News Corp’s television properties in the United States include the FOX television network, 20th Century-FOX production studios, numerous owned-and-operated FOX television stations, national cable networks including FX and FOX News Channel, and a string of regional FOX Sports Channels. In addition, News Corp owns a controlling interest in the United Kingdom’s direct broadcast satellite television service, British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB); Europe’s Sky Channel television programming service; and Asia’s direct broadcast satellite (DBS) service, Star Television.

However, it is impossible to isolate any one form of media as News Corp’s core business, because its growth has been fueled by the idea of creating synergies among the company’s different components. The resulting economies of scale make the value of the company’s whole greater than that of the sum of its parts. A good example of this strategy in action was the combination of News Corp’s purchases in the mid- 1980s of the 20th Century-FOX studios and Metromedia’s large-market U.S. television stations. The combination of production facilities and distribution outlets led directly to the creation of the FOX television network.

The FOX network remains News Corp’s most prominent presence in American television. It launched in October 1986, with the premiere of The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers, and began its regular schedule of prime-time programming in early 1987. While some of its first shows, such as Rivers’s, were critical and commercial disappointments, FOX was slowly able to gain audience share and expand its program schedule. FOX ultimately carved out a solid niche as the fourth broadcast network by targeting the 18- to 34-year-old audience and attracting these viewers through programs that were often offbeat and sometimes audacious. The Simpsons, Married . . . With Children, and COPS were among FOX’s most prominent early hits and exemplify the unconventional nature of FOX network programming. Indeed, FOX’s COPS and America’s Most Wanted were largely responsible for the wide proliferation of a new television genre known as “reality television.” Programming on the channel continued to evolve, to produce and respond to new audiences. Beverly Hills 90210 and Melrose Place, “teen” and “young adult” programming from producer Aaron Spelling, found a substantial group of loyal viewers, and major hit The X-Files became one of television’s most popular and widely discussed programs.

In addition to its regular programs, FOX also made its presence felt in the U.S. television market through a series of bold strategic maneuvers aimed at acquiring special programming and new affiliate stations. As early as 1987, FOX paid a record license fee to telecast the Emmy Awards (the television industry’s awards program), which previously had rotated among the “Big Three” networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). The network also attempted to obtain the rights to the National Football League (NFL) Monday Night Football television package. Although unsuccessful in the latter effort, FOX was later successful with its record-setting bid for the NFL’s National Conference games, wresting the package from longtime rights holder CBS prior to the 1994 NFL season. FOX used the opportunity created by its acquisition of this NFL package to woo new affiliates to the network, which led to the most dramatic realignment of network affiliates in U.S. television history. FOX’s agreement with New World Communications, announced in May 1994, represented the largest single affiliate switch ever, but it was considered controversial because many saw the agreement—in which FOX paid New World $500 million and 12 New World stations changed their affiliations to the FOX network—as a vehicle by which FOX was able to circumvent Federal Communications Commission (FCC) limitations on the number of stations a single company is permitted to own.

Another News Corp property that exemplified the company’s strategic approach to collecting assets was TV Guide, the best-selling weekly magazine in the United States. News Corp purchased TV Guide, along with Seventeen magazine and The Daily Racing Form, in 1988 from Walter Annenberg for a reported price of more than $3 billion. It was News Corp’s largest single purchase to that time and represented another instance of the company’s willingness to pay a premium price for a unique media property that fits into a synergistic global scheme. While many questioned why News Corp would pay such a price for a mature asset that had seen its circulation decline by about a third since its peak in the late 1970s, TV Guide’s merger in 2000 with the Gemstar family of interactive video products placed News Corp at the forefront of the emerging interactive program guide (IPG) market, which promises to exploit fully and build upon TV Guide’s tangible assets, as well as its unparalleled brand equity in the television-program-listings marketplace.

News Corp’s involvement with DBS service in Europe put the company at great financial risk, but it appears to have been a wise long-term investment. News Corp initially launched a DBS service called Sky Television in 1989, which competed in the United Kingdom with another DBS service, British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB). In 1990 BSB became bankrupt, and Britain’s Conservative government, who regarded Rupert Murdoch as a crucial ally, allowed Sky to override concerns about the creation of a satellite broadcasting monopoly and buy BSB’s assets; the two satellite broadcasters merged to become the News Corp entity BSkyB. The start-up costs associated with this venture put great strain on News Corp’s financial stability, and the losses it encountered in BSkyB’s early days, combined with the overwhelming short-term debt load News Corp had accumulated from its years of aggressive acquisitions, nearly forced the company into financial ruin in 1990. However, News Corp was able to negotiate with its creditors for more favorable debt terms and thereby averted disaster. The emergence of BSkyB in the early 1990s as an extremely profitable venture (built, like FOX, on the acquisition of rights to televise sporting events), along with the growing success of FOX in the United States, helped News Corp back to financial health in a relatively short time.

In the latter half of the 1990s, News Corp expanded on its strategy of producing its own content for its distribution channels by aggressively pursuing the acquisition of selected landmark professional sports properties. Its takeover bid for the Manchester United soccer franchise was ultimately blocked by the British government, which cited the unfair advantage that News Corp’s BSkyB would have in negotiating for the television rights to the team’s games; however, News Corp did successfully purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers Major League Baseball team in 1998. The Dodgers’ purchase clearly exemplified News Corp’s strategy of owning sports franchises whose popularity extends beyond national borders to other areas of the world where News Corp also owns satellite television distribution services, such as Star TV in Asia and Sky Latin America.

Today, News Corp stands among the foremost media companies in the world and continues to be aggressive in its pursuit of new media and communications properties. Its wide range of media holdings in many countries of the world puts News Corp in a central position among a handful of corporate behemoths that could dominate the global media landscape for many years to come.