Word: metromedia
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...would alter his empire (not to mention his passport) is March 28, 1985. Murdoch was paying his first visit to the Hollywood studios of 20th Century-Fox, half of which he had just bought from Denver Oil Tycoon Marvin Davis. As it happened, John Kluge, the billionaire chieftain of Metromedia Inc., was also on the lot that day to attend an investment conference...
Murdoch and Kluge, already friends, exchanged pleasantries; before long, Kluge was sounding out Murdoch and Davis about selling them Metromedia's string of television stations. A discussion over dinner led the following day to serious talks, which eventually led to marathon meetings in Kluge's apartment in New York's Waldorf Towers. As the hard-driving Murdoch described the complex bargaining that followed, "You find things you don't expect, you shout, you scream...
...stations in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, Dallas, Houston and Boston. The price tag is $2 billion, making the acquisition the second largest in broadcasting history. (First place belongs to the $3.5 billion takeover of ABC by Capital Cities Communications in March.) The new owners will immediately sell Metromedia's Boston outlet, WCVB-TV, to the Hearst Corp. for $450 million. Murdoch and Davis will end up with six stations that reach one out of every / five U.S. households, thus providing a potent market for Fox movies and programs. Together, the two men harbor an ambitious dream: to become...
...newspaper publisher from owning a TV station in the same city. Thus Murdoch will have to sell both the New York Post, a screeching tabloid partial to news of crime, sex and the latest lottery winner, and the more sedate Chicago Sun-Times. To raise cash for the Metromedia deal, Murdoch is also seeking a buyer for the Village Voice, the leftish Manhattan weekly that nearly always was at odds with its owner's conservative politics (asking price: a very capitalistic $55 million...
Though Murdoch had thought about becoming a U.S. citizen since 1983, the prospect of the Metromedia deal made up his mind. The decision, nonetheless, was a difficult one. Born and raised in Melbourne, Murdoch inherited a pair of struggling newspapers in Adelaide from his father in 1952; from that puny seed grew Murdoch's $1.8 billion-a-year empire, which still has headquarters in Australia (see chart). Even Murdoch's mother, who lives near Melbourne, seemed taken aback. "It was quite a bit to swallow at first," says Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, 76, "but that doesn't alter the fact that...