Word: murdoch
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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What the FCC apparently did not know, or had failed to understand, was that this 76-to-24 ratio, while it seemed to satisfy federal requirements, said nothing about who actually owned the underlying assets of the stations. In fact, News Corp. indirectly owns more than 99%, a fact Murdoch's lawyers explicitly disclosed only last year, after prodding by the commission. The question then became: Did Murdoch lie, or was the FCC not competent enough to figure...
...deal past its "drop dead" date, thus killing the purchase. In frustration, Fox asked the commission to resolve the foreign-ownership question once and for all. How seriously Fox meant this request, however, now seems open to debate. In March the FCC's Mass Media Bureau asked Murdoch to disclose exactly how much equity-what share of the Fox station's assets-was represented by the stock owned by News Corp. In reply, Fox restated the 76-to-24 split but told the FCC that "the precise dollar value of News Corp.'s equity contribution at any given time would...
...disclosure was apparently news to two FCC examiners closely involved in the case, Roy Stewart and his assistant Stephen Sewell, both widely respected for their detailed scrutiny of applications. In formal affidavits filed earlier this year, both said they did not know that News Corp. owned so much equity. Murdoch counters that News Corp.'s ownership was fully disclosed in 1985. In his deposition he told investigators he would have been "mad" to hide anything from the commission, given the size of his investment. Of the FCC's Stewart, Murdoch says, "Maybe he just didn't read the application...
Nowhere in the original materials, though, did Murdoch explicitly disclose News Corp.'s 99% share of equity. Moreover, the investigation unearthed documents indicating that foreign ownership remained a sensitive issue among Murdoch's attorneys long after the FCC's initial approval. A memo dated June 5, 1990, from Michael Gardner, a Washington attorney who managed Murdoch's original application, calls Fox's ownership structure "arguably vulnerable to challenge." He warns that it is paramount" to avoid any change that "would potentially invite re-examination" by the commission...
...last summer, rumor had spread among capital media lawyers that the FCC was about to resolve the dispute in a way that would allow Fox to continue operating unimpeded. In the meantime, however, Murdoch, a deal junkie who thrives on unsettling the competition, had launched a revolution in the landscape of television. And he had made an energetic enemy-nbc. "What this is all about is: Murdoch plays by Murdoch's rules," says a former FCC official, "and he just blew NBC's mind...