Rupert Murdoch the Global media mogul usually known as Rupert ‘Rupee’ Murdoch along with his son James Murdoch may possibly be spending two days in the capital. During their stay they would be attending a series of important meetings.
The grapevine has it that the Murdoch’s who have arrived today, seem to have met Prime minister Manmohan Singh , the opposition party leader L.K. Advani as well as the top-notchers of the Wall Street Journal Asia, which was recently taken over by him.
Murdoch is visiting India for the first time since the Asian wing has undergone mega restructuring. A couple of months ago, News Corp’s Asian broadcasting business had been split into 3 entities – STAR India, STAR Greater China and Fox International Channels. Murdoch intended to uplink a chunk of its channels from India instead of Hong Kong which is why he restructured it.
Presently, the most profitable arm among News Corp’s Asian operations is STAR India. It generates revenues of over $440 million. Ironically STAR’s Hindi GEC Star Plus has been overtaken by Network 18’s Colors and Zee TV.
When Murdoch had visited India in 2008, he claimed that News Corp was going to invest $100 million for the purpose of launching 6 regional channels in India. With the help of Asianet the company’s JV, the company has succeeded in launching a Marathi, Bengali as well as two Malayalam channels.