While Murdoch had shaped the early 1990s media landscape with BSkyB and Hong Kong's Star TV, a series of late 1990s mega-deals by competitors, including AOL Time Warner, Viacom, Walt Disney Corporation and Vivendi, threatened News Limited's competitive advantage (Chenoweth, 2001: 120). Wall Street financiers interpreted this climate as the consolidation of new media. Murdoch's pragmatic foresight and News Limited's entrepreneurial spirit were crucial aspects of its business model (Rohm, 2002: 44).

During the 1997 turf wars Murdoch jockeyed Michael Eisner, Gerry Levin and John Malone for status. He cut deals for Fox News, Fox Sports, Fox Kids and the Dodgers (Chenoweth, 2001: 258). One of the most intriguing deals was how Murdoch became involved with evangelist Pat Robertson and the Family Channel. Although by late 1996 the Family Channel had become "one of the top ten television brands in the world" (Chenoweth, 2001: 213), the international press was investigating allegations that Robertson's relief agency, Operation Blessing International, had become a front for Zaire's diamond mining. Murdoch approached Robertson to run Fox Kids on the Family Channel (Chenoweth, 2001: 219). The $643 million deal included investments by John Malone's TCI and News Limited (Chenoweth, 2001: 220). Revelations in April 1997 that Operation Blessing's three Caribou aircraft had been used for diamond mining, not for humanitarian purposes, complicated Robertson's $150 million share in the deal (Chenoweth, 2001: 224-225).

Robertson's deal finally cost News Limited $1.7 billion (Chenoweth, 2001: 227). The deal was overseen by Goldman Sachs, which played a major role in the U.S. dotcom bubble. The inflated price became a palimpsest for other tech stock deals.

Murdoch wanted to 'colonize' a different future to the information superhighway: he had invested in geostationary satellites rather than fiber-optic cable or wireless technologies (Chenoweth, 2001: 264). News Limited's short-term cash needs and long-term investment plans made Internet advertising models a poor option for sustainable revenue growth (Rohm, 2002: 173).

James and Lachlan Murdoch pressured their father to explore Internet opportunities (Chenoweth, 2001: 304) and he founded a U.K.-based Internet division called News Network (Rohm, 2002: 235). However this was a "non-core" investment as News Network and News Digital Media mainly negotiated content repurposing and minority shares in a portfolio of sites. The March 2000 tech meltdown affected BSkyB's share price and halted Sky Global's initial public offering (Chenoweth, 2001: 329). His deal structures meant that Murdoch was relatively protected against losses. A $10 billion strategic deal with Healtheon, for example, was cutback to $250 million in shared content and advertising (Rohm, 2002: 242). Murdoch was more threatened by the AOL Time Warner merger, annoyed that after 1996 advice from Bill Gates, he had not bought AOL when he had the opportunity (Chenoweth, 2001: 323-324).

A New Damage Done

For Murdoch the real territory were China and India: the largest media markets of the 21st century (Rohm, 119: 2002). Murdoch had been shunned by the Chinese government after his 2 September 1993 speech that reinterpreted Orwell and Huber's rewrite that global telecommunications threatened any totalitarian regimes (Chenoweth, 189). The Chinese government touted its "correct propaganda" and Web guerillas in the face of the Internet's stratospheric growth (Rohm, 2002: 156).

The strategic vision had to be radically changed. The first layer was exemplified by James Murdoch's defense that his father always had a truly international vision (Rohm, 2002: 120). Murdoch's public relations stance was that this was the logical outcome of his Australian heritage. The second layer was Murdoch's ploys to appease the Chinese government. He adopted an anti-British stance when NATO accidentally bombed China's embassy in Belgrade (Chenoweth, 2001: 288), dropped the uber-critical BBC World Service from Hong Kong's Star services (Chenoweth, 2001: 190), cancelled HarperCollins U.K.'s book deal with Hong Kong's last governor Chris Patten (Chenoweth, 2001: 282) and adopted a cultural relativist stance on China's human rights record (Rohm, 2002: 261). Finally, the third layer was Murdoch's application of pragmatic foresight to track China and India's socio-economic growth. These deals included co-developing the Chinese electronic guide CCTV (Rohm, 2002: 160) and tracking how rising incomes will influence the future projections of India's television market (Rohm, 2002: 202). China and India represent more than just new markets—they are unparalleled opportunities to influence the trajectory of two emerging civilization systems.

The Uncertainty of Succession Planning

Rupert Murdoch came to power through the sudden death in October 1952 of his father Keith Murdoch (Chenoweth, 2001: 25). The family trusts that Keith Murdoch left shaped the Murdoch family's balance of power for decades (Chenoweth, 2001: 109). The success of his 1990s deals enabled Murdoch to offer his sisters a $500 million buyout offer, through Cruden Investments, and gain total control of News Limited's legacy (Chenoweth, 2001: 6). The 1992 deal featured an escalation clause that was linked to News Limited's share price (Chenoweth, 2001: 116). Murdoch's foresight meant that Anna Murdoch's 1998 divorce petition (Chenoweth, 2001: 307) and his subsequent marriage to Wendy Deng (Chenoweth, 2001: 309) did not lessen his leveraging power or control.

Despite Keith Murdoch's influence, Rupert Murdoch denies that his family has a patriarchal lineage (Chenoweth, 2001: 12). Yet underlying his pragmatic foresight and mega-deals has been an increasing focus on his sons. Lachlan Murdoch was mentored during the Dodgers deal by Peter Chernin (Chenoweth, 2001: 231). James Murdoch rose to prominence in News Digital Media by his Internet stocks (Chenoweth, 2001: 304), and appears to be the most avowedly futurist-oriented (Rohm, 2002: 77). Murdoch's end-game is really family-focused: "The Murdoch succession arguably represented the largest transfer of wealth and global power of the late twentieth century." (Chenoweth, 2001: 299).

Murdoch remains a key player in 'colonizing' the 21st century's media. Chenoweth's forensic journalism and Rohm's business interviews shed light on how Murdoch has integrated pragmatic foresight—through an understanding of stakeholder psychology, game theory, emerging technologies and the global risk society—into his daily life. Pragmatic foresight has given Murdoch the key to launch acquisitions, face-off competitors, fast-track new technologies and create new markets. His insights are applicable to risk management strategies. And for those opposed to Murdoch's vision, understanding pragmatic foresight offers hope of 'decolonized' zones in the one-click media wars of the beckoning future.

Select Bibliography:

Chenoweth, Neil (2001). Virtual Murdoch: Reality Wars on the Information Superhighway (U.S. 2002 release title: Rupert Murdoch: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Media Wizard). London: Secker & Warburg; Sydney: Random House Australia; New York: Crown Publishing.

Rohm, Wendy Goldman (2002). The Murdoch Mission: The Digital Transformation of a Media Empire. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The views expressed above represent the writer and not necessarily those of The Disinformation Company Ltd.