News corporation - Timeline

News corporation was founded.

It was created by Rupert Murdoch.

News Ltd. made its first acquisition in the United States in 1973, when it purchased the San Antonio Express-News. Soon afterwards it founded the National Star, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976 it purchased the New York Post.

In 1981, News Corp bought two eights of the movie studio 20th Century Fox.

In 1985, News Corp announced it was buying the Metromedia group of stations, setting the stage for the launch of a fourth U.S. commercial broadcasting television network. On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only United States citizens could own American television stations.

In 1986, the Metromedia deal closed, and the Fox Broadcasting Company was launched. This network, known on-screen as "Fox", can now be picked up in over 96% of U.S. households.

In late 2003, News Corp acquired a 34% stake in DirecTV Group (formerly Hughes Electronics), operator of the largest American satellite TV system, from General Motors for US $6 billion. DirecTV was sold to Liberty Media in 2008 in exchange for its holding in News International.

n January 2005, shortly after reincorporation in the United States, News Corporation announced that it was buying out Fox Entertainment Group.[19] The manoeuvre delisted Fox from the New York Stock Exchange; Fox traded on the NYSE under the ticker FOX.

In July 2005, in one of the company's first major Internet purchases, News Corporation purchased the social networking website Myspace for $580 million.

In February 2007, Murdoch announced at the McGraw-Hill Media Summit that Fox would launch a new business news channel later in the year, which would compete directly against rival network CNBC. Murdoch explained that the channel would be more "business-friendly" than CNBC, because he felt that they "leap on every scandal, or what they think is a scandal."[25] In July 2007, News Corp. reached a deal to acquire Dow Jones & Company, owners of The Wall Street Journal, for $5 billion.

In 2009, News Corp established NewsCore, a global wire service set up to provide news stories to all of News Corp's journalistic outlets.

In 2010, due to the Fijian government's requirement that the country's media outlet must be 90% owned by Fiji nationals, News Corporation sold 90% of their stake in their Fijian newspapers (Fiji Times, Nai Lalakai, and Shanti Dut) to Motibhai Group of Companies.

On 13 July 2011, Rupert Murdoch announced that the company would withdraw its takeover bid for BSkyB due to concerns relating to the News of the World scandal. News Corporation already owned, and continues to own, 39.1% of BSkyB.

On 6 June 2012, News Corporation announced that it would buy out ESPN Inc.'s stake in ESPN Star Sports to gain full control over the Asian sports network.In January 2013, News Corp. attained 54.5% majority control of Sky Deutschland.

On 4 February 2013, News Corporation announced the sale of IGN and its related properties to the publishing company Ziff Davis. News Corp. had planned to spin off IGN as an independent company, but failed to do so.