Dear Mr Murdoch,
I do not address you as Rupert because in fairness you have achieved more than Dave, Boris and Ed altogether creating mass employment as well as personal and family wealth and a multiplicity of media innovations across the world
We have also never met and unlike most of those who have supped at your table- the politicians, police, other media moguls and international business tycoons, even heads of state I want nothing from you. My interest in you, your family and your businesses comes from fascination and curiosity about how you have become the precipitating catalyst of events which could transform British political and public life in a way that is not transitory.
I say could and I wonder if you are as uncertain as me about what the outcome will be of the News World Scandal, and the reaction of the British Establishment, in part organised and calculated and in part a response forced by public pressure on the politicians of all three main political parties following the lead taken by Ed Miliband and the Labour Party. Will you be forced to resign your controlling position as Chairman/Chief Executive of News Corporation? Will your son resign as Chairman of News International and of BskyB where you and the family are reported to own 39% of the shares?
I hope you are not as surprised by what has happened and is happening to you and your family as some media commentators suggest. All the evidence is that you have always understood that the higher the stakes the greater the risk and consequentially that it is always necessary to have plans B and C as well as devoting some time and resources to reduce the risks and to preparing to accept that like life itself, wealth and power can come to an end at any time and when you least expect.
I have other things to do but I devote time to the News of the World scandal and to you because I want recent events to result in a significant change to the British political and social order, especially if the British Labour Party under Ed Miliband understands that the need to also break with the influence of the international corporations generally, the arms manufacturing and pharmaceuticals in particular, if Ministers are to have real power to rebalance British Society between the have and have not’s.
I hope you have read my letter to Dave and the expectation that he will resign from office if Andy C in particular, but also Rebekah are convicted of a media related offence or are found culpable by the Public Inquiry although the latter is unlikely to occur until after the next General Election. I am also writing to Ed on the steps he needs to take to create distance between himself and the old order to pave the way for power, possible through an alliance with the Liberal Democrats although I suspect this will be with Vince Cable rather than Dave mark II who is likely to also become be one of the casualties the debacle.
You are reputed to be one of the top 100 or so richest individuals in the world and in the top forty in the USA and you played a significant part in the winning and losing of elections in the UK, in Australia and in the USA. Yet you now face being stripped of your controlling interests in UK media and it will be surprising if current politicians and public personalities will wish to be seen with you in private as well as in public. No more back door visits to number 10 for a cup of tea I fear. Fortunately you appear to have the financial means to enjoy the rest of your life and continue to provide for your relatives whatever happens. I suspect this will now have to be your legacy rather than handing on one of the great media empires the world has ever seen. Whatever happens they could individually rather than collectively achieve in their own right something approaching your success.
I suspect we have similar personalities so I have read what I can about your life to see if this is so. I have come to some surprising conclusions.
You were born in Australia eight years before me. Because of our different circumstances you may not have been as marked by the Second World War as myself, the constant awareness of the potential of death and injury as bombs fell around and the fear of the adults. Do you reflect on your life and increasing proximity with the loss of self awareness I wonder?
We both appear to have had, you have still, strong mothers with steadfastness and values which counterbalanced the adventuring risk taking of our fathers. Your mother at 19 married a man twice her age and has reached the remarkable age of 102. In your sixties you married your third wife then aged 30. My father, although I never knew him was also in his sixties when he seduced my mother then in her thirties but she remained steadfast in her faith and standards throughout the rest of her life while he also went on from being a parish priest to being the Vicar General of Gibraltar and awarded the Order of the British Empire. I noted with interest that you have received an important Catholic order from the Pope.
You father died when you were only 21 years of age and you returned home to take responsibility for the future welfare of your mother and your three sisters, as well as responsibility for the employees of your father’s media business. I also found myself having supervisory responsibility for others at the aged of 17 years and having an adult sense of duty and responsibility long before I should. I therefore did not have an adolescence and young adulthood as I was able to witness other contemporaries experience.
You also experienced Oxford University for a period of two years, returning home without graduating. We were both members of the Labour Club and according to a contemporary of yours, Gerald Kaufman; you were also then an individualist forming your own view of everything, including the value and significance of the rules of others. In my day it was Robert Maxwell, also with a large family who promoted his sons into the business, who had his headquarters at Headington Hall which I passed regularly on my way from the Ruskin Rookery into the college in Walton Street a few yards away from Worcester where you were an undergraduate reading PPE (Philosophy Politics and Economics) whereas I started with Politics and Economics switching to Public and Social Administration, and to social work. The consequence of this is that while several good friends spent the summer helping Maxwell to then win his Parliamentary seat before returning to take the PPE in two years, I prepared for Birmingham University and the Child Care Course, although we reassembled together for a glorious late summer week for the results of the examinations to be published before I went off on a tour of Sweden.
The other aspect of your early life which interests is that despite the responsibility for the future welfare of your family, making your father’s business a success, marriage and a family of your own, you were not content as most might have been expected and you rapidly expanded buying suburban and provincial papers, creating the first Australian Daily, moving into New Zealand and significantly creating the tabloid with a mixture of scandals, sport and simple party political opinions and comments on issues of the day. You became actively involved in national political life. You also divorced and quickly remained.
In my instance I was also not content with just being successful at what I had trained for, with marriage, a family and purchasing a home. I gained rapid promotions, moving areas to do so, wrote articles which were published, created, edited and produced the first 100 editions of a commentary on Parliamentary Affairs, and held national office in my field of interest. I also needed to get involved in politics and played a major part in securing a single form of reorganisation of local authority social services provision for England and Wales.
It was in 1968 and 1969 that you acquired the News of the World and then the Sun which was turned into a tabloid and in 1973 you moved into the United States and the world wide media interest commenced. Although you acquired the financially ailing Times and Sunday Times to become a dominant force in the Newspaper industry in the UK in the early 1980’s and commenced to having an influence in British Political Life with support for Margaret Thatcher it was the desire to move into US Television which is said to have led you to become a US citizen for as in Britain there was a restriction on ownership by predominantly overseas interests.
The extraordinary aspect of your political interest was the ability to switch between political parties for in Australian your media interests gave full support to the left of centre Gough Whitlam who proposed the national ownership of oil, gas and other mineral resources, introduced free health and education to university level and recognised the People’s Republic of China. In the UK you created enemies in the trade unions and the left when introducing the latest electronic methods of newspaper production moving from Fleet Street to Wapping and sacking all 6000 striking employees in 1986 reaching a £60 million settlement with them a year later, an average of £10000 per head. This occurred after the Government had broken the National Strike of Mine Workers with the creation of an alternative union to that run by the extreme Arthur Scargill.
At the same time as pioneering modern newspaper production in the UK you commenced the interest television acquiring 20th Century Fox movie studio in 1985 and then six television stations which helped to create Fox Broadcasting whose early success was the X files and the Simpsons. It was the decision to develop Satellite broadcasting in the UK, a cheaper approach than the cabling which ultimately led to the present situation but which also transformed British sport and other aspects of British life. There was one factor which enabled you to succeed in becoming the dominant force in pay to view broadcasting, the financial strength and borrowing capacity of the rest of the company which enabled it to take the losses over the early years. This in turn enabled the merger in 1990 which saw the creation of BskyB as Sky effectively took over British Satellite Broadcasting. Since then despite the emergence of Virgin Cable, BskyB has gone from strength to strength particularly since your son became Chief Executive and then Chairman with 10 million subscribers, having developed a series of innovations with High Definition, 3D, Sky Anytime, Internet linking anywhere and complete packages including the Internet, Telephone lines and services.
The development the Satellite and cable TV led to 24 hour News channels with originally three BBC, ITN and Sky in the UK now two with the departure of ITN as a 24 hour broadcaster, but also the ability to also see USA News CNN and Fox and stations set up to promote other countries such as China, Russia, the Arab and Muslim World with an English Language Al Jazeera. Given the latest profit margin announced today it is understandable that you wanted to increase your controlling 39% to 100% and thus ensure the financial stability of the rest of your empire, in a situation where the consequence of 24 hour news broadcasting and the Internet means the increasing difficulty of printed news media to survive and which for example has led in London to the Evening Standard being issued free because the mass circulation means the greater income from advertising revenue.
Whereas British Broadcasting News via the BBC, ITN Channel 4 and Channel 5 is strongly controlled with an insistence on balanced news programmes with controls on Political Party broadcasting and ensuring that opposing views are given a means of expression, Fox News has developed into a partisan station with other questionable features such as emphasise on white Christian conservatism and where female presenters are all smart but young compared to the males who can be old and fat. It is your obsession of giving the public want it wants regardless of the ethical and social implications where you and I have held separate views which has and also prevents me from ever calling you Rupert
I also understand your approach to business although it was only through attending in 1984 an International Senior Management course for those wishing to go into General Management that I came to understand the core approach of Corporations, particularly in relation to national Governments and their politicians, to the role of creatives in wealth creation, as part of Management Teams as a chairman leaders and chief executives.
One rule is to become International preferably through controlled decentralised productions and distribution centres which can be eliminated or sold off if they affect the body whole, or can be switched to other more business sympathetic locations, or through synergetic alliances where you remain the dominant partner. It is this ruthless willingness to slice off a business segment such as the instant closure of the News of the World or take on staff and their unions such as sacking all 6000 employees resisting the production modernization with the move from Fleet Street to Wapping which is the major difference between us. The end never justifies the means.
Another issue of concern is that to protect income you organised yourself through the Bahamas, the Caymen Islands, the Channel and Virgin islands your News Corporation profits are only reduced by 7% taxation! This adds to a sense that social responsibility and good citizenship has become have become fully subservient to profit and power.
It was almost immediately during my four week stay at Henley that I encountered the extent of the contempt for politicians as there was for trade unions and government directly provided services in general by those wholly engaged in business. In fairness we were united in contempt for the market speculators and manipulators. I accepted that as the politicians dictated the way business could be conducted, you needed to keep ahead of intelligence which could indicate political instability and anti independent business moves. If problems developed you had to have the resources and the links to move production centres to more favourable conditions.
It is therefore understandable that you continued the tradition of news moguls world wide to make friends with all the major politicians who could affect business interests but with a significant twist which was to prove the downfall here in the UK because of the extent to which the personality scandal came to dominate the media although in fairness this was more a case of your people over enthusiastically giving the public what it already wanted.
The British, across all classes, less so the educated, who while condemning the behaviour, have always vicariously enjoyed knowing the gory and the salacious details specially the working, political and upper classes, have always enjoyed knowing the sexual antics of those with power, wealth and public status.
During the lifetime of my parents from the 1870’s and 1890’s respectively, there was the musical hall before the development of cinema and the Hollywood star. It became sex and drugs from the sixties with rock and pop stars, although it also existed in the world of jazz and I remember well a Sunday special after an all night session at the Piccadilly Cy Laurie Club in the 1950‘s.
It was Sky’s money into sport, especially football which catapulted interest into the lives of sports stars and their relationships although was nothing new or particular to the Sun and News of the World with the alcohol playboy problems of George Best and the infidelities of several British team managers across all the tabloids.
The British media has also taken what many of us consider to be an unhealthy interest in criminals and their victims and it is here there developed an alliance between the secret and special services, the police, the media and the private independent investigation and security services as well as the use of undercover arms length agents and informants and where the development of digital media and communications, especially national databases has enabled an exponential expansion in unauthorised, undeclared and illegal intelligence gathering by government agencies, international and national corporations, and anyone with the financial resources required. I also only fully understood the way things were as well as the implications of information and communications technology at Henley in 1984 although as a local authority chief officer was possible to learn a lot.
I do not propose to say much more about this other than to point out the spate of illegal copying of major government databases in the UK, the ability of governments to shut down all digital media and communications systems, their own and those of others, the ability of independent groups to hack into anything and everything and the revealing statement yesterday on behalf of Mulcaire that he acted only to order and instruction. It also has to be remembered that when anyone is murdered the most likely culprit is a family member, a work or social colleague, rival or friend. The intentional murdering of a stranger, someone at random is rare.
I have also separately written about the value, risk and use of creatives within organisations, management teams and as Chairmen/Chief Executives and the risks, planning and operational implications. I have spoken of the macro level remembered important Henley session with the European research director of 3m‘s, a company which like yours now has become a billion wealth and income international conglomerate with world wide production and distribution centres as well as markets in the majority of nations. He spoke of the way the small unit of research creatives produced the majority of the $50 million plus free standing enterprises compared to the number of other product research and development employees world wide, but also of the risks as such individuals tended to be egocentric with little regard for conventional rules and behaviour and how there was need to be able eliminate from the organisation individuals who went over the line and were caught. It was also important to be able to cover up all records of having had direct involvement with such an individual and situation.
I have also written about the need to provide a sympathetic environment for the needs of individual creatives if they are to flourish, especially those in senior management but also the essential need for good intelligence about what they are up to. While the creative Chief Executive could turn round an ailing organisation or rapidly progress a static business it was also important to provide a classical chairman and we were repeatedly warned of the potential risks to the whole enterprise in a situation where a creative combined the roles chairman and chief executive.
I disagree with Lord Leveson in that the issue for me is not who Guards the Guardian but how they are guarded!
If one looks as your rise to business and political power it is easy for others especially outsiders to take a one dimensional view failing to appreciate the risks taken, and the work required and the ruthless competitive nature of all entrepreneurial ventures.
It is however one the great myths to believe that there is any less degree of ruthless competitiveness in public sector services although I accept that until recent decades individuals were able to hold on to positions regardless of their ongoing performance and were often appointed and promoted because of contacts and influence rather than ability and skill. You do not survive in business without skill and ability as well as contacts and influence whereas you were able to do in government service as long as you did not cross the line. In business you are unlikely to transform from small to big without pushing the margins and sometimes crossing lines.
My impression is that in the UK the extent of the relationships between yourself, your son and your senior executives with national politicians to protect business interests and further your general political interests became confused and blurred with the mutual interest of your papers and the judicial services to catch, prosecute and punish criminals, which led to close involvements with the police and the judicial system, and this included the fitness of individual to hold public office, with the behaviour of “personalities” which however questionable remained within the law, and then with anyone whose experience, including their grief, provided a human interest story. And which led to establishing networks with the emergency services in general and the opening of contact lines for anyone to offer a good story for reward.
The consequence has been the development of alcohol available social gathering, for everyone, your people, politicians and police to gain useful information about each other and that it was assumed that mutual self interest would prevent the network from collapsing. The led to your senior executive believing there were legal situations where public servant informants, including the police could be paid money or given goods in kind which includes hospitality at sporting and other media controlled entertainment events.
It is also significant that while senior individuals in the media and in metropolitan police have resigned and arrests have commenced at all levels, far from any politicians losing jobs the position of the majority has enhanced. However as I explained to Dave, he and possible George have been damaged by taking on and sticking with Andy C and may still be forced to pay a high price. Vince C looked as if he would pay for disclosing the existence of the Exocet has now found his reputation enhanced where Nick Clegg, despite letting his reservations be known and making speeches saying how awful things have become and need to change is missing out because of his stated closeness to Dave. I am writing to Ed about his problem of the record of Tony and Gordon.
As I said I can only speculate on the outcome for you, your son and your controlling interest in the UK media business. It is evident from the past week that despite the horror occurring in Norway, the scale of human suffering in the horn of Africa, the continuing significant problems in Afghanistan and Libya and Republicans and Democrats in the USA playing chicken risking the downfall of capitalism that there remains sufficient interest and concern for the Scandal to be successfully fuelled in terms of media attention throughout the summer. I believe the main interests hoped the situation would die down until Parliament reassembled. Then some selective prosecutions would have controlled the nature of media and Parliamentary interest so that given the first task of the juridical inquiry, the second part would not be completed until after the next General Election in much the same way as the Bloody Sunday inquiry took decades and the Iraq Inquiry is still to publish
As with Parliamentary expenses my impression is that despite the prosecutions and imprisonments, the retiring of others and the introduction of new measures, the British political and social system has remained fundamentally the same as ever. It is also evident that for good and for bad reason the stated high hopes of the Coalition to change the political and power system in the UK is failing, inevitable in my view because of diminished resources, pressure on the capitalists to retain and expand their wealth and on the majority to receive less in net income and public service provision.
This is why what Ed does next is the key to lasting change for the better becoming possible.
Research Notes from Wikipedia
News International which is chaired by James Murdoch and where Rebekah Brooks was until recently Chief Executive comprises:
Times Newspaper Ltd (Sunday Times and Times Daily) current offer available for £6 a week including the on line edition.
News Group Newspaper Ltd which included the News of the World until its closure and the Sun.
NI Free Newspapers Ltd which published the London Paper until the creation of the free Evening Standard forced its closure.
Also New International Advertisements Ltd; Associated Services Ltd; Distribution Ltd; News Printers Knowsley Ltd; News Printers Scotland Ltd; Pension Trustee Ltd; Supply Company Ltd; Television Investment Company, Television Ltd, NI Syndication Ltd.
In 1952 News Ltd was created from the inherited assets of Sir Keith Murdoch and in 1979 News Corp was created as the holding company. Between 1973 and 1986 News Ltd and then News Corp made newspaper, magazine and media acquisitions in the United States. In 1993 a controlling interest was obtained in the Hong Kong bases Star TV satellite net work and in 1995 a deal created an Australian pay TV network. In 1996 the Fox News channel was created in competition with CNN. In 1999 music holdings in Australia were expanded. It increased TV involvement with 34% stake in thee largest Australian Satellite network. In 2007 took control of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. Of potential great interest is the establishing in 2009 of News Core a global wire service.
Although the Murdoch family only owned 29% of News Corp shares in 2005 these comprises the voting shares. A Saudi Prince is the second biggest share holder with 7%. In 2010 the company made 2 1$ million donations to or in support of the Republican Party.
The Board has 17 Members with Rupert Chairman and Chief Executive and James Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Europe and Asia and Laclan and Elisabeth Murdoch also members. The Chairman of Rothchild Capital Management is also a member. The Company has interests in 25 Australian newspapers, and in Fiji and Papua New Guinea BS and some 60 newspapers in the USA in addition to the in the UK. It has interests in some 30 Magazines almost all in Australia. Music and Radio Interests in the USA and Russia. It has major sport interests in Australia and the USA but failed to Take Over Manchester United. It has major Film and TV production studies on the USA, Australian, New Zealand, France and India and in the UK. It terms of Broadcasting companies these are also wide ranging with Fox USA and Australia, Saeta in Uruguay and 7½ % of ITV, in Romania, Serbia, Turkey and Georgia, Israel, Latvia, Indonesia, Italy and New Zealand with Satellite interests in the UK, New Zealand, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, India, Australia, Hong Kong includes parts of China and also separately a company with 300 million viewers in Asia. It is a major provider of Cable in the USA and in the Middle East including the major nations mainly in sports channels and also a wide range of channels through cable in the USA plus in 17 countries in Latin America and Australia. It has interests in TV Platforms in India and Taiwan and in the Internet. It has an involvement in a vast array of 50 other assets world wide.
Of interest in relation to the BSkyB company is their increasing involvement with Virgin Media and the recent decision not to refer the acquisition of Virgin Media TV channels to the Competition Commission.
I do not address you as Rupert because in fairness you have achieved more than Dave, Boris and Ed altogether creating mass employment as well as personal and family wealth and a multiplicity of media innovations across the world
We have also never met and unlike most of those who have supped at your table- the politicians, police, other media moguls and international business tycoons, even heads of state I want nothing from you. My interest in you, your family and your businesses comes from fascination and curiosity about how you have become the precipitating catalyst of events which could transform British political and public life in a way that is not transitory.
I say could and I wonder if you are as uncertain as me about what the outcome will be of the News World Scandal, and the reaction of the British Establishment, in part organised and calculated and in part a response forced by public pressure on the politicians of all three main political parties following the lead taken by Ed Miliband and the Labour Party. Will you be forced to resign your controlling position as Chairman/Chief Executive of News Corporation? Will your son resign as Chairman of News International and of BskyB where you and the family are reported to own 39% of the shares?
I hope you are not as surprised by what has happened and is happening to you and your family as some media commentators suggest. All the evidence is that you have always understood that the higher the stakes the greater the risk and consequentially that it is always necessary to have plans B and C as well as devoting some time and resources to reduce the risks and to preparing to accept that like life itself, wealth and power can come to an end at any time and when you least expect.
I have other things to do but I devote time to the News of the World scandal and to you because I want recent events to result in a significant change to the British political and social order, especially if the British Labour Party under Ed Miliband understands that the need to also break with the influence of the international corporations generally, the arms manufacturing and pharmaceuticals in particular, if Ministers are to have real power to rebalance British Society between the have and have not’s.
I hope you have read my letter to Dave and the expectation that he will resign from office if Andy C in particular, but also Rebekah are convicted of a media related offence or are found culpable by the Public Inquiry although the latter is unlikely to occur until after the next General Election. I am also writing to Ed on the steps he needs to take to create distance between himself and the old order to pave the way for power, possible through an alliance with the Liberal Democrats although I suspect this will be with Vince Cable rather than Dave mark II who is likely to also become be one of the casualties the debacle.
You are reputed to be one of the top 100 or so richest individuals in the world and in the top forty in the USA and you played a significant part in the winning and losing of elections in the UK, in Australia and in the USA. Yet you now face being stripped of your controlling interests in UK media and it will be surprising if current politicians and public personalities will wish to be seen with you in private as well as in public. No more back door visits to number 10 for a cup of tea I fear. Fortunately you appear to have the financial means to enjoy the rest of your life and continue to provide for your relatives whatever happens. I suspect this will now have to be your legacy rather than handing on one of the great media empires the world has ever seen. Whatever happens they could individually rather than collectively achieve in their own right something approaching your success.
I suspect we have similar personalities so I have read what I can about your life to see if this is so. I have come to some surprising conclusions.
You were born in Australia eight years before me. Because of our different circumstances you may not have been as marked by the Second World War as myself, the constant awareness of the potential of death and injury as bombs fell around and the fear of the adults. Do you reflect on your life and increasing proximity with the loss of self awareness I wonder?
We both appear to have had, you have still, strong mothers with steadfastness and values which counterbalanced the adventuring risk taking of our fathers. Your mother at 19 married a man twice her age and has reached the remarkable age of 102. In your sixties you married your third wife then aged 30. My father, although I never knew him was also in his sixties when he seduced my mother then in her thirties but she remained steadfast in her faith and standards throughout the rest of her life while he also went on from being a parish priest to being the Vicar General of Gibraltar and awarded the Order of the British Empire. I noted with interest that you have received an important Catholic order from the Pope.
You father died when you were only 21 years of age and you returned home to take responsibility for the future welfare of your mother and your three sisters, as well as responsibility for the employees of your father’s media business. I also found myself having supervisory responsibility for others at the aged of 17 years and having an adult sense of duty and responsibility long before I should. I therefore did not have an adolescence and young adulthood as I was able to witness other contemporaries experience.
You also experienced Oxford University for a period of two years, returning home without graduating. We were both members of the Labour Club and according to a contemporary of yours, Gerald Kaufman; you were also then an individualist forming your own view of everything, including the value and significance of the rules of others. In my day it was Robert Maxwell, also with a large family who promoted his sons into the business, who had his headquarters at Headington Hall which I passed regularly on my way from the Ruskin Rookery into the college in Walton Street a few yards away from Worcester where you were an undergraduate reading PPE (Philosophy Politics and Economics) whereas I started with Politics and Economics switching to Public and Social Administration, and to social work. The consequence of this is that while several good friends spent the summer helping Maxwell to then win his Parliamentary seat before returning to take the PPE in two years, I prepared for Birmingham University and the Child Care Course, although we reassembled together for a glorious late summer week for the results of the examinations to be published before I went off on a tour of Sweden.
The other aspect of your early life which interests is that despite the responsibility for the future welfare of your family, making your father’s business a success, marriage and a family of your own, you were not content as most might have been expected and you rapidly expanded buying suburban and provincial papers, creating the first Australian Daily, moving into New Zealand and significantly creating the tabloid with a mixture of scandals, sport and simple party political opinions and comments on issues of the day. You became actively involved in national political life. You also divorced and quickly remained.
In my instance I was also not content with just being successful at what I had trained for, with marriage, a family and purchasing a home. I gained rapid promotions, moving areas to do so, wrote articles which were published, created, edited and produced the first 100 editions of a commentary on Parliamentary Affairs, and held national office in my field of interest. I also needed to get involved in politics and played a major part in securing a single form of reorganisation of local authority social services provision for England and Wales.
It was in 1968 and 1969 that you acquired the News of the World and then the Sun which was turned into a tabloid and in 1973 you moved into the United States and the world wide media interest commenced. Although you acquired the financially ailing Times and Sunday Times to become a dominant force in the Newspaper industry in the UK in the early 1980’s and commenced to having an influence in British Political Life with support for Margaret Thatcher it was the desire to move into US Television which is said to have led you to become a US citizen for as in Britain there was a restriction on ownership by predominantly overseas interests.
The extraordinary aspect of your political interest was the ability to switch between political parties for in Australian your media interests gave full support to the left of centre Gough Whitlam who proposed the national ownership of oil, gas and other mineral resources, introduced free health and education to university level and recognised the People’s Republic of China. In the UK you created enemies in the trade unions and the left when introducing the latest electronic methods of newspaper production moving from Fleet Street to Wapping and sacking all 6000 striking employees in 1986 reaching a £60 million settlement with them a year later, an average of £10000 per head. This occurred after the Government had broken the National Strike of Mine Workers with the creation of an alternative union to that run by the extreme Arthur Scargill.
At the same time as pioneering modern newspaper production in the UK you commenced the interest television acquiring 20th Century Fox movie studio in 1985 and then six television stations which helped to create Fox Broadcasting whose early success was the X files and the Simpsons. It was the decision to develop Satellite broadcasting in the UK, a cheaper approach than the cabling which ultimately led to the present situation but which also transformed British sport and other aspects of British life. There was one factor which enabled you to succeed in becoming the dominant force in pay to view broadcasting, the financial strength and borrowing capacity of the rest of the company which enabled it to take the losses over the early years. This in turn enabled the merger in 1990 which saw the creation of BskyB as Sky effectively took over British Satellite Broadcasting. Since then despite the emergence of Virgin Cable, BskyB has gone from strength to strength particularly since your son became Chief Executive and then Chairman with 10 million subscribers, having developed a series of innovations with High Definition, 3D, Sky Anytime, Internet linking anywhere and complete packages including the Internet, Telephone lines and services.
The development the Satellite and cable TV led to 24 hour News channels with originally three BBC, ITN and Sky in the UK now two with the departure of ITN as a 24 hour broadcaster, but also the ability to also see USA News CNN and Fox and stations set up to promote other countries such as China, Russia, the Arab and Muslim World with an English Language Al Jazeera. Given the latest profit margin announced today it is understandable that you wanted to increase your controlling 39% to 100% and thus ensure the financial stability of the rest of your empire, in a situation where the consequence of 24 hour news broadcasting and the Internet means the increasing difficulty of printed news media to survive and which for example has led in London to the Evening Standard being issued free because the mass circulation means the greater income from advertising revenue.
Whereas British Broadcasting News via the BBC, ITN Channel 4 and Channel 5 is strongly controlled with an insistence on balanced news programmes with controls on Political Party broadcasting and ensuring that opposing views are given a means of expression, Fox News has developed into a partisan station with other questionable features such as emphasise on white Christian conservatism and where female presenters are all smart but young compared to the males who can be old and fat. It is your obsession of giving the public want it wants regardless of the ethical and social implications where you and I have held separate views which has and also prevents me from ever calling you Rupert
I also understand your approach to business although it was only through attending in 1984 an International Senior Management course for those wishing to go into General Management that I came to understand the core approach of Corporations, particularly in relation to national Governments and their politicians, to the role of creatives in wealth creation, as part of Management Teams as a chairman leaders and chief executives.
One rule is to become International preferably through controlled decentralised productions and distribution centres which can be eliminated or sold off if they affect the body whole, or can be switched to other more business sympathetic locations, or through synergetic alliances where you remain the dominant partner. It is this ruthless willingness to slice off a business segment such as the instant closure of the News of the World or take on staff and their unions such as sacking all 6000 employees resisting the production modernization with the move from Fleet Street to Wapping which is the major difference between us. The end never justifies the means.
Another issue of concern is that to protect income you organised yourself through the Bahamas, the Caymen Islands, the Channel and Virgin islands your News Corporation profits are only reduced by 7% taxation! This adds to a sense that social responsibility and good citizenship has become have become fully subservient to profit and power.
It was almost immediately during my four week stay at Henley that I encountered the extent of the contempt for politicians as there was for trade unions and government directly provided services in general by those wholly engaged in business. In fairness we were united in contempt for the market speculators and manipulators. I accepted that as the politicians dictated the way business could be conducted, you needed to keep ahead of intelligence which could indicate political instability and anti independent business moves. If problems developed you had to have the resources and the links to move production centres to more favourable conditions.
It is therefore understandable that you continued the tradition of news moguls world wide to make friends with all the major politicians who could affect business interests but with a significant twist which was to prove the downfall here in the UK because of the extent to which the personality scandal came to dominate the media although in fairness this was more a case of your people over enthusiastically giving the public what it already wanted.
The British, across all classes, less so the educated, who while condemning the behaviour, have always vicariously enjoyed knowing the gory and the salacious details specially the working, political and upper classes, have always enjoyed knowing the sexual antics of those with power, wealth and public status.
During the lifetime of my parents from the 1870’s and 1890’s respectively, there was the musical hall before the development of cinema and the Hollywood star. It became sex and drugs from the sixties with rock and pop stars, although it also existed in the world of jazz and I remember well a Sunday special after an all night session at the Piccadilly Cy Laurie Club in the 1950‘s.
It was Sky’s money into sport, especially football which catapulted interest into the lives of sports stars and their relationships although was nothing new or particular to the Sun and News of the World with the alcohol playboy problems of George Best and the infidelities of several British team managers across all the tabloids.
The British media has also taken what many of us consider to be an unhealthy interest in criminals and their victims and it is here there developed an alliance between the secret and special services, the police, the media and the private independent investigation and security services as well as the use of undercover arms length agents and informants and where the development of digital media and communications, especially national databases has enabled an exponential expansion in unauthorised, undeclared and illegal intelligence gathering by government agencies, international and national corporations, and anyone with the financial resources required. I also only fully understood the way things were as well as the implications of information and communications technology at Henley in 1984 although as a local authority chief officer was possible to learn a lot.
I do not propose to say much more about this other than to point out the spate of illegal copying of major government databases in the UK, the ability of governments to shut down all digital media and communications systems, their own and those of others, the ability of independent groups to hack into anything and everything and the revealing statement yesterday on behalf of Mulcaire that he acted only to order and instruction. It also has to be remembered that when anyone is murdered the most likely culprit is a family member, a work or social colleague, rival or friend. The intentional murdering of a stranger, someone at random is rare.
I have also separately written about the value, risk and use of creatives within organisations, management teams and as Chairmen/Chief Executives and the risks, planning and operational implications. I have spoken of the macro level remembered important Henley session with the European research director of 3m‘s, a company which like yours now has become a billion wealth and income international conglomerate with world wide production and distribution centres as well as markets in the majority of nations. He spoke of the way the small unit of research creatives produced the majority of the $50 million plus free standing enterprises compared to the number of other product research and development employees world wide, but also of the risks as such individuals tended to be egocentric with little regard for conventional rules and behaviour and how there was need to be able eliminate from the organisation individuals who went over the line and were caught. It was also important to be able to cover up all records of having had direct involvement with such an individual and situation.
I have also written about the need to provide a sympathetic environment for the needs of individual creatives if they are to flourish, especially those in senior management but also the essential need for good intelligence about what they are up to. While the creative Chief Executive could turn round an ailing organisation or rapidly progress a static business it was also important to provide a classical chairman and we were repeatedly warned of the potential risks to the whole enterprise in a situation where a creative combined the roles chairman and chief executive.
I disagree with Lord Leveson in that the issue for me is not who Guards the Guardian but how they are guarded!
If one looks as your rise to business and political power it is easy for others especially outsiders to take a one dimensional view failing to appreciate the risks taken, and the work required and the ruthless competitive nature of all entrepreneurial ventures.
It is however one the great myths to believe that there is any less degree of ruthless competitiveness in public sector services although I accept that until recent decades individuals were able to hold on to positions regardless of their ongoing performance and were often appointed and promoted because of contacts and influence rather than ability and skill. You do not survive in business without skill and ability as well as contacts and influence whereas you were able to do in government service as long as you did not cross the line. In business you are unlikely to transform from small to big without pushing the margins and sometimes crossing lines.
My impression is that in the UK the extent of the relationships between yourself, your son and your senior executives with national politicians to protect business interests and further your general political interests became confused and blurred with the mutual interest of your papers and the judicial services to catch, prosecute and punish criminals, which led to close involvements with the police and the judicial system, and this included the fitness of individual to hold public office, with the behaviour of “personalities” which however questionable remained within the law, and then with anyone whose experience, including their grief, provided a human interest story. And which led to establishing networks with the emergency services in general and the opening of contact lines for anyone to offer a good story for reward.
The consequence has been the development of alcohol available social gathering, for everyone, your people, politicians and police to gain useful information about each other and that it was assumed that mutual self interest would prevent the network from collapsing. The led to your senior executive believing there were legal situations where public servant informants, including the police could be paid money or given goods in kind which includes hospitality at sporting and other media controlled entertainment events.
It is also significant that while senior individuals in the media and in metropolitan police have resigned and arrests have commenced at all levels, far from any politicians losing jobs the position of the majority has enhanced. However as I explained to Dave, he and possible George have been damaged by taking on and sticking with Andy C and may still be forced to pay a high price. Vince C looked as if he would pay for disclosing the existence of the Exocet has now found his reputation enhanced where Nick Clegg, despite letting his reservations be known and making speeches saying how awful things have become and need to change is missing out because of his stated closeness to Dave. I am writing to Ed about his problem of the record of Tony and Gordon.
As I said I can only speculate on the outcome for you, your son and your controlling interest in the UK media business. It is evident from the past week that despite the horror occurring in Norway, the scale of human suffering in the horn of Africa, the continuing significant problems in Afghanistan and Libya and Republicans and Democrats in the USA playing chicken risking the downfall of capitalism that there remains sufficient interest and concern for the Scandal to be successfully fuelled in terms of media attention throughout the summer. I believe the main interests hoped the situation would die down until Parliament reassembled. Then some selective prosecutions would have controlled the nature of media and Parliamentary interest so that given the first task of the juridical inquiry, the second part would not be completed until after the next General Election in much the same way as the Bloody Sunday inquiry took decades and the Iraq Inquiry is still to publish
As with Parliamentary expenses my impression is that despite the prosecutions and imprisonments, the retiring of others and the introduction of new measures, the British political and social system has remained fundamentally the same as ever. It is also evident that for good and for bad reason the stated high hopes of the Coalition to change the political and power system in the UK is failing, inevitable in my view because of diminished resources, pressure on the capitalists to retain and expand their wealth and on the majority to receive less in net income and public service provision.
This is why what Ed does next is the key to lasting change for the better becoming possible.
Research Notes from Wikipedia
News International which is chaired by James Murdoch and where Rebekah Brooks was until recently Chief Executive comprises:
Times Newspaper Ltd (Sunday Times and Times Daily) current offer available for £6 a week including the on line edition.
News Group Newspaper Ltd which included the News of the World until its closure and the Sun.
NI Free Newspapers Ltd which published the London Paper until the creation of the free Evening Standard forced its closure.
Also New International Advertisements Ltd; Associated Services Ltd; Distribution Ltd; News Printers Knowsley Ltd; News Printers Scotland Ltd; Pension Trustee Ltd; Supply Company Ltd; Television Investment Company, Television Ltd, NI Syndication Ltd.
In 1952 News Ltd was created from the inherited assets of Sir Keith Murdoch and in 1979 News Corp was created as the holding company. Between 1973 and 1986 News Ltd and then News Corp made newspaper, magazine and media acquisitions in the United States. In 1993 a controlling interest was obtained in the Hong Kong bases Star TV satellite net work and in 1995 a deal created an Australian pay TV network. In 1996 the Fox News channel was created in competition with CNN. In 1999 music holdings in Australia were expanded. It increased TV involvement with 34% stake in thee largest Australian Satellite network. In 2007 took control of Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal. Of potential great interest is the establishing in 2009 of News Core a global wire service.
Although the Murdoch family only owned 29% of News Corp shares in 2005 these comprises the voting shares. A Saudi Prince is the second biggest share holder with 7%. In 2010 the company made 2 1$ million donations to or in support of the Republican Party.
The Board has 17 Members with Rupert Chairman and Chief Executive and James Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Europe and Asia and Laclan and Elisabeth Murdoch also members. The Chairman of Rothchild Capital Management is also a member. The Company has interests in 25 Australian newspapers, and in Fiji and Papua New Guinea BS and some 60 newspapers in the USA in addition to the in the UK. It has interests in some 30 Magazines almost all in Australia. Music and Radio Interests in the USA and Russia. It has major sport interests in Australia and the USA but failed to Take Over Manchester United. It has major Film and TV production studies on the USA, Australian, New Zealand, France and India and in the UK. It terms of Broadcasting companies these are also wide ranging with Fox USA and Australia, Saeta in Uruguay and 7½ % of ITV, in Romania, Serbia, Turkey and Georgia, Israel, Latvia, Indonesia, Italy and New Zealand with Satellite interests in the UK, New Zealand, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, India, Australia, Hong Kong includes parts of China and also separately a company with 300 million viewers in Asia. It is a major provider of Cable in the USA and in the Middle East including the major nations mainly in sports channels and also a wide range of channels through cable in the USA plus in 17 countries in Latin America and Australia. It has interests in TV Platforms in India and Taiwan and in the Internet. It has an involvement in a vast array of 50 other assets world wide.
Of interest in relation to the BSkyB company is their increasing involvement with Virgin Media and the recent decision not to refer the acquisition of Virgin Media TV channels to the Competition Commission.
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