Word: murdochs
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...takes a lot to rattle Rupert Murdoch, but in January, as he faced Federal Communications Commission lawyers probing his 10-year-old purchase of TV stations now at the core of his Fox Broadcasting network, he grew clearly angry. "Either your people can't read, don't understand English or understand instruction," he said, his voice stone-hard, "or you have a witch-hunt in this...
...nothing about this investigation is ordinary-not the players, not the stakes, not even the FCC's behavior. One of its own commissioners publicly attacked the probe, branding certain actions "misguided." Even the form of the investigation is unusual, with the commission's lawyers demanding documents from throughout Murdoch's U.S. empire and ordering depositions from Murdoch, former Fox Inc. chairman Barry Diller and a dozen other current and former Fox officials...
...deals to sell and buy TV stations, all meant to help the upstart network catch up with the Big Three. The probe threatens to kill one of these deals, the $38 million takeover of an nbc affiliate in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The FCC's investigation also forced Murdoch to place into trusteeship two powerful stations he bought under an option included as part of his $500 million investment last year in New World Communications, the deal that won Fox a dozen new affiliates-mostly from CBS -- in some of America's biggest TV markets. And the probe halted...
...Murdoch, the investigation is a product of partisan revenge, obsolete law and the machinations of an embittered rival. To others it is a David-vs.-Goliath story in which an obscure Washington attorney (named David, in fact) "took a swing in the dark and hit someone on the chin," as one media lawyer describes it. Still others see the probe as a case study in how companies can abuse the regulatory process. It is nearing its climax just as Congress prepares to jettison a battery of obsolete media regulations and launch an era of explosive competition...
President Clinton today pledged to sign legislation that combines tax deductions for the self-employed with a huge tax break for media mogulRupert Murdoch. TIME Washington correspondent John Dickerson says such there are thousands of similar exemptions in the tax code, creating the complicated tax structure that Republicans say they want to dismantle. The bill, approved by Congress, eventually would let an estimated 3.2 million self-employed people deduct 30 percent of theirhealth insurance premiums. It also would eliminate tax breaks for companies that sell TV stations to minorities, while retaining the benefit for Murdoch's contract to sell...