Rupert

"Sometimes in business, a strategy doesn’t appear to work at first, but the knowledge you gain is more valuable because it informs decisions down the road. In late 1988, Rupert called with a very particular request. “John, you know about computers and networks and so on, and there’s a company called Prodigy…” We had been closely watching the “computer information services,” as they were called back then. Rupert wanted to explore joint acquisitions using TCI’s networking and News Corp.’s programming. “There must be something here for us,” he said."

"Rupert had borrowed close to $5 billion from banks to acquire some pricey new properties, including the iconic 20th Century-Fox movie studio, the Metromedia broadcast TV stations, and a bunch of consumer and trade magazines owned by Ziff Davis. He had defied conventional Wall Street wisdom and launched a fourth broadcast network in 1987. Then in 1988, he pledged $3 billion to buy Triangle Publications, which published *TV Guide*, the largest and most profitable weekly at the time."

"Soon I fell into a simple philosophy that helped me deal with Rupert. The way I saw it, sometimes he was playing on my team. A lot of times he was playing for a different team but not opposing us. And in certain games he and his team were playing against us—and hard."

"The eruption took place in my car on our way to Warners to see its leaders, Bob Daly and Terry Semel. Rupert had the incredibly gutsy idea of starting a satellite service in Britain to compete with the already announced and funded government one. Hollywood movies were going to be the backbone of both services, and I was helping him buy movies—you never completely put your old job behind you!—for the new channel. We were on our way to shake hands on the deal we’d negotiated."

"I had almost no frustrations with Rupert. I made every material decision while I was at Fox. Although I talked to him about our progress or lack thereof, I didn’t ask him about the movies we should make or get his permission. I always *acted* like a principal."

"I did have a higher tolerance for “temporary failure” than Rupert did. (Although my revulsion at the prospect of *ultimate* failure may be even greater than his.)"

"Once it was gone, I couldn’t retrieve it. Something had cracked open, and the true condition of my situation at age forty-nine was seeping out, and I couldn’t rationalize things back to where they’d been. I realized that if I went on this way for long enough, bitterness would follow, and at some point Rupert would, whether cruelly or politely, get rid of me, because that’s what employers do when employees become either obstreperous or obsolete."

"I called Milken, who said, “John wants a billion seven fifty. But he thinks he could sell the Boston station to Hearst for six hundred million. So it’s a billion one for the other stations.” I called Murdoch and reported all that. Rupert wasn’t fazed and just asked how much the whole effort would cost. I called my friend Marty Pompadur, a very senior media executive who had been a key ABC executive and knew everything about broadcasting. An hour later Marty was in my office, and we began chewing over how to build a fourth network."

"On the way, Rupert abruptly turned to me and said, “This television thing is a mess. There are all these horrible programs you’re putting on.” Then he said, “I think you should really consider giving up the television side. God knows you’re rebirthing the studio, the film side, and you do that great. But you have these two programmers”—he meant Garth Ancier and Kevin Wendle—“these young, inexperienced kids who have no idea what America wants to watch.”"

"With nothing more than scrap sheets, I called Murdoch and told him we would have to spend about $200 million before breaking even. I added, though, that there really wasn’t any way to actually know the costs, because no one had tried to build a new network for thirty years, and that attempt failed miserably. Despite having been presented with that flimsiest of a business plan, Rupert was ecstatically on board. He didn’t flinch about the costs; he saw only the opportunity."

"If there had been a whiff of an opening, Rupert would have bet the company again to pull that deal off. Rupert was always a better and bigger risk-taker than I was. I may have taken a lot of career risks as well as product risks, but the big, betting-the-store risk is not something I was constitutionally able to do. Rupert was, always. It excited him, while it hobbled me."

"As for Rupert, the grand risk-taker, with only a verbal assurance that we could actually start a fourth network from someone he’d just met—me—he’d agreed in a flash to buy these stations for more than $1 billion. And this was all done before he even officially owned his one-half of Fox and without any regard for the stringent rules about foreign ownership or any other of the endless details that would have to be worked out."

"My original five-year contract with Fox had ended, and when it expired I told Rupert I didn’t want to enter into a new contractual relationship. I thought it better for us both to just have a six-month mutual termination clause: either of us could end things with half a year’s notice. We had stability and confidence in each other, and my compensation was fair. We both thought that if either of us wanted to stop working together, all we had to do was push a cease button. As my frustrations and aspirations rose in the summer of 1991, I went to Rupert and told him I wanted to be a principal. I remember saying to him, “We both know I *act* like it, but I want to actually *be* it. I want to be some kind of a partner in this enterprise.”"

"The launching of Peter Stuyvesant makes a perfect case study of marketing ingenuity. With the choice of the name, the design of the packet, and the advertising and marketing the aim was ‘to create a youthful and dynamic image for a new, young international product at home in the whole world’. Rupert tells that a team of bright young salesmen, with the right appearance and dressed appropriately, were selected to sell the dynamic new product. For maximum effect, each new town and city was invaded by a convoy of panel vans emblazoned with the Peter Stuyvesant packet and the slogan that became world-famous: ‘International passport to smoking pleasure.’ The new cigarette was so popular that during the launch in the Netherlands, the vans were besieged in the street by customers begging for stock for their local tobacconist. And the marketing was so effective that the group even received letters from customers wanting to procure the ‘international passport’!"

"Hertzog, who complained in the early years because Entek, like Distillers, was not growing as quickly as Rembrandt, was also correct in his view that coffee and tea would not show such quick profits as tobacco did. Distillers started progressing after ten years, but was even then ‘not yet right’, in his words. In the case of Entek, Rupert’s long-term view was proved right. Despite boycotts, rumour-mongering and fluctuations in the tea and coffee market during the 1960s, the company became a success."

"When Colonel Whitbread announced his intention to visit South Africa at the end of 1964, Rupert had a large reception arranged for him. He and Huberte went to great lengths to welcome the colonel and his wife, as was typical of the way in which they received guests. Visitors, like the Whitbreads, not only found flowers and fruit in their hotel rooms but also a book, usually about South Africa’s cultural and natural heritage."

"Nathalie Hocq had such faith in the Ruperts’ integrity and business abilities that she offered Rupert the family share in Cartier after her father’s death. In this way Rupert effectively acquired the controlling interest in Cartier, the international prestige jewellers, via his tobacco interests."