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Fox Corp. and News Corp, its parent, are continuing to gobble their way through the world’s media menu, adding more than 20 properties for almost $7 billion since Lachlan Murdoch took leadership of the company from his father, Rupert, in 2019.
Last week, Fox grabbed website TMZ, dedicated to celebrity gossip, for something less than $50 million, according to the Financial Times.
In 2019, the Murdoch empire sold most of 21st Century Fox to Disney Corp. for $71 billion to concentrate on news, sports, and television.
Since, as Fox’s CEO, Lachlan has pushed the company more broadly through those areas, spending $1.5 billion on eight purchases that encompass sports betting, blockchain technologies, and online streaming.
News Corp, which Lachlan co-chairs, also has been hungry, laying out $2.9 billion for the Oil Price Information Service and Investors Business Daily, as we reported in “News Corp Will Buy Investors Business Daily” (30 Mar 2021).
News Corp owns Dow Jones Inc. and publishes The Wall Street Journal and New York Post.
Australian News Corp subsidiary REA Group has made five purchases since March 2019; Bridgetown2 Holdings, an investment group of which the Murdoch family owns 18 percent, bought international real estate firm PropertyGuru for $1.7 billion.
Last week, News Corp revealed that it will launch a new television station in Britain, called talkTV, early next year.