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Documentary, Murdoch Part 1
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00:01Rupert Murdoch divides opinion like no other.
00:05He's a warrior prince.
00:06Ambitious.
00:07Begins with B.
00:08Amazing.
00:09Pragmatic.
00:10Got a D at the end.
00:11Mercurial.
00:12Canny.
00:13Ruthless.
00:14Visionary.
00:15Innovator.
00:16Genius.
00:17Mischievous.
00:18Dynamo.
00:19Love him or loathe him, Rupert Murdoch is the most powerful media mogul of all time.
00:26Starting with one small paper in Adelaide, over the last 60 years Murdoch has built an empire worth billions, spanning newspapers, publishing, television, blockbuster films and the internet, whose presence is felt in practically every corner of the globe.
00:44Rupert Murdoch has had more influence on the world business scene than any other Australian.
00:51His dynasty seemed assured.
00:54His youngest son was destined to succeed him.
00:57And his third marriage to a glamorous younger wife gave him two more children.
01:02A Hollywood A-lister and political power broker, he had a hotline to presidents and prime ministers everywhere.
01:09Do you like the feeling of power you have as a newspaper proprietor?
01:12Well, there's only one honest answer, of course, and that's yes.
01:15The reality is, is they were shit scared of him, shit scared of his newspapers.
01:20But all that was before this.
01:23Mr Murdoch, what the way?
01:26The British phone hacking scandal has rocked his family dynasty to its foundations.
01:31This is the most humble day of my life.
01:33This is the final edition of tomorrow's news of the world.
01:36There have now been 30 arrests in total.
01:39The relationship has been too close.
01:42Rupert certainly didn't encourage the behaviour that's gone on.
01:45But a general dose of naughtiness was encouraged and rewarded at the papers.
01:51At an age when most tycoons have retired to the golf course,
01:54Rupert Murdoch's been embroiled in the biggest battle of his life.
01:58Not making any comments.
01:59To salvage his legacy and his dynasty.
02:02But who is the enigmatic figure who dominates so much of the world's media?
02:08And what drives him on?
02:10This is the story of the man behind the empire and how he got there.
02:16December 2012.
02:26Rupert Murdoch and his family joined thousands of people in Melbourne
02:30to mourn a national treasure.
02:32His mother, who had died at the age of 103.
02:35My sisters and I and our entire family wish to say how heartened we are
02:43by the great love you have shown for Elizabeth Murdoch
02:47by your presence here today.
02:52The loss of the cherished Dame Elizabeth
02:54follows the crisis that has engulfed Murdoch's company
02:57and tainted the family name.
03:05His troubles came to a head in the summer of 2011
03:08after his British tabloid, The News of the World,
03:11was accused of hacking into the phone of the dead schoolgirl Millie Dowler.
03:15I was absolutely shocked, appalled and ashamed
03:20when I heard about the Millie Dowler case.
03:23In London, Murdoch met with her parents.
03:26He just kept holding his head in his hands and saying,
03:29I'm really sorry.
03:30He suddenly stopped being this 80-year-old man.
03:33He was an eight-year-old child looking at his father
03:37and saying, my father would be ashamed of what I have done,
03:40what we've done.
03:41Murdoch.
03:42My father was a great journalist,
03:44but I haven't lived up to my dad's standards.
03:47Rupert Murdoch's father was the feared and powerful newspaper legend,
03:56Sir Keith Murdoch.
03:57He'd made his name exposing the British Army's incompetent handling
04:02of the Gallipoli campaign in the First World War,
04:05in which thousands of Australians perished.
04:08He spoke to me about how the British establishment,
04:11the military establishment, had never forgiven him
04:14and how he was very easy in his conscience.
04:18In fact, he was proud of what he did.
04:24By the time Rupert Murdoch was born in Melbourne in 1931,
04:28his father had built a newspaper empire,
04:31the Herald and Weekly Times Group.
04:34Everybody was in the aura of Sir Keith.
04:36I think everyone was frightened of Sir Keith.
04:38He liked to think he was a kingmaker.
04:41I think he liked to think he made governments
04:43and caused governments to fall.
04:45He was a real power-maker.
04:51I think any child that's brought up is the son or the daughter
04:53of someone running a piece of the media.
04:56It is such an exciting life that they see.
05:00They never really can imagine doing something else.
05:08Murdoch grew up on the family estate outside Melbourne,
05:11but when he was ten, he was packed off to boarding school
05:15to the exclusive Geelong grammar.
05:17But the son of the controversial newspaper figure
05:20was shunned by the sons of Melbourne's elite.
05:23I would constantly get abuse because of my father,
05:28because of his prominent position.
05:30He was much respected in many ways,
05:33but in other ways, of course,
05:35he was in the eye of a lot of controversies.
05:37In 1950, Sir Keith sent his only son and heir to England
05:43to study at Oxford University.
05:45Among the British students, Murdoch saw himself as an outsider.
05:51Rupert was anti-authoritarian in a sense.
05:55He didn't want to play any part in the union,
05:59which was the weight of power of the English establishment.
06:03Rupert's own politics at the time were on the left.
06:09He had a bust of Lenin on his mantelpiece.
06:15I didn't realise he had a bust of Lenin,
06:17but I could, yeah, I can see certain similarities of leadership.
06:21I remember the bust very well,
06:23and I think it was just a bit of undergraduate rebelliousness
06:26sticking my finger in the eye of my English peers
06:30who were, I would say, overwhelmingly sort of Tory
06:33and more interested in the rowing club than in politics.
06:39Murdoch's left-wing politics alarmed his father,
06:42as did his other extracurricular hobby, gambling.
06:51Sir Keith asked Rowan Revett, his London-based correspondent,
06:54to keep a watchful eye on his errant son.
06:58They became close friends.
07:00Rupert would really gamble.
07:02Dad was meant to somehow talk to him about this,
07:05but Rupert thought he was a gambler
07:07and he was going to do what he wanted to do
07:09and there was nothing he could do about it.
07:11But in 1952, Murdoch's carefree Oxford days were interrupted
07:17by the sudden death of his father.
07:21Sir Keith had spent his lifetime building
07:23the Herald and Weekly Times Group empire,
07:25but he didn't own any of it.
07:27He left his son one asset,
07:30a small struggling newspaper, the Adelaide News.
07:33The Adelaide News was on its knees,
07:35and he thought he'd almost been handed a poisoned chalice.
07:41And I think that's one of the things that made him so determined,
07:44that the estate had given him the least valuable newspaper
07:47and he had to fight his way up from that inauspicious beginning.
07:53Before he died, Sir Keith had appointed Murdoch's close friend
07:57from his Oxford days, Rowan Revett,
07:59as editor of the paper.
08:01In the early years, I think it was good, the relationship,
08:05but it got more tense as Rupert took more control
08:09and Rupert took control in a phenomenally overwhelming way.
08:15And then the big crunch came, of course, with the Stewart case.
08:22Max Stewart, an Aboriginal man,
08:25had been sentenced to death for murdering a nine-year-old white girl.
08:30Revett, initially backed by Murdoch,
08:33campaigned heavily against Stewart's death sentence
08:36and Revett made a scathing attack
08:38on the judge's handling of the case.
08:40The South Australian Premier described the coverage as libelous
08:44and took Revett and Murdoch to court.
08:47Both Revett and Rowan were accused of contempt of court
08:51or even sedition.
08:53And this case went on for some time.
08:57The charges against Murdoch and Revett were dropped.
09:01Stewart's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
09:04Having achieved their aim,
09:06Murdoch told Revett to back off,
09:09but Revett continued to attack the government in the newspaper.
09:13Then the Adelaide establishment moved in and I think got to Rupert.
09:18And Rupert finally decided that Rowan had to go and he was sacked.
09:23I felt I just could not leave him in charge in Adelaide
09:26because he'd become so emotional in his editorial writing.
09:30So that's how we came apart really.
09:33It was a very sad day for me.
09:37The boy publisher had learnt a valuable lesson.
09:41From now on, he would never let sentiment get in the way of business.
09:47Murdoch turned the paper around, got married and had a daughter, Prue.
10:00By the late 50s, he'd outgrown the sleepy backwater of Adelaide.
10:04He set his sights on Sydney, one of the fiercest newspaper markets in the world.
10:19Right from the first day almost that Rupert came into the scene,
10:23he created fireworks and even quite literally bloodshed all around him.
10:31Australian papers were run by three or four very powerful press barons,
10:36known the world over for the ferocity with which they protected their own turf.
10:41Who wants to know?
10:42There were actual fisticuffs among them.
10:44I mean, in the earlier days, even horse whipping.
10:47Australia, in many ways, was like the Wild West.
10:53Sydney newspapers were dominated by two families,
10:56the Fairfaxes and the Packers.
11:01Sir Frank Packer was a boxer, a professional boxer,
11:04and he had a huge American Western .45 pistol that he used to keep in his desk.
11:11And then there was a man named Rupert Henderson, nicknamed Rags,
11:16and he worked for the Fairfaxes and he was tough.
11:20And they were not about to have this young pup come in from Adelaide.
11:26Howdy, partners.
11:30Undeterred, Murdoch bought the failing Sydney Mirror papers
11:34and took on the big boys with his own formula.
11:37Of sex, crime, sensation and scandal.
11:41The motto was, get the story at any cost.
11:46If you were called up in front of his office,
11:50and they used to have editorial meetings and so on,
11:53and asked, why didn't you get that story?
11:55You really knew it.
11:56And next time he ran out and did it.
11:57And that was a sign of the Murdoch thing,
11:59to do whatever it takes to get the story.
12:01The boss loved the risk, the gamble.
12:07Winning, winning, winning.
12:10It was great.
12:15Murdoch's battle with the Sydney press barons soon came to a head,
12:19when Frank Packer's sons, Clyde and Kerry,
12:22tried to seize control of an independent printing works.
12:25The owner appealed to Murdoch for help.
12:29He quickly organised some muscle.
12:32My father grabbed me and said, let's go.
12:35And we went down to the town hall,
12:38where he'd arranged to meet Mr Murdoch on the steps.
12:40Then Mr Murdoch handed him an envelope,
12:44which I understand contained 1,000 pounds in notes.
12:49This money was to pay off the journalist,
12:53Frankie Brown and a few of his mates who came to help.
12:55Now, among other things,
12:57Frank Brown was a professional boxer.
13:00And boxing was very big in Sydney in those days.
13:03And Brown got himself a few men of a certain capability.
13:08And they actually broke back into the offices.
13:11And a few minutes later, the Packers, Clyde and Kerry,
13:18and a couple of their associates,
13:20were thrown out the door.
13:22And Murdoch won that brawl.
13:27And that's what it took to make your way in that type of atmosphere.
13:31But soon, Sydney wasn't big enough for the ambitious newspaper tycoon.
13:37In 1964, he launched Australia's first national daily newspaper,
13:44The Australian.
13:49Could you tell me which of your newspapers you care about most?
13:52Oh, The Australian, I think.
13:54It's early at the moment.
13:57But he got out of it,
13:59he got unquestionably a position at the table of power.
14:05You do a very nice job on the harder financial effects of defence
14:10and all that goes into it.
14:11The Australian gave him that.
14:14Didn't get it with the news in Adelaide.
14:17Then he started to have that ability to, in fact, be a player.
14:24From the outset, Murdoch was a hands-on proprietor
14:29whose fingertips were on every aspect of the business.
14:32He actually understands the nuts and bolts of publishing.
14:36He had got his hands dirty.
14:38You know, there was literally ink in his blood
14:40and newspaper fly in his hair.
14:42Murdoch shuttled back and forth to the capital, Canberra,
14:46to oversee his new paper.
14:48I like it very much.
14:53Just as a question of layout there,
14:55I thought those maps, the big map here,
14:58might have been more effective.
14:59It was a full half page.
15:01Each day he'd put out a bulletin,
15:03giving his comments on the paper the day before.
15:06And this is a typical one.
15:08A very disappointing paper today
15:10and a real letdown after our last two issues.
15:13From just a quick read of the paper,
15:15here are 35 mistakes.
15:17Page one, column one, the anthem story, bad punctuation.
15:21Page one, column two, the Mackie story, mixed tenses.
15:24Page one, we have six students in the main picture
15:27and five names.
15:28And so it goes point by point.
15:30It's a Russian circus, not a red circus
15:33and other lesser things.
15:34And I've not even read the paper carefully today.
15:40Time off from building his empire was spent at Cavern,
15:43his country retreat,
15:45where he relaxed with his daughter Prue
15:47from his first but brief marriage.
15:50And sometimes he entertained friends.
15:54He's seen at his best cooking a barbecue,
15:58as I have enjoyed.
16:01Just to see this all-powerful figure
16:05turning sausages on a hot plate
16:08is a lot of fun, I think.
16:14And when in town, he would drink with his mates.
16:17There was a big night out
16:20at an Italian restaurant in Sydney
16:23where they all had very fine Italian food,
16:26thank you very much,
16:27and lots and lots and lots of wine.
16:28And then they all took a taxi back into the city.
16:31And one of Rupert's editors, unfortunately,
16:36vomited all over Rupert.
16:38Rupert was asleep at the time in the back of the taxi
16:41and wasn't aware of this.
16:43Well, next day, they said that they got a call
16:46from Mahogany Row,
16:48Mr. Murdoch wants to see you.
16:49Uh-oh, I think I'm a goner here.
16:52So he went around there and Rupert said,
16:55Jake, did we get pissed last night?
16:57And he says, mm, yes, mm.
16:59Rupert said, I must have been so pissed,
17:01I spewed all over myself.
17:03I got spaghetti all down my suit.
17:06Mm, mm, mm.
17:08That's, mm, mm, mm.
17:09Rupert said, but the funny thing is,
17:11I thought I had the veal parmigiana.
17:15But back in the office, tongues were soon wagging
17:18when he was spotted with a young cadet reporter,
17:21Anna Torv.
17:24She had a beautiful complexion.
17:26She had rosy cheeks.
17:27She had blonde hair coming down.
17:29And she was so innocent.
17:31She wanted to be a journalist,
17:32but looked too nice to be a journalist.
17:34I think that would be the best way to put it.
17:36All of a sudden, um,
17:38Anna started getting bylines.
17:41Going out with the boss
17:42always helps somebody professionally.
17:44I mean, let's not kid her around.
17:46It couldn't have done her any harm.
17:49In 1967, Murdoch married for the second time.
17:53By the late 60s, Murdoch's Australian empire
18:05spanned newspapers, local television, and radio stations.
18:09But for the restless entrepreneur, it wasn't enough.
18:12Do you like the feeling of power you have as a newspaper proprietor?
18:16Well, there's only one on at times of that, of course, and that's yes.
18:19Murdoch's ambitions now stretched beyond Australia's shores.
18:24Another battleground was looming across the world, thousands of miles away.
18:30Murdoch had conquered Australia, but one continent was never going to be enough.
18:45In October, he set his sights on one of the most fought over battlegrounds in the world,
18:51Fleet Street in London.
18:53The MP and publisher, Robert Maxwell, had launched a bid to buy the scandal sheet,
18:59The News of the World.
19:01The paper had been run by the Carr family for nearly 80 years.
19:05The chairman, Sir William Carr, was a pillar of the English establishment,
19:10and he was desperate to keep the Czech-born Maxwell out.
19:14I could smell opportunity at once,
19:16because I understood a bit about him and how the city and the establishment would react.
19:22to this, and I thought there was a chance to come in as a white knight.
19:34As the shareholders gathered to decide between the little-known Australian and Maxwell,
19:39the insults were flying.
19:41We've never said anything personal.
19:42Hasn't it developed into a personal battle?
19:44Yesterday, Mr Maxwell called me a moth-eaten kangaroo.
19:47Well, I've never got quite to that stage.
19:50The Carrs and Murdoch won the day.
19:53That concludes today's meeting. Thank you very much.
19:57Now Murdoch had his first foothold in the heart of Britain's newspaper trade.
20:02Murdoch had a gentleman's agreement with Carr that he would not seek majority control,
20:08and Carr would remain as chairman.
20:10But soon, Murdoch insisted there could only be one boss.
20:17He bought more shares, and within six months, he'd forced out the Carr family.
20:22Now in control, Murdoch decided to rehash an old scandal to boost sales.
20:29A move that would put him on a collision course with the British establishment.
20:40Murdoch bought the recycled memoirs of the party girl Christine Keeler,
20:44whose affair with the British cabinet minister John Profumo had led to his downfall six years earlier.
20:50We've got to lead with it, obviously. To answer this controversy is to say, forgive the individual by all means, but you can't forget it.
21:01But Profumo had redeemed himself in the eyes of the establishment by working with the poor in London's East End.
21:07London society was scandalised, and Murdoch was given the nickname he would never shake off.
21:16He was seen as an outsider, and Private Eye immediately nicknamed him the Dirty Digger.
21:21A, he was from the colonies, and B, he filled his newspapers with smut.
21:25And that was infuriating, A, because it sold, and obviously no-one wanted to admit that,
21:30and B, because it felt he was lowering the tone.
21:32I'm not ashamed of any of my newspapers at all.
21:35And I'm rather sick of snobs who tell us that they're bad papers,
21:40snobs who only read papers that no-one else wants.
21:46What about the wider empire of fleet speech? Do you want to take over any more British papers?
21:50No, I think I'll have my hands very full for a number of years with this.
21:58But eleven months later, Murdoch homed in on another golden opportunity.
22:03When the loss-making trade union broadsheet The Sun came up for sale, Murdoch snapped it up.
22:10Does your daily paper bore the pants off you?
22:15Then wake up with The New Sun on Monday.
22:18In November, Anna Murdoch relaunched The Sun as a working-class tabloid.
22:30The former trade union rag was given the Murdoch makeover, with sex, sport, bingo,
22:37play great British bingo, and bare breasts.
22:40Yes, there, super, lovely.
22:42Yes, very nice.
22:45The original Page 3 girls were very quickly turned into household names.
22:52Taxi drivers would sort of shout out,
22:53Oh, hey, Nina, saw you on Page 3 today. Looked great.
22:59Rupert in private, and frankly in public, was very puritanical.
23:06Page 3 was perfectly fine. It's a beautiful young woman with her clothes off.
23:11But nasty, salacious stuff he did not like at all.
23:17Anna was a very strong Catholic.
23:19And Rupert became a quasi-Catholic, with all the zeal of a convert.
23:26And there was a time when you had to be very careful about what you said about the Pope in the paper.
23:32You didn't make jokes in the paper about the Pope.
23:35We made jokes about everything else.
23:37But we didn't make jokes about the Pope.
23:40Anna hated Page 3.
23:42She just thought Page 3 was demeaning.
23:44And she agreed with Rupert's mum.
23:46Rupert's mother hated Page 3 as well.
23:48Elizabeth Murdoch hates Page 3 too.
23:50And they often used to beat up on him.
23:52They often used to gang up.
23:53And I thought, this is something I'll just stay out of altogether.
23:58After Page 3 and the Keillor affair,
24:01the Murdochs were ostracised by London society.
24:05But the hostility was now mutual.
24:08So Murdoch turned his attention back to Australia.
24:13An election was on the cards.
24:15And like his father before him,
24:17Murdoch wanted political influence.
24:22The bookie's favourite was the Labour leader Gough Whitlam.
24:26The man who is going to be the first Labour Prime Minister of Australia
24:30for 23 years, Gough Whitlam.
24:32Murdoch threw the weight of his newspapers behind him.
24:38He went right out on a limb to support Whitlam.
24:41We had these big ads, full page ads.
24:44And Rupert not only put them in his own paper for nothing,
24:47he actually paid to have them in other papers,
24:49and he gave us cash.
24:51Congratulations, Mr Whitlam.
24:52Well, thank you, gentlemen.
24:54It's clear that we, we won.
24:57Oh really?
24:58Hensomely in New South...
25:01One of the things that happened after he became Prime Minister
25:04was Rupert arrived with a cheque to cash.
25:07Rupert had an interest in a mining, a big mining venture in West Australia.
25:12He wanted some concessions from Whitlam for this and Whitlam refused.
25:16Then he had the idea that he might become Australian High Commissioner in London.
25:22And Gough KO'd that idea too.
25:27And this enraged Murdoch.
25:32So then Rupert, of course, being the lover scorned, as it were, turned violently against Whitlam.
25:39Gough just wouldn't let him in.
25:41And he didn't consider it to be important to keep Murdoch on side,
25:46something that came back to bite him badly in 1975.
25:53By 1975, Whitlam's government was in trouble and losing popular support.
25:59Murdoch turned his newspapers against him.
26:03It was just fanatical stuff, you know, get them out.
26:07They can't run the campaign out, just day after day after day.
26:16We want Trump! We want Trump! We want Trump! We want Trump! We want Trump! We want Trump! We want Trump!
26:23The crisis came to a head in November, when the Queen's representative, John Kerr,
26:27dismissed Whitlam and forced an election.
26:31Well may we say, God save the Queen.
26:34We want Trump! We want Trump!
26:37Because nothing will save the Governor-General.
26:44Murdoch's newspapers switched their allegiance to the Liberal leader, Malcolm Fraser,
26:49and he won with a landslide.
26:51The revival of business confidence and to the wellbeing and prosperity of every Australian.
26:56He likes backing winners, Rupert. He doesn't like backing losers.
27:01There's no point in backing losers. They can't deliver.
27:08Murdoch's making, then unmaking, of Gough Whitlam would not go unheeded by future generations of politicians the world over.
27:15For years, Murdoch had harbored dreams of breaking into America.
27:28In 1973, he made his move.
27:32He used his profits from London's Fleet Street to buy two Texas papers and start up a new national tabloid.
27:38Alarm bells went off.
27:44The American establishment coiled with horror when he arrived.
27:48I mean, it was like, oh, you know.
27:50The feeling was, we are suspicious of him.
27:54He's going to come in and try and take all our business.
27:56Come, the eighth wonder of the world!
28:05But then he struck terror into the Big Apple when he snapped up the city's oldest but fading liberal paper, the New York Post.
28:13I was in City Hall and somebody said,
28:17Rupert Murdoch just bought the Post.
28:20And I looked at him blankly and, and he started snickering.
28:27And I said, what are you snickering about?
28:29And he said, you'll find out.
28:33Murdoch drafted in his trusted tabloid warriors from London and Sydney, including Australian reporting legend, Steve Dunleavy.
28:40Don Levy had his own way of getting the scoops, which he didn't share with anyone, even the boss.
28:48You must understand, the boss, Rupert Murdoch, would not take any bullshit.
28:57You would not be able to do things that you weren't supposed to do.
29:02That was also true. I didn't tell the boss everything.
29:06The tone of the paper changed. The look of the paper changed.
29:11There were screaming headlines. There were huge pictures.
29:14And there was a lot more sex, a lot more violence, a lot more emphasis on crime.
29:21So it became very Fleet Street, almost overnight.
29:27Just after he took over, he called me into his office and I thought I was going to the electric chair.
29:33And he had the daily news in front of him and he said, this story.
29:40And I said, yes. He said, why didn't you have this story?
29:43And I said, because they broke the embargo.
29:46And he said, why didn't you break the embargo?
29:50And I said, oh, you know, and after a while I thought, well, it's going to be different here.
29:55Get your post here. Get your post here. Get your post here. Get your post here.
30:01Murdoch had sustained the post through years of heavy losses.
30:05Get your post here.
30:07Readers loved it, but advertisers weren't convinced.
30:09They were concerned that maybe the post readers weren't the right sort of readers.
30:16And the chairman of Bloomingdale's, which is one of the big department stores here in New York,
30:21once famously said to Murdoch that your readers are my shoplifters.
30:27New York in the late seventies was on the verge of bankruptcy.
30:38Against this backdrop, the mayoral elections were looming
30:42and Murdoch seized the opportunity to become a political player in the Big Apple.
30:47There was one unlikely contender.
30:50I would say there were only two people in the city who thought I could win, my father and me.
30:54Murdoch interviewed the candidates one by one.
30:59Well, there was only really one basic question that anybody remembers, including me.
31:06And that question was, how will you handle the municipal unions?
31:12And my response was, I will take a strike and I will break it.
31:19Early one morning, Ed Koch got a phone call.
31:25And I remember thinking to myself, I don't know any Rupert's.
31:32Rupert's not a Jewish name.
31:34Who could be calling me at seven o'clock in the morning?
31:37And then he kept talking and obviously the Australian accent and so forth.
31:45Rupert, I said.
31:47Oh, yes.
31:49How can I help Rupert?
31:51And he said, Congressman, I don't know if it's going to be helpful to you,
31:56but the post is coming out for you for mayor today.
32:03I hope it'll be helpful.
32:05I said, Rupert, you've just elected me.
32:10Thank you. Thank you.
32:12Isn't that nice that he knows exactly what I'm talking about?
32:15You know who I am?
32:16Murdoch's really strong, aggressive support for Koch was of a type that we had not seen in New York.
32:25Day after day after day, there would be stories favorable to Ed Koch and big photographs of Ed Koch
32:34and polls about Ed Koch filling the newspaper.
32:37The long and the short of it is that the paper sort of became a propaganda sheet for Ed Koch.
32:44I loved it because I knew that I would be mayor.
32:52The underdog Ed Koch was elected.
32:56In the corridors of power across America, politicians sat up and took note.
33:01It put Rupert on the map as a kingmaker.
33:06He later supported other major figures like Ronald Reagan.
33:11So he becomes extremely influential in American politics.
33:18Murdoch had supported political soulmates in America and Australia.
33:22But he had yet to find a kindred spirit in Britain.
33:26Please have to lay off weapons.
33:28Throughout the 70s, the Sun newspaper in Britain had been lukewarm in its support of the pro-Union Labour government.
33:37But by the end of the decade, endless strikes had brought Britain to its knees.
33:44Murdoch had grown weary of the constant print union disputes which brought his British newspapers to a standstill, night after night.
33:52The most searing experience of my life was dealing with the Fleet Street chapels and trying to produce papers every day.
34:00And dreaming of producing better ones, and Meg thwarted every turn.
34:04And when Thatcher came along, we felt she was right.
34:08A general election was on the cards, and the Conservative leader, Margaret Thatcher, promised change.
34:16He regarded her as a soulmate.
34:19He always said, I'm not a Tory, I'm a Thatcherite.
34:22He saw Thatcherite.
34:23He saw Thatcher as a radical that wanted to shake up Britain, make it more meritocratic, more market-led, cut down the state.
34:32That was the kind of Britain he wanted as well.
34:35Thank you, Tom.
34:37Thank you very much.
34:38Mrs. Thatcher's election advisor was advertising guru Tim Bell.
34:43One day, he got a phone call from her new admirer.
34:48Rupert wanted to make sure that Mrs. Thatcher would win the next election, and he was extremely enthusiastic that we would have any help we wanted to make sure that she won.
35:02The son became Maggie's champion.
35:04Margaret Thatcher admired him. I think she recognised in him a very powerful figure in the press.
35:12She was always pleased to have Rupert Murdoch's support, but she knew that it came because it was in Rupert Murdoch's interest, not because it was in her interest.
35:29Mrs. Thatcher would be eternally grateful for Murdoch's support.
35:34And their special relationship would reap mutual benefits in times to come.
35:44By the late 70s, New York was the centre of Murdoch's growing empire and family.
35:52The Murdochs and their three children, Elizabeth, Lachlan and James, lived on Millionaire's Row, Fifth Avenue.
35:59Their mother, Anna, was the homemaker.
36:03Family holidays were spent at the Murdoch's new country home in the ski resort of Aspen, playground to the rich and famous.
36:10But for the children, there was no escaping the family business.
36:15Mrs. He would be reading the papers at breakfast and then he would point out various things and ask the children and myself what we thought of this new story, should it have been given such prominence, what we thought of the newspaper pictorially.
36:33And he was very interested in what his children thought.
36:38Rupert Murdoch was determined to create a dynasty called Murdoch, or as the Americans would call it, a dynasty.
36:44And he was already then, when the kids were only teenagers, they hadn't even gone to university.
36:51He wanted to give all three of them positions in the company, very Darwinian, and we'll see who comes to the top, Andrew, he would say.
37:02Under pressure from Anna, the Murdochs were spending more time in Australia.
37:06Murdoch had assured her that eventually the family would settle back there.
37:10For years, he'd nurtured a dream, to buy the Herald and Weekly Times Group, the empire that his father had built up, but never actually owned.
37:21On the 21st of November, 1979, he made his move.
37:26He had what can only be called the riverboat gambler's skill and luck, nose for the moment to bluff, the moment to hold and the moment to fold, as they say.
37:37He made an unsolicited on-market bid, starting at 10 o'clock in the morning, with a direct line to the Melbourne Stock Exchange, and constantly the voices would come through saying we just got another 120,000, 160, and they would say somebody's overbidding us by two cents.
37:55The Herald Group had turned to Murdoch's old adversary, the Fairfaxes, for support.
38:02Together, they were determined to stop Murdoch getting control of the company, and they started buying shares.
38:08Murdoch was calm as could be, just looked up and said, it's got to be the Fairfaxes, they're going to overbid us till we kill it, start selling.
38:15And the broker on the other end of the phone said, I can't do that, I can't buy and sell in the same market.
38:21And it was the only time that steel came into Murdoch's voice, and he said, well, find someone who can.
38:27Murdoch instructed another broker to sell his shares to the unsuspecting broker buying shares for the Fairfaxes.
38:34He came back about five minutes later and said, they've taken them.
38:36And then another voice was heard saying, oh my God, I think I've just bought your shares.
38:43So it's cool as a gambler, he just sat there.
38:47We made a lot of money that morning, but he knew when to fold.
38:50So he just, there'll be another day.
38:57Armed with his $3 million profit, Murdoch would have more success with his next venture.
39:03In January, he was back in London on a mission to add the Times and the Sunday Times to his expanding empire.
39:13They were the crown jewels of British newspapers, but they were losing money heavily thanks to endless union disruption.
39:20Ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted that this conditional agreement has been reached for the news group to take over these two great papers,
39:28the Times and the Sunday Times, together with the Times supplements.
39:34There was quite an atmosphere amongst a lot of people of this rough Australian.
39:40It's one thing for him to be in the lower orders of newspapers, but the Times is perhaps going a bit far.
39:46Those in England who are appalled that Murdoch bought the Times should be very grateful, because on what we saw, my guess would be that there would not have been the Times within a very short period of time.
40:00It was in a shocking mess.
40:01The inmates were running the asylum, the unions had got the company to a point where it was just being absolutely ransacked.
40:13To get the deal through, Murdoch had to give a series of legally binding undertakings,
40:19guaranteeing editorial freedom and political independence for his editors.
40:23Would you play any part in determining the views they put forward at election times?
40:30No, certainly not. They won't ask me.
40:33Even if they were entirely opposed to what you felt was right?
40:36Absolutely. It'll hurt like hell, but I have to contempt myself elsewhere.
40:42Well, neither of those pictures is really worth the front page.
40:46Murdoch persuaded the crusading Sunday Times editor, Harold Evans, to move across to the Times.
40:51How do you react to this purchase by Rupert Murdoch?
40:57Well, the editorial guarantees are entirely satisfactory and that to me is the single most important thing.
41:04The first six months of my editing the Times, you could not have had a better proprietor than Rupert Murdoch.
41:12It was absolutely exhilarating to work with.
41:16No inhibitions about changing things.
41:19So it was a wonderful honeymoon.
41:24But Murdoch's ally, Mrs Thatcher, was in trouble.
41:28Her economic policies were biting and her popularity was plummeting.
41:32I got more and more notes about the fact that I was reporting, the Times was reporting news that wasn't particularly favorable to Mrs Thatcher.
41:45News we couldn't do anything about.
41:47And Mr Murdoch sent for members of the staff and let it be known that we were too critical of her.
41:56Murdoch disputes Harold Evans' claims, but a year into the job, Evans was forced to resign.
42:02The differences between me and Mr Murdoch should not be prolonged.
42:07I am therefore resigning tonight as the editor of the Times.
42:11From then on, Murdoch's editors were left in no doubt what the boss required.
42:17What's this about?
42:21Oh, no.
42:23You told me you'd find it irresistible?
42:25No, I didn't.
42:27It might go along these lines.
42:28What do you think of the Prime Minister?
42:30Oh, I think he's doing a great job.
42:32What do you think, Rupert?
42:33I think he's terrible.
42:35Oh, okay.
42:37What do you think of this?
42:38I think that's pretty good.
42:40Okay.
42:41You hang up from the phone and you now have a mental note.
42:44The proprietor doesn't like the Prime Minister.
42:47He likes this.
42:48He doesn't like that.
42:49There's been no edicts.
42:50There's been no directions.
42:51But the next time you write an editorial or craft a page one lead, you might factor that into your considerations
42:57if you've got ambitions to remain at the company.
43:01If you don't listen to me, do what I want, then, you know, it's going to be your fault, not my fault of it.
43:05It doesn't work.
43:08Throughout the 80s, Murdoch went on a spending spree, buying up newspapers and publishing companies across Australia, Britain and America.
43:18I was with him in his house in Aspen, Colorado, way up in the mountains.
43:22And he said, we'd had breakfast, he said, right, come on, let's go and buy a paper.
43:25And I said, Rupert, when you say go and buy a paper, do you mean we'll go and buy a paper?
43:30Or will we go and buy a paper?
43:36But Murdoch had a master plan beyond newspapers.
43:40In America, he clinched the deal that would transform his business, buying 20th Century Fox Studios and six TV stations.
43:48He now had the building blocks of a global entertainment empire.
43:56But there was a snag.
43:58Non-Americans weren't allowed to own TV stations.
44:00I said I may be married to a different man this afternoon, an American citizen.
44:08So Murdoch gave up his Australian citizenship and became an American.
44:14But the deal had put in $2 billion in the red.
44:17The time had come to confront an old enemy.
44:24None of Murdoch's battles will be more ferocious than the one he waged against the British print unions.
44:40By the mid-80s, he'd built a giant printing plant at Wapping in London's East End.
44:49The latest technology would enable him to print all his newspapers at a fraction of the cost, without print unions.
44:57We all have to realise throughout the industry that there is new technology and new ways of doing things.
45:06Murdoch led the unions to believe that Wapping would be used to produce a new newspaper, the London Post.
45:12Which will obviously create more journalist jobs.
45:15Murdoch brought in his trusted industrial relations man, Bill O'Neill, to handle the negotiations with the unions.
45:21The right to strike, they maintained, was contained within the Magna Carta.
45:28They believed that I was introducing the work practices of an alien continent, and I said yes, it's the real world.
45:38In fact, most of them came from the East End.
45:41Wapping is in the East End, and yet they wanted a relocation allowance.
45:44While negotiations continued, Murdoch put his secret plan into action.
45:51To equip Wapping to produce all four of his British titles.
45:56But his troops were kept in the dark.
45:59The secrecy was extraordinary. I was lied to, and I was one of the key players in the whole Wapping conspiracy, and I didn't know.
46:07David Banks was one of a handful of journalists chosen to be trained up on the new technology.
46:14You can hear what's called the split screen.
46:17He was given a phantom position at the Phantom London paper.
46:21I truly believed that I was the new deputy editor of the London Post.
46:27I was going to go to America to find out how the journalists produced newspapers on screen.
46:33After three months' training in America, David Banks was suddenly ordered home to Wapping to start work, he believed, on the London Post.
46:45We came into this Greenfield site, which had massive security already.
46:50And we opened the doors, and it was like the Starship Enterprise.
46:55I said, where are the presses? And he said, this is the Sunfloor.
47:02At that point, I still had no knowledge.
47:06This was my introduction to the fact that there wasn't a London Post.
47:10That this was the trap that was being sprung.
47:14I never left that site from that point on.
47:17As 1986 got underway, Murdoch arrived at Wapping to take charge.
47:25Rupert was there every day, it seemed.
47:28He dressed in trainers and a tracksuit, and he would pound around the place.
47:34You'd hear him coming, and you'd hear this bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Oh, God, he's coming.
47:39He was always asking, are we ready to go? Are we ready to go?
47:41As Wapping neared completion, Murdoch stopped negotiations with the print unions.
47:48They were supremely confident that we couldn't produce the papers out of Wapping without them.
47:55It had become a challenge. Somebody had thrown down the gauntlet, and Rupert doesn't back away.
48:02On the 24th of January 1986, the print unions went on strike.
48:07But Wapping was now ready to go. The move would usher in the end of Fleet Street.
48:15And the birth of a new automated era.
48:21Hold it up until this is a whole headline.
48:24That's it, there.
48:26But the printers didn't give up. At stake was 6,000 jobs.
48:30The son's editor had his own way of dealing with the pickets.
48:39As we came out, we came out to the junction, and to the left were 6,000 baying pickets.
48:45And I gave him a quick, like that. And off we go.
48:53Which in turn, you know, led to another.
48:56Raaaaaahhhhhh!
49:00That went on for about three or four nights, until...
49:03I got a phone call from Rupert.
49:07And he said,
49:09How's your friends the pickets?
49:11He said,
49:13You haven't done anything to aggravate your friends, have you?
49:17Well, don't worry, my friends.
49:20Well, the reason you're not their friend,
49:22is because you're giving them the f***ing V sign every night.
49:26Hang it up! Bang!
49:27But Murdoch could rely on an old friend.
49:33Mrs. Thatcher's government used the full weight of police and state power
49:39to help him get his newspapers out every single day.
49:42The final police push split the ranks of the demonstrators.
49:46The whopping dispute finally ended, after 13 violent months,
49:51with a financial settlement.
49:53But the printers never got their jobs back.
49:57It was the death knell for the British print unions.
50:00But a personal victory for Murdoch.
50:03He had taken them on and...
50:05He had won.
50:06I feel like a man who's sort of been suffering,
50:09been in a life sentence,
50:11and just been released by surprise.
50:14This wonderful sense of freedom.
50:16Back in Australia, the now Labour government
50:19was planning a radical change to media policy.
50:22The Treasurer, Paul Keating, wanted to give media owners a choice.
50:25Between owning newspapers or TV stations.
50:30In Keating's words, they could become princes of print or queens of the screen.
50:35So far, Murdoch had been thwarted in his attempts to buy his father's old newspaper empire,
50:41the Herald and Weekly Times group.
50:43If the truth be told, it was more about Rupert buying the Herald and Weekly Times,
50:50than stopping Rupert Tremont in television.
50:53We came up with a...
50:55I thought it was a pretty fair scheme that meant...
50:58Packer had the screen and Murdoch had the papers.
51:02Murdoch was given advance notice of the change,
51:05and on the morning of 3 December 1986, he made another move.
51:10Mr Murdoch, how were you received by the Herald directors when you saw them this afternoon?
51:14Very cordially.
51:16He strode into the building in Flinders Street, Melbourne,
51:19walked into the board meeting to the surprise of most of the board members,
51:23and presented basically a cheque with the words,
51:26I'm Santa Claus, he's your Christmas present.
51:29And by 5 o'clock that afternoon, he'd bought the company.
51:32Well, we're very thrilled.
51:34I think she's more thrilled than I am, but then she's just less jet-lagged.
51:38There was a view in the Murdoch circle that Sir Keith Murdoch had built the company up
51:44and never really got his just reward.
51:47So I think this was Rupert sort of claiming that birthright.
51:50With the Herald and Weekly Times now back in the family fold,
51:53Murdoch had put his father's ghost to rest.
51:57And he now owned half of Australia's newspapers.
52:01But dark clouds were gathering over his empire.
52:05His ambition to create a global media network would lead him to his biggest and costliest gamble yet.
52:12To be fair, I thought Rupert had gone barmy.
52:16This is a total bloody mess.
52:18The whole thing's a total bloody mess.
52:21It teetered on the brink.
52:22It was touch and go as to whether they could come through it or not.
52:26The empire that Murdoch built would soon be fighting for its life.
52:33If you enjoyed this documentary, head to SBS On Demand anytime for over 250 documentaries to keep you informed.
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