{"id":2220,"date":"2006-06-16T16:06:28","date_gmt":"2006-06-16T08:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danwei.webfactional.com\/?p=2220"},"modified":"2006-06-16T16:06:28","modified_gmt":"2006-06-16T08:06:28","slug":"the_fall_and_rise_and_fall_of_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laodanwei.org\/wp\/media-and-advertising\/the_fall_and_rise_and_fall_of_1.php","title":{"rendered":"The Fall and Rise and Fall of Danwei’s Mentor, Rupert Murdoch"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ICH060615murdoch.jpg\"<\/div>\n

Now that Rupert Murdoch has proven that Western media companies can’t get ahead in China through flattery, nepotism and the back door, we at Danwei will have to have to find a new model for our business.<\/p>\n

In case you didn’t know, Rupert is the world’s last true media mogul – his company, News Corp., owns everything from 20th Century Fox Studios to ultra-conservative Fox News to the tabloid New York Post. Last week, Rupert stunned the media world by ditching most of his stake in Hong-Kong based Phoenix TV. In dropping from 38% control of Phoenix to 18%, Rupert indicated that a recent string of failures has forced him to scale back his dream of extending his broadcast empire to China.<\/p>\n

Here within the mahogany wainscoting of our Danwei offices, we take Rupert’s trouble as a warning. Rupert led his firm’s sycophantic charge into China, compromising whatever principles he ever professed to hold in hope of securing deals. We opportunists at Danwei prepared to follow through the ethical breaches. We too can censor our content and criticize whatever Nobel Peace Prize laureates irritate China’s elite leaders. We too can run government-approved content on our platforms – haven’t you seen our hyperlinks to Xinhua’s pin-up girls? We understand as well as Rupert that principles are as flexible as a quote from the Little Red Book of Chairman Mao.<\/p>\n

Rupert was our model. We couldn’t believe it when, shortly after buying the Hong Kong-based Star TV satellite network, Rupert announced in 1993 that such ventures would pose “an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.” How, we wondered, would challenging China’s leaders help his business? Furious Chinese officials responded with demands that Rupert drop BBC World Service Television from his Star TV package of channels. Rupert complied, to our relief, and things got back to normal.<\/p>\n

Rupert went on to set the standard for sweet-talk. In 1999, he called the Nobel Prize-winning Dalai Lama “a very old political monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes.” He ordered his publishing arm, HarperCollins, to drop a book contract with former Hong Kong governor and critic of Beijing, Chris Patten. News Corp. even runs CCTV’s news and propaganda on its U.S. satellite network, DirecTV, and moved a Los Angeles TV producer to Beijing to spruce up the content. In the entrance to his swank offices in Oriental Plaza, just off Tiananmen Square, Rupert hung a photo of himself sharing a chuckle with Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin, and another showing his son and heir-apparent, James, meeting with the country’s most feared censor, propaganda minister Ding Guangen. Well, Danwei can also drop book deals and hang compromising pictures, and Hey! Dalai Lama! Love that chrome dome!<\/p>\n


\nBut then Rupert tried to leverage his good relations into revenue, and he over-reached. First, he attempted a back-door takeover of a satellite television channel in Qinghai province. Had the deal gone through, News Corp. would have provided the channel’s content (as of now, such News Corp. content as the Mandarin-language Starry Skies channel is limited in China to five-star hotels and approved luxury apartment buildings). A key business partner was Ding Yucheng, son of the former propaganda minister and a proven opener of back doors. Unfortunately, President Hu Jintao then sent his own people to run the ministry that oversees broadcasting, and last year they forced Rupert to unwind the deal.<\/p>\n

Then, Rupert’s top China executives got caught selling programs illegally. News Corp. salesmen peddled a bundle of four channels, including National Geographic, to cable networks in the hinterland even though everyone knows that’s not allowed. Since News Corp. couldn’t book the illicit revenue, it set up a shell company to launder the proceeds, which generally arrived in cash. After the government learned of the scheme from a whistle-blower, officials raided News Corp’s offices and carted away computers and documents. Shortly after that, Rupert declared in New York that his company had hit a “brick wall in China.”<\/p>\n

Now that he’s sold down his stake in Phoenix, it seems that Rupert is cutting his considerable losses in China. That looks like an opportunity for Danwei. So Rupert, if you want to unload some office space, we’d be glad to trade you these mahogany walls for some of your Oriental Plaza digs. Or maybe you’d prefer we take Starry Skies off your hands. It seems Wendy will never get to watch it in that million-dollar courtyard home you bought for her near the Forbidden City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newscorp has hit a “brick wall in China,” says Rupert.<\/p>\n

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