Who

Murdoch is the billionaire media mogul who controls a good chunk of what you watch or read every day: the New York Post, Twentieth Century Fox, HarperCollins, MySpace.com, and, of course, America's favorite Fair and Balanced™ news source, the Fox News Channel. He's married to Wendi Deng.

Backstory

The son of Sir Keith Murdoch, a well-known Australian journalist and newspaper executive, Rupert showed few signs of being interested in the family business in his teens and early 20s. A professed socialist and admirer of Lenin, at Oxford Rupert spent more time drinking and gambling than studying in the library. He perked up a few years later when his father died and left him a controlling stake in News Limited, which owned several Australian newspapers. Murdoch built up the chain, acquiring titles like the Daily Mirror and the Australian as well as several TV stations in his native country, before moving on to international expansion during the '60s with the acquisition of Brit papers the News of the World and The Sun.

His editorial model in his early days wasn't that different from the one plied by the Post today: He focused on the tawdry and scandalous, a recipe that boosted circulation and lifted a number of his papers out of the red. Determined to invade American shores, Murdoch made his first U.S. acquisition when he purchased the San Antonio Express and San Antonio News in 1973. A year later he launched lowbrow tabloid the National Star (it was later renamed the Star). In 1976, he hit New York City, purchasing the New York Post for $50 million from Dorothy Schiff and editing the paper himself for a year, and picking up New York and the Village Voice from Alan Patricof shortly thereafter. (He later sold off the Voice and New York to Leonard Stern, and sold the Post to Peter Kalikow before reacquiring it several years later.)

The '80s were all about television for Murdoch's burgeoning empire: In 1985, he became a U.S. citizen, at least partly so he could own American TV outlets, and he purchased half of Fox the same year for $250 million. He quickly turned Fox into a competitor to the Big Three, thanks, in the early days, to the programming efforts of Barry Diller. The '90s were marked by Murdoch's aspirations to dominate cable and satellite. In 1993, he picked up Asia's Star Television; in 1996, he unleashed Bill O'Reilly on the world with the launch of Fox News. He's since expanded with the Chris-Craft chain of TV stations ($5.3 billion), DirecTV ($6.3 billion), and, more recently, MySpace and Dow Jones.

Of note

With $25 billion a year in revenue and more than 50,000 employees, Murdoch's News Corp. stands as the most powerful global media conglomerate. But Murdoch hasn't been sitting back relaxing, tending to his multi-billion dollar fortune. In 2005, as part of his bid to expand his online operations, he plunked down $580 million for MySpace, which has turned into one of his savviest investments of recent years and given News Corp. a powerful toehold online. In May 2007, he made an unsolicited $5 billion bid for Dow Jones, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, a move that generated three months of drama as the Bancroft family weighed the offer and Murdoch waged a PR campaign for hearts and minds. In July 2007, the deal was approved, which has put Murdoch in charge of the world's most prestigious business newspaper. But while Murdoch had hoped it would serve as a nice complement to his latest cable launch, the Fox Business News channel, it hasn't worked out that way just yet. Despite suggestions it would give CNBC a run for its money, the channel has been a ratings disaster since its October 2007 debut. Most recently, in mid-2008, Murdoch sought to expand his local newspaper empire with a $580 million bid for Newsday. Jim Dolan's Cablevision walked off with the paper instead.

Keeping score

Forbes estimated Murdoch's net worth in 2008 at $6.8 billion, which makes him the 47th richest man in America.

On the job

Although most of the News Corp. brain trust has been located in New York for years, it was only in 2004 that the company was officially reincorporated in the U.S. (It had been headquartered in Australia.) Murdoch now oversees his vast empire from an office on the 8th floor of News Corp.'s HQ at 1211 Avenue of the Americas. (He has five other offices around the world, too.) His senior team includes LA-based Peter Chernin, who oversees News Corp.'s film and TV assets and is the company's No. 2 exec; chief financial offer Dave DeVoe; Gary Ginsberg, his chief spinmeister; Roger Ailes, who oversees Fox News, the Fox Business Channel, and the company's TV affiliates; Brian Murray, who runs HarperCollins; Peter Levinsohn, who manages News Corp.'s online operations from LA; and Jeremy Philips, who heads up the media behemoth's M&A activities. One of the looming issues for News Corp. has been the issue of succession. The elevation of Murdoch's son James to chairman of News Corp.'s European operations seems to suggest he will take over the throne when his father steps down.

Namedrop

Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman has long been Murdoch's cross-town nemesis although Rupert's publicist, Howard Rubenstein, arranged a deal whereby the respective moguls' private lives stay out of each other's papers. Allen & Co.'s Nancy Peretsman advised Murdoch on the purchase of Dow Jones; Murdoch is a regular at Herb Allen's Sun Valley summit and Allen's longtime deputy, Stan Shuman, served as a News Corp. board member for many years. Vivi Nevo is a friend and major investor in News Corp. Deborah Grubman has sold him real estate. Fellow Australian Col Allan edits the Post. Compatriot Steve Dunleavy has been a friend for four decades. Murdoch gave Cathie Black and Martin Dunn their first big breaks in the business. He's been paying Richard Johnson's paycheck for more than two decades. Murdoch employed Harry Evans before he quit and trashed him in his 1984 book Good Times, Bad Times. Michael Wolff is currently writing a biography of him that is certain to be a much more complimentary. And Murdoch's on the board of Weill Cornell along with Sandy Weill, Antonio Gotto, Lloyd Blankfein, Abby Joseph Cohen, Hank Greenberg, Ron Perelman, Chuck Prince, and Nelson Peltz.

Drama

Although Murdoch was a lefty in his younger years, his political views shifted to the right in the '70s, and he's since been closely associated with conservative political causes and candidates. For years, particularly following the launch of Fox News, he's been accused of using his media outlets to exercise political influence, winning him few friends in Democratic circles. But his motives abroad have been equally controversial. News Corp. has been accused of censoring its news outlets in China as part of Murdoch's effort to improve relationships with the country's all-powerful leadership; he was also accused of killing a memoir that HarperCollins planned to publish by Chris Patten, the last British Governor of Hong Kong and an unpopular figure with Beijing's political elite. ("We're not all virgins," Murdoch said recently, acknowledging mistakes were made.) More recently he took heat for signing up O.J. Simpson's homicidal confession If I Did It. After a public outcry, he pulled the plug at the last moment and sacked the book's publisher, Judith Regan.

Personal

Wendi Deng is Murdoch's third wife. Four decades his junior, she was born Deng Wenge (her name means "cultural revolution" in Chinese) and began an affair with Murdoch when he was still married to his third wife and she worked for News Corp. as an exec at StarTV. (It's her second marriage: She was briefly married to an American nearly twice her age, which is how she managed to get out of China.) Murdoch and Deng married in 1999, shortly after Murdoch divorced his second wife, Anna Torv, to whom he was married for 31 years. His first marriage, to Patricia Booker, ended in 1967. Murdoch has a total of six kids: He has one daughter from his marriage to Patricia (Prudence); three kids from his marriage to Anna (Elisabeth, Lachlan, and James); and two young children with Deng (Grace and Chloe).

Family ties

Most of the Murdoch clan has been involved with the family business, but only one remains on the payroll: James, who used to run BSkyB before his 2007 elevation to a new post that makes him the No. 3 exec at the company worldwide. In 2005, Lachlan, Murdoch's one-time heir apparent, left the company after run-ins with other Murdoch cronies, including Roger Ailes. Murdoch's daughter, Elisabeth, who lives in London, left the company in 2000.

Habitat

In 2004, Murdoch bought a $44 million penthouse triplex at 834 Fifth Avenue from Laurance Rockefeller; at the time it was the most expensive apartment ever sold in New York. But renovations have proved interminable, and while they drag on Murdoch is renting at Trump Park Avenue. Prior to the purchase, Murdoch and Deng lived in a 9,300 square-foot triplex in SoHo. He later sold the apartment to Elie Tahari for $25 million. Murdoch also owns a home in Los Angeles (he paid $13 million for the property in 2004); Monterey, Calif.; London; Australia, and Beijing. His Centre Island home went on the market in 2007 for $14.8 million. He paid $7.78 million for the Long Island estate in 2003.

Toys

Murdoch gets from house to house aboard his Boeing 737. He spends vacations aboard a 183-foot-long sailboat called the Rosehearty that he took possession of in 2006. The ship sleeps 12 and spends the winter months in the Caribbean (St. Barths) and summers in the Mediterranean (St. Tropez). The boat's two tenders are named after his youngest kids, Chloe and Grace.

No joke

Murdoch played himself on an episode of The Simpsons, a show he owns through his Fox TV network, of course. His introduced himself as "Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire tyrant."