calls, particularly for customers of Sky Television. Bought outright in 1999.
  • Jamba! – Mobile Entertainment/Mobile Handsets Personalisation/Games.
  • News Outdoor Group– Largest outdoor advertising company in Eastern Europe with over 70,000 ads including billboards and bus shelters, operating in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Israel, Poland, Romania, Russia (96 cities), Turkey & Ukraine.
    • Maximedia Israel (67%)
    • Mosgorreklama (50%) – Russia sign and marketing material manufacturer
    • Kamera Acikhava Reklamclik (?) – leading outdoor advertising company in Turkey
  • Australian Associated Press (45%) – real time news service.
  • Stats Inc (50%) – worlds leading provider of sporting information and statistical analysis (a JV with Associated Press)
  • Fox Sports Grill (50%) – Upscale sports bar and restaurant with 7 locations – Scottsdale, Arizona; Irvine, California; Seattle, Washington; Plano, Texas; Houston, Texas; San Diego, California; and Atlanta, Georgia.
  • Fox Sports Skybox (70%) – Sports fan’s Bar & Grill at Staples Center and 6 airport restaurants.
  • News America Marketing (US) – (100%) – nation’s leading marketing services company, products include a portfolio of in-store, home-delivered and online media under the SmartSource brand.

For up-to-date listings of holdings go to the News Corporation website

See also: Inside the world of Rupert Murdoch

54 thoughts on “Boycott Murdoch’s Media Monopoly!”

  1. Wow! Well you’ve certainly laid you case out well (though you’re preaching to the converted here). He’s just bought a stake in an ailing UK commercial channel (ITV1) which is being investigated for its legality.The UK government and prospective government is always keen to court Murdochs favour as his influence on the press here (& hence to a degree how people might vote) is so great.

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  2. Yeah. Maybe I am a bit naive in laying all this out but I think people have a tendency to forget. Murdoch is a bastard and people need to be reminded of that.

    Not many people know that Murdoch owns the free paper that is now being pushed down people’s throats on the streets of london every day – the london paper. Even I didn’t know that murdoch’s news corp had hoovered up myspace in 2005 for $580m. Or maybe I did! See this is what I am saying we forget.

    Now why would News Corporation spend such a huge amount of money on myspace? that’s the real question I’d like an answer too… One things for sure… I wouldn’t use myspace for love nor money!

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  3. I’m not sure that Murdoch has fully worked out how to dominate online media yet but it’d only sensible to be suspicious of this amount of power, influence and what media is in his portfolio .

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  4. Its about time someone catalogued the vast empire Murdoch has established. It seems the only thing that can stop him now are national governments, yet despite this they would rather court his favour. This illustrates just how much power the man has. Keep up the good work!

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  7. Nice site!
    “Murdoch is a bastard and people need to be reminded of that.”
    Couldn’t have put it better.

    “Even I didn’t know that murdoch’s news corp had hoovered up myspace in 2005 for $580m. Or maybe I did! ”
    Ditto.

    The reason he bought into ITV was to stop NTL/Virgin Media in their alleged attempts to buy it out. They are desperate to buy into content provision, to add to their cable tv and broadband delivery systems. Murdoch won’t allow that – there’s only room for one media controller.

    Keep up the good work! 😀

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  8. If you do visit this page, please do take a moment to watch the videos here. The John Pilger film, ‘Breaking the Mirror’ is well worth an hour of your time. Apologies for the quality as it is taken from VHS. Thanks for your kind words Nigel.

    Regards

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  9. SKY vs Virgin Media – Following the recent breakdown in negotiations between the two companies, the tactics employed by SKY to ‘poach’ Virgin Media customers and the immediate ‘Don’t Lose LOST’ advertising campaign implies that they have no real desire to share their channels, thus leaving them in a monopoly situation. They are not prepared to allow any other provider a share of the market or allow a position where a rival could challenge SKY’s dominance of the market.

    This is not news. This is how News Corporation have operated for years! The aim is to destroy the opposition.

    We like to believe that here in the West we have choice. I think this demonstrates that there is no real choice and our governments do nothing about it. Our governments are supposed to regulate to maintain democracy and freedom of choice and prevent these kind of monopoly situations arising but the truth is the politicians are only interested in their own personal advantage. What ever happened to our dream of freedom? Watch Adam Curtis’ ‘The Trap’ BBC2 tonight at 9pm (Sunday 18th March).

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  10. “The government are scared stiff of Murdoch.
    Sky, the Times and the News of the World and a lot of other organisations are all in favour of a particular party and decide who is likely to win the general election. If you tag ITV to that as well you have let go of democracy and may as well let Murdoch decide who is going to be prime minister.

    I think there comes a time when government needs to draw lines in the sand as Murdoch becomes more involved with British media.

    Government’s job is to regulate…Government’s job is to stop too much dominance in the media ending up in one person’s hand…

    If the government is so … scared of upsetting him perhaps his empire should be looked at.

    It is not good for the democracy of Britain that one person should have so much influence.

    I admire him as a businessman – he knows how to play poker.”

    – Recent comments by Virgin boss Richard Branson

    [Listen to Branson here on RealPlayer]

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  16. Tio, re: MySpace

    I read in the Guardian recently, an article published after Murdoch bought the Wall Street Journal, he bought MySpace for the purpose of trying to redirect traffic to his own sites.

    It’s also the biggest website in the world I believe. Big advertising revenues and a lot of personal information on users.

    I just started using MySpace actually because it is a tool nonetheless that can be used against the things Murdoch stands for. The ethics of using it is questionable but I think I will carry on for the time being.

    Best,
    Pete

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  18. Tio I hadn’t read all your comments, I understand your anti-myspace feelings however it’s a great method of exposure. What we really need is someone to setup humanspace and take the boycott from there.

    For an example of the kinds of people that do use myspace you can check out my profile over there.

    The ads are ghastly and we need to organise the boycott alternative for myspace. Anyone wanna help?

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  19. Hello Pete,

    My aim when I wrote the above post was to try to raise wider awareness of how Murdoch’s media monopoly operates, its holdings worldwide and the impact that Murdoch slanted news has on our interpretation and understanding of world events.

    If I have inspired anyone out there since then to… stop reading The Sun… unsubscribe to Sky or to refuse to take a copy of the London Paper 🙂 or to want to start an alternative to myspace then I am truly happy.

    Keep up the good work!

    Best

    Tio

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  22. “I call out to all Americans to stand up for our Constitutional Republic! To stand up to the oppression that these evil men have in store for our Country! To DEMAND that those in Congress, not under the influences of the CFR, to INVESTIGATE them! Freeze all financial accounts of those who are involved, including all Presidential candidates who are members, raid their headquarters and their homes and publicly display any and all documents pertaining to their plans and to throw those involved in prison for the rest of their natural lives.”

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  26. Glad to see this site. Murdoch is an archetypal megalomaniac, but I sense that his bully-boy time is nearing its end. No questioning his commercial brilliance; it’s his absence of ethical dignity that makes him dark and menacing. This is a man who heralded progress when, in the nineteen eighties, he fought thousands of UK print workers and destroyed their unions. Now he complains that progress in cyberspace technology, blogs in particular, are about to destroy the advertising revenues that underpin his journalist’s salaries. What goes around comes around! Also, his commercial antics in Australia include his intrusion into the property market where his website: Domain.com, excludes private sellers from publishing their property details on his site. This is collusion with the parasitic activities of estate agents who are nothing less than viral con-artists feeding from a market they create by dazzling feats of seduction. Like estate agents, Murdoch has done nothing with his talent to help humankind. I look forward to the backlash against his forthcoming attempt to get internet users to pay for his news. This humpty-dumpty is in for a big fall.

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  28. You forgot to put that he also own the Wall Street Journal, and is trying to weed out all free media online and in any other format. He is without a question a billionaire tyrant.

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  29. I’ve updated the list of all Murdoch’s Newscorps holdings worldwide. It is important to frequently update this info so people are aware where their media info comes from.

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  33. I think the best way to take action against Murdoch is to boycott the companies that advertise with his media companies-and let them know. This is the soft underbelly to his empire and is the best way to make a difference.

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