Rupert Murdoch Owns Hundreds of Media Outlets — Was Set to Marry for Fifth Time

The legacy of media mogul Rupert Murdoch was the topic of a documentary series that aired on the CNN+ streaming service that launched in the spring of 2022. The six-part series, The Murdochs: Empire of Influence, looked at Murdoch's rise as a media tycoon, his influence around the world, and the succession battle between his children over control of his media empire.

So, what companies does Murdoch own?

Murdoch's company, News Corp., owns hundreds of local, national, and international media outlets around the globe. His media empire includes the following and many more:

• The Wall Street Journal

• HarperCollins publishing

• New York Post

• MarketWatch

• Barron's

• Austrailan News Channel

• The Sun (British tabloid)

• The Times (Britain daily newspaper)

• Investor's Business Daily

• Realtor.com

Forbes estimates that Murdoch, 92, and his family have built a net worth over time of about $7.69 billion. That’s quite a few billion less than the $23 billion he was estimated to be worth in March 2022. Still, he was listed as number 71 on the magazine's 2021 Billionaires list.

Love him or hate him, Murdoch's rise to become one of the most influential media owners on the planet is impressive, especially considering he started in the business at age 22 after inheriting a daily newspaper in Australia that his father owned.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Murdoch continued to buy up newspapers in Australia and New Zealand. His empire expanded into the United Kingdom with the 1969 purchase of the now-defunct News of the World, followed closely by The Sun.

The San Antonio Express-News was Murdoch's first purchase in the U.S. market. He bought the city newspaper in 1973 and then sold it to the Hearst Corporation in 1992. Murdoch's first major purchase in the U.S. was in 1976 when he bought the New York Post for $30.5 million. He still owns the Post.

Because of the legal requirement in the U.S. that only citizens could own U.S. television stations, Murdoch became a naturalized citizen of the country in 1985. Soon after, he bought 20th Century Fox, which eventually evolved into the Fox Broadcasting Network.

Murdoch launched Fox News in 1996 as a conservative alternative to news outlets such as CNN and NBC. The conservative news channel became the number one cable news station during the 2000s.

Although many of Murdoch's newspapers and television stations are known for their right-leaning views on the news, Murdoch leaned a little more to the left in his early years.

As a student in philosophy, politics, and economics at Worcester College in Oxford, England, Murdoch was known to his fellow students as "Red Rupert." He was a member of Oxford University's Labour Party of democratic socialists, and he even reportedly had a bust of Communist Party founder Lenin in his dorm room.

Murdoch has been married four times and he has six children. His fourth wife is former model Jerry Hall. The two married in 2016, just a week before Murdoch's 85th birthday. Hall was previously involved with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, with whom she has four children.

Murdoch and Hall divorced in 2022, citing “irreconcilable differences” as their reasoning, leaving Hall a lump sum of money and their £11m Oxfordshire mansion, The Guardian reported.

It recently came to light that Murdoch divorced Hall via email, per Vanity Fair. The email reportedly began "Jerry, sadly I’ve decided to call an end to our marriage." While the billionaire did mention that the two have shared some "good times," he proceeded to inform her that "[his] New York lawyer [would] be contacting [her] immediately.”

During the summer of 2023, Murdoch would have been walking down the aisle for a fifth time. Some time after meeting former police chaplain Ann Leslie Smith at his vineyard Moraga in Bel Air, Calif., Murdoch and Smith grew closer. On March 17, 2023, which happened to be St. Patrick's Day, Murdoch announced that he and Smith were engaged and that the two are “looking forward to spending the second half of [their] lives together.”

Sadly, the excitement was short lived. A few weeks after making the announcement, the two called off the engagement. Vanity Fair noted that a source close to the couple said Murdoch was “uncomfortable with Smith’s outspoken evangelical views.”