"In this country, Fox News has gotten a big, big audience that appreciates its independence. There's passion there, and it's pushed..It has taken a long time, but is has now changed CNN because it has challenged them --they've become more centrist in their choice of stories. They're trying to become more fair and balanced. "

Randy Rupert!

K. Rupert Murdoch is the CEO of News Corporation, a publicly traded media conglomerate with global operations. From his roots in Australia, Murdoch has spent decades building one of the largest media companies in the world, with interests in newspapers, television, movies, books and the Internet. Murdoch became an American citizen in 1985.

Murdoch was born in 1931 to Keith Murdoch and Dame Elisabeth Murdoch (born Elisabeth Joy Greene). Keith Murdoch had become a major investor in Australian newspaper companies, acquiring a controlling interest in News Limited, an Adelaide company which published an afternoon newspaper called The News.

Upon graduating from Oxford University in 1953, Rupert Murdoch returned to Australia and was named the managing director of News Limited. He developed a keen interest in the newspaper business and began the process of expanding the business, which still continues today.

In 1964, Murdoch established The Australian, Australia's first national daily newspaper. The newspaper was established in Canberra, and later moved to Sydney. From there Murdoch began to acquire British and American media properties.

Murdoch began his conquest of British media in 1968, when he bought The News of the World, a popular lowbrow British tabloid newspaper. In 1969 Murdoch bought the British newspaper The Sun, converting it into a tabloid. The acquisitions continued and in 1981 News Corporation purchased The Times of London and The Sunday Times.

In 1973, Murdoch made his first purchase in the United States with the acquisition of the San Antonio Express-News. He then founded the supermarket tabloid Star, and in 1976 he purchased the New York Post.

In March 1985, News Corporation paid $250 million to purchase 50% of TCF Holdings, the parent company of the 20th Century Fox movie studio. In September 1985, the company paid $325 million to acquire the rest of the studio. In May 1985, News Corporation formed Fox Television Stations Group with the purchase of six independent television stations in major U.S. markets from John Kluge's company, Metromedia, at a cost of $1.55 billion.

In October 1985, Murdoch announced his plan to create a new U.S. television network to be named Fox Television Network. The Fox News Channel (FNC), an American cable and satellite television news channel, was launched on October 7, 1996.

Fox Entertainment Group bought the Los Angeles Dodgers for $311 million from Peter O'Malley in 1998. The O'Malley family had owned the team for decades. The Dodgers had three managers in their six years under Fox ownership. They did not play a single postseason game and finished no higher than second in their division. Fox sold the Dodgers in 2004 to Frank McCourt, a Boston real estate developer, for $430 million.

Murdoch acquired Star TV from a Hong Kong company in 1993. It is one of the biggest satellite TV networks in Asia.

Rupert Murdoch has spent over 50 years with News Corporation, and the Murdoch family is a major shareholder, controlling about 30% of the company. Murdoch has lived in the United States since the 1970's, and he gave up his Australian citizenship in 1985 to become a U.S. citizen. He did so to satisfy the legal requirements that only United States citizens could own American television stations.

Murdoch has been married three times. His first marriage, to Patricia Booker in 1956, lasted four years. In 1961 he married an employee, journalist Anna Murdoch, born Anna Torv. They had three children: Elisabeth Murdoch (1968), Lachlan Murdoch (1971), and James Murdoch (1972). Anna and Rupert divorced in 1998 after it was revealed that Murdoch had been conducting a long-running affair with another employee, Wendi Deng, a junior executive in News Corporation's Asian operations and almost 40 years his junior. They married 1999. They have two children, Grace (2001) and Chloe (2003).