This article needs additional citations for verification .(April 2016) |
Murdoch family | |
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Current region | Australia United Kingdom United States |
Place of origin | Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire, Scotland |
Connected members |
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Connected families | Freud family |
Members of the Murdoch family are prominent international media magnates and media tycoons with roots in Australia and the United Kingdom, along with their media assets in the United States. [1] Some members have also been prominent in the arts, clergy, and military.
Five generations of the family are descended from two Scottish immigrants to Australia: the Reverend James Murdoch (1818–1884), a minister of the Free Church of Scotland and his wife Helen, née Garden (1826–1905). [2] Both were from the Pitsligo area of Aberdeenshire and migrated to the Colony of Victoria in 1884. [2]
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is known for being one of the founders and the owner of formerly the world's largest media company News Corporation, a company that was spun-off in mid 2013 splitting its entertainment assets to 21st Century Fox and its media publishing assets to form the new News Corp. [3] [4] [5] Currently the Murdochs still have the controlling interest in the remains of the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by The Walt Disney Company that was spun-off to Fox Corporation, and still remain as top executives of News Corp. [6]
Helen and the Rev. James Murdoch had 14 children. [2]
Their eldest child, the Rev. Patrick Murdoch was born in Pitsligo and raised at Rosehearty, Aberdeenshire. [2] [7] He was ordained at Cruden, Aberdeenshire, where he also married Annie Brown (in 1882). At the age of 34, Murdoch emigrated with his wife and parents to Victoria. He was prominent there as a Presbyterian minister and published several books on theology. Two of Patrick and Annie Murdoch's six children achieved prominence, Sir Keith Murdoch and Ivon George Murdoch. [2]
Nora Curle Smith, née Murdoch, was born in Pitsligo and married David Curle Smith (1859–1922). A pioneering electrical engineer, David Curle Smith was in charge of the municipal electricity supply at Kalgoorlie, Western Australia during the early 20th century, invented a pioneering electric stove, which he patented in 1906. [8] To promote the stove, Nora Curle Smith wrote the world's first cookbook for electric stoves, which featured 161 recipes and operating instructions for the stove, under the name "H. Nora Curle Smith": Thermo-Electrical Cooking Made Easy (1907; reprinted 2011).
Sir Walter Murdoch, who was born at Rosehearty, was a prominent Australian academic and essayist. He married Violet Catherine Hughston in 1897. Murdoch published his first essay, "The new school of Australian poets", in 1899 and for many years he wrote a weekly column titled "Books and Men" for the Melbourne Argus (under the pen name of "Elzevir"). [9] His academic career began with an appointment in 1904 as an assistant lecturer in English at Melbourne University.[ citation needed ] In 1913, he was appointed founding Professor of English at the University of Western Australia (UWA). During the 1920s, his essays were syndicated across Australia through the Herald & Weekly Times newspaper group run by his nephew, Sir Keith Murdoch (see below). Collections of Walter Murdoch's writings were published in book form from the 1930s onward. He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael & St George (CMG) in 1939, served as Chancellor of UWA in 1943–48 and was made a Professor Emeritus upon his retirement. Violet Murdoch died in 1952 and 10 years later Murdoch remarried, to Barbara Marshall Cameron. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael & St George (KCMG) in 1964. [9]
In Perth, Sir Walter Murdoch is commemorated by the names of both Murdoch University and the suburb surrounding its main campus: Murdoch.
Keith Arthur Murdoch, later Sir Keith Murdoch, was born in West Melbourne and grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Camberwell. [10] He became prominent as a journalist, while serving as a war correspondent during World War I. In 1921, Murdoch was appointed chief editor of the Melbourne Herald and in 1928 became managing director of its parent company, The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. That same year he married Elisabeth Joy Greene (1909–2012), who was later prominent as the philanthropist Dame Elisabeth Murdoch (1909–2012). Murdoch was knighted in 1933. During World War II, Sir Keith Murdoch served briefly in an Australian government role, as Director-General of Information. [11]
Lieutenant Ivon George Murdoch, saw action with the 8th Battalion (AIF) on the Western Front during World War I. [12] [13]
Rupert Murdoch, born in Melbourne, is a major international media proprietor – he chairs two United States-based companies that control most of his assets: News Corp and Fox Corporation. Murdoch's career as a media proprietor began in 1952, when he inherited his father's stake in News Limited. [14] The company's only major asset was an Adelaide daily newspaper distributed only in South Australia, The News. During the 1950s and 1960s, News Ltd acquired daily and weekly newspapers, including suburban and provincial publications, throughout Australia and New Zealand. From 1968, Murdoch bought British newspapers, beginning with the weekly News of the World and the daily The Sun . [15]
Murdoch made his first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when he purchased the San Antonio Express-News . Soon afterwards, he founded a US supermarket tabloid Star , and in 1976, he purchased the New York Post . [14]
In 1981, Murdoch acquired the London Times and Sunday Times . He bought a major stake in 20th Century Fox in 1984, which became the basis of a new US free to air television network, Fox Broadcasting Company. [14] To satisfy a legal requirement that only US citizens could own US television stations, Murdoch became a naturalised US citizen in 1985, and consequently forfeited his Australian citizenship. [16] [17]
During the 1980s and 1990s, Murdoch became involved in pay television interests throughout the world, including Foxtel in Australia, STAR TV and Tata Sky in Asia and BSkyB, Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland in Europe. NewsCorp also came to control both a major international publishing house HarperCollins, and Dow Jones & Company, which includes The Wall Street Journal .[ citation needed ]
Rupert Murdoch has been married five times and has six children:
Prue Murdoch (born in Adelaide) has held directorial roles within the News Corporation empire. She has been married twice:
Elisabeth Murdoch (born in Sydney), is a media executive and company director and has been married three times:
Lachlan Murdoch (born in London), is a media executive and company director; he married the British-Australian model and actress Sarah Murdoch , née O'Hare (b. 1972) in 1999; the couple have three children, [23] [24] Kalan Alexander Murdoch (b. 2004), Aidan Patrick Murdoch (b. 2006) and Aerin Elisabeth Murdoch (b. 2010).
James Murdoch (born in London), is a media executive and company director. In 2000, he married the US public relations specialist and climate change activist Kathryn Hufschmid. The couple have three children, [23] Anneka Murdoch (b. 2003), Walter Murdoch (b. 2006) and Emerson Murdoch (b. 2008).
Keith Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-born American business magnate, investor, and media proprietor. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including in the UK, in Australia, in the US, book publisher HarperCollins, and the television broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News. He was also the owner of Sky, 21st Century Fox, and the now-defunct News of the World. With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world according to Forbes magazine.
The original incarnation of News Corporation was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Prior to its split in 2013, it was the world's largest media company in terms of total assets and the world's fourth largest media group in terms of revenue. It had become a media powerhouse since its inception, dominating the news, television, film, and print industries.
Sir Keith Arthur Murdoch was an Australian journalist and newspaper proprietor who was the founder of the Murdoch media empire. He amassed significant media holdings in Australia which after his death were expanded globally by his son Rupert.
James Rupert Jacob Murdoch is a British-American businessman. He is the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the former chief executive officer (CEO) of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019.
The News was an afternoon daily tabloid newspaper in the city of Adelaide, South Australia, that had its origins in 1869, and ceased circulation in 1992. Through much of the 20th century, The Advertiser was Adelaide's morning broadsheet, The News the afternoon tabloid, with The Sunday Mail covering weekend sport, and Messenger Newspapers community news.
The Advertiser is a daily tabloid format newspaper based in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. First published as a broadsheet named The South Australian Advertiser on 12 July 1858, it is currently a tabloid printed from Monday to Saturday. The Advertiser came under the ownership of Keith Murdoch in the 1950s, and the full ownership of Rupert Murdoch in 1987. It is a publication of Advertiser Newspapers Pty Ltd (ADV), a subsidiary of News Corp Australia, itself a subsidiary of News Corp. Through much of the 20th century, The Advertiser was Adelaide's morning broadsheet, The News the afternoon tabloid, with The Sunday Mail covering weekend sport, and Messenger Newspapers community news. The head office was relocated from a former premises in King William Street, to a new News Corp office complex, known as Keith Murdoch House at 31 Waymouth Street.
Murdoch is an Irish/Scottish given name, as well as a surname. The name is derived from old Irish Gaelic words mur, meaning "sea" and murchadh, meaning "sea warrior". The following is a list of notable people or entities with the name.
Anna Maria dePeyster is a British and Australian journalist and novelist.
Lachlan Keith Murdoch is an Australian businessman and mass media heir. He is the executive chairman of Nova Entertainment, chairman of News Corp, executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corporation, and the founder of Australian investment company Illyria Pty Ltd.
News Corp Australia is an Australian media conglomerate and wholly owned subsidiary of the American News Corp.
Dame Elisabeth Joy Murdoch, Lady Murdoch, also known as Elisabeth, Lady Murdoch, was an Australian philanthropist and matriarch of the Murdoch family. She was the wife of Australian newspaper publisher Sir Keith Murdoch and the mother of international media proprietor Rupert Murdoch. She was appointed a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1963 for her charity work in Australia and overseas.
Elisabeth Murdoch is an Australian-born British and American media executive based in the United Kingdom. She was a non-executive chairperson of Shine Group, the UK-based TV programme production company she founded in 2001, until the company's parent 21st Century Fox merged its Shine Group division with Apollo Global Management's Endemol and Core Media production houses, specializing in reality TV, in 2015. She is the daughter of the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
Andrews Kwame Pianim is a Ghanaian financier and former government official in the NPP government. He was CEO of New World Investments, a company he co-founded in 1995. After ten years as a political prisoner, he made a 1996 bid to run for the presidency of Ghana on the ticket of the NPP but lost to the former President J.A. Kufuor.
Matthew Freud is head of Freud Communications, an international public relations firm in the United Kingdom.
Anna Torv is an Australian actress. Her performance as Olivia Dunham in the Fox science fiction series Fringe (2008–2013) earned her four consecutive Saturn Awards for Best Actress on Television, a record for any performer, and a nomination for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series. For her performance as Tess in the HBO post-apocalyptic drama series The Last of Us (2023), she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.
The Chipping Norton set is a group of media, political and show-business acquaintances who have homes near the market town of Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, England. Chipping Norton is located approximately 75 miles from London. The group gained media attention in the wake of the News International phone hacking scandal, which directly involved members of the group.
News Corporation, stylized as News Corp, is an American mass media and publishing company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The company was formed on June 28, 2013, following a spin-off of the media outlets of the original News Corporation as 21st Century Fox (21CF). Operating across digital real estate information, news media, book publishing, and cable television, News Corp's notable assets include Dow Jones & Company, which is the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, News UK, publisher of The Sun and The Times, News Corp Australia, REA Group, operator of realestate.com.au, realtor.com, and book publisher HarperCollins.
Power Games: The Packer–Murdoch War is an Australian drama-miniseries which screened on the Nine Network in 2013. The miniseries is set in the period 1960–75, when the Murdoch and Packer families collided as they battled for control of Australia's newspaper and television industries.
Ivon George Murdoch MC and bar was an Australian Army officer during World War I, notable for the rare distinction of twice being awarded the Military Cross (MC) for bravery.
Prudence "Prue" Murdoch MacLeod is an Australian-British non-executive director in the media industry. Murdoch is the eldest child and daughter of Australian-born American billionaire media proprietor Rupert Murdoch. She has held several directorial roles in her father's News Corporation, and is currently a board member of Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News Corporation.