Old geezer, Rupert Murdoch, who I always refer to on my adscam.blog as “The Wizened of Oz,” has certainly enjoyed a long and festering career as a media baron in the mould of the many notorious, previous holders of that title. In his ninety six years “Rupe,” has risen from inheriting his dad’s minor newspaper business in Australia, to becoming the Uber Fuhrer of one of the world’s largest media empires, News Corporation, which in turn, has led him to being primarily responsible for the rise of such political douchenozzles as Thatcher, Blair, Trump and Farage. (Who just fought off Count BinFace!) He was also, as the proprietor of The Sun, the first newspaper owner to feature naked birds with big breasts on page three. Or, as my old London neighbour and drinking mate, Larry Lamb, the editor of The Sun, once put it to me.. “He certainly knew his tits and arse.”
In 1969 Murdoch (above) acquired the News of the World. By 2011 it was Britain’s biggest-selling Sunday newspaper, selling roughly 2.6 million copies a week. Then, in July 2011, the shit well and truly hit the fan when it was revealed that during the editorship of Rebekah “The Red Medusa” Brooks, the paper’s investigators had hacked the mobile phones of British royalty, movie and TV actors, and worst of all, a 13-year-old girl who had been abducted and murdered. Particularly horrifying was the discovery that messages had been deleted from her voicemail, giving her family and police the false impression that she might still be alive.
As a result, on 7 July 2011, Murdoch’s son, James announced that the following Sunday’s issue would be the last. It was the 8,674th and final edition. The headline was: “Thank You & Goodbye.” It is somewhat ironic that the newspaper that made its reputation by exposing other people’s secrets was destroyed because of the secrets being exposed about itself.
Finally, my post last week about the implosion of Boo.Com pales in comparison to Murdoch’s destruction of MySpace. In 2005, Murdoch bought MySpace, for nearly $600 million in cash. The acquisition was hailed as a steal as MySpace had become one of the fastest-growing sites on the web, particularly among the coveted 16–34 demographic. Murdoch was one of the first to understand how the internet could deliver an enormous, highly engaged young audience directly to advertisers. Within a year, MySpace became the most visited website in America with users eagerly creating content value through self-expression: via their pages, music, pictures, friends etc. It also became a big hit in the music business because bands could communicate directly with fans.
Then Murdoch proceeded to fuck it up! The site became increasingly cluttered, advertising-heavy and difficult to use. News Corp treated it increasingly like a media property to monetize, rather than as a technology platform that needed continual improvement and innovation. Meanwhile, rapidly growing Facebook was becoming cleaner, faster and much more useful as a social network. By 2011, MySpace had lost enormous numbers of users and advertisers to Facebook and other platforms. News Corp put it up for sale. They got less than $35 million. In 2012, Murdoch himself owned up that News Corp had essentially “screwed up” MySpace, saying the company had made mistakes “in every way possible.” Something his pathetic protege Trump, would never acknowledge!
