A Rough-Styled Outsider Becomes One of L.A.'s Elite

By JIM NEWTON

March 20, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

With his purchase of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Rupert Murdoch not only secures a piece of the city’s history, but also guarantees himself a place in its future.

“Rupert has an enormous interest in the world around him,” said Peter Chernin, president and chief executive of News Corp., the parent company of Fox. “And this is the city in which he lives. . . . He likes the ability to have a voice.”

Quietly but with characteristic determination, Murdoch is burrowing into the fabric of Los Angeles, joining its most powerful circle of insiders. Fox Group, which Murdoch owns and which includes 20th Century Fox studios, is based in Los Angeles, where it employs thousands of people in its ever-expanding operations. Murdoch’s other properties with local offices -- he Harper Collins publishing company, a major coupon company and TV Guide, among others -- have many more.

On a personal level, sources say Murdoch has contributed to children’s causes and the Catholic Church to which his wife belongs. He stands to play a potentially pivotal role in the city’s campaign to recapture a professional football team. And he is building a fast and important friendship with Mayor Richard Riordan.

“I’ve never met anybody whose focus is better,” Riordan said of Murdoch. “He pays the same attention to the waiter as he does to the most important person in the room.”

Now, Murdoch’s empire includes the Dodgers, whose historic and symbolic significance to Los Angeles is profound. The result: Suddenly Murdoch emerges alongside the likes of SunAmerica chief Eli Broad, lawyer Bill Wardlaw, Arco Chairman Mike Bowlin and former Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher as one of the city’s most notable insiders--men whose advice is sought and heeded.

But where each of the other leading city players is ideologically moderate and long steeped in Los Angeles’ business and political culture, Murdoch is a bruising, right-wing outsider. Where each of the others is rooted by attachments and loyalties in Los Angeles, Murdoch is a global drifter, rarely participating in the civic life of a city unless he can use it to defend and enlarge his business interests.

Murdoch’s wealth and global influence also set him apart, even from the city’s other wealthy and influential leaders. His Australia-based News Corp. earned a profit of $1 billion on revenues of $11.2 billion last year. His satellite and cable TV systems cover parts of five continents, and his newspaper holdings make him a molder of opinion in Great Britain, Australia and the United States.

Yet, as an individual, Murdoch defies analysis. He is the proprietor of salacious tabloid newspapers who disapproves of dirty jokes. After his Fox television network scored record ratings on the strength of such sexually suggestive game shows as “Studs,” Murdoch summarily fired the executive responsible for the show for inviting a male stripper to perform on stage at a corporate function.

What is not disputed is that Murdoch, who owns a Los Angeles mansion, is fearsomely tough and willing to employ his companies in the service of his ambition and interests.

In the 1980s, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy threatened to disrupt Murdoch’s ownership of newspapers and television stations in Boston and New York; Murdoch’s papers in those cities responded with a slew of nasty stories about the senator.

More trivially, during last year’s baseball playoffs, Fox was the network that carried the games. Time and again, cameras would pan the crowd for famous faces, and yet they managed not once to light on Atlanta Braves owner Ted Turner, Murdoch’s longtime rival. Ditto in 1996, when Fox’s World Series coverage managed to show Turner or wife Jane Fonda only after moments in which the Braves faltered or the New York Yankees scored.

At the same time that Murdoch’s style and history make him a profoundly different player in Los Angeles politics, they also make him an unusual friend for the city’s mayor. The Republican Riordan cherishes his warm relationship with organized labor. Murdoch waged war against British and Australian unions. During his business career as a lawyer and venture capitalist, Riordan made relatively few enemies. Murdoch buys and builds companies; his enemies are legion.

Still, Riordan and Murdoch seem to have found common ground.

After a few passing introductions, they first got to know each other at a dinner party in Aspen, Colo., before Riordan became mayor. When Riordan decided to enter politics, Murdoch’s wife, Anna, hosted one of the first Riordan fund-raisers.

They were not drawn together by common ideology. Murdoch can be ferociously conservative, while Riordan, though a Republican, barely seems to recognize ideological labels.

In 1996, for instance, Riordan opposed the state Republican Party and its support for Prop. 209, the measure to ban affirmative action in state hiring and contracting. The mayor called the proposal divisive and warned that it “takes one of our greatest assets, our diversity, and tries to turn it into a liability.”

Murdoch, by contrast, threw considerable financial weight to the state Republican Party just as the initiative campaign was coming to a close. In late September 1996, Murdoch gave $250,000 to the state Republican Party. Two weeks later, he gave $750,000. Murdoch would not comment on those contributions.

Riordan looks past their differences, instead emphasizing his personal fondness for Murdoch. The two have visited each other’s homes and had dinner as recently as last week. Their wives--Anna Murdoch and Nancy Daly Riordan--share an interest in children’s issues, and Riordan says Murdoch has willingly contributed to every cause the mayor has solicited him for.

“He’s a soft touch” for charity, Riordan said.

Telling, for instance, are Murdoch’s reputed contributions to the Catholic archdiocese. Riordan is a devout Catholic and has aided the archdiocese with its campaign to build a new downtown cathedral. Murdoch is not even Catholic. Although neither the church nor Murdoch will comment on the help he has provided the archdiocese, others say Murdoch made contributions, not to the building fund itself but to the church.

In January, Murdoch was awarded the highest honor the Pope can bestow on a layman, the title of Knight Commander of St. Gregory the Great.

In addition, Murdoch and his wife have helped raise money for the Children’s Institute, a group close to Riordan’s heart and that of his wife. According to Riordan, one fund-raiser that Anna Murdoch helped organize raised more than $1 million.

All of that suggests that the Murdoch family knows good works, but rare is the person who sees Rupert Murdoch as benevolent. He is, in fact, considered one of the most singularly ruthless business executives in the world.

His recent adventures in Australian rugby illustrate that point. After launching an Australian TV operation, Murdoch was desperate for programming. He wanted to broadcast professional rugby, an immensely popular sport in Australia, but was shut out by the league. Murdoch’s response: He started his own league. His agents lured top athletes away from the old league. Teams were invited to join the new league, and those that resisted were warned that new teams might soon spring up in their cities.

The effort left fans disillusioned and the sport in ruins.

With that kind of history, Murdoch’s deepening role in Los Angeles has some city leaders privately nervous.

“He’s going to be increasingly powerful and will increasingly exercise influence,” said one influential local leader. “He has big business here, and he will do what he has to to take care of that business.”

Murdoch is not the only outside businessman to stir Los Angeles politics. Phil Anschutz is a Denver billionaire whose sports properties (the Kings hockey team and the coming downtown sports area) and railroad interests (Southern Pacific) have made him a growing presence in Los Angeles affairs. Like Murdoch, Anschutz is not only rich but highly conservative. He helped pay for Colorado’s anti-gay initiative.

But Anschutz’s interests in Los Angeles are largely arm’s length ones. Murdoch is a different story. He lives here, his film and television businesses are based here, and he now owns a cherished city institution.

“This will be the most high-profile local business that we have and one that has an emotional content,” said Chernin. “We have a responsibility to this community.

Murdoch’s entry into baseball, however, does not reflect an attraction to the game itself. In fact, he is the only owner of a major league baseball team who is not a fan of the game, just of the money it represents.

At the 1996 annual meeting of News Corp., Murdoch told his stockholders he believed that sport “absolutely overpowers” movies or any other programming as a draw for subscribers to cable and satellite TV. ‘We intend to . . . use sports as a battering ram and a lead offering in all our pay-television operations.”

If Murdoch fundamentally is a man driven by his business interests--and virtually no one disputes that--then the question that most surrounds his growing attention to Los Angeles and affection for its mayor is: What does Murdoch want?

The long-term answer is simple: a secure base for his growing business operations. In the short term, it is hazardous to predict where Murdoch will focus next. But many suggest he will soon jump into the city’s quest for a football team.

After all, in buying the Dodgers, Murdoch not only gets a city institution and one of the most recognized sports teams in the world, but also the team’s land in Chavez Ravine. It is a picturesque stadium site, close to downtown with a camera-ready view of the Los Angeles skyline long favored by television directors.

It is also a stadium surrounded by 300 acres of parking lots aching to host a football stadium.

Until Murdoch entered the picture, the prospects of football in the ravine were hindered by outgoing Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley’s widely perceived lack of stomach for a fight with community critics. But no one believes that Murdoch--a man willing to battle British labor, tangle with a senior U.S. senator and disrupt an entire nation’s passion for rugby--would have much trouble contemplating a fight with troubled City Councilman Mike Hernandez, whose constituents live near Dodger Stadium.

News Corp. officials insist they are not spoiling for a fight.

“We’re very well aware of the process that has led up to here,” Chernin said of the speculation surrounding Murdoch and football. “We will continue that position for now.”

For now.

Times staff writer Michael A. Hiltzik contributed to this story.

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Murdoch’s Global Reach

The Dodgers give Murdoch’s Australia-based News Corp. a high-prestige product for its sprawling satellite TV empire, which reaches more parts of the globe than any other entertainment company. His holdings include:

UNITED STATES

* Fox Broadcasting Co.; Fox Television, the nation’s largest group; Fox Kids Worldwide, children’s programming

* Fox Family Channel (50% ownership); Fox/Liberty Networks, a group of regional sports channels (50%); Fx; Fox News Channel

* The New York Post newspaper

* TV Guide; the Weekly Standard, a conservative political magazine

* Harper Collins

* Twentieth Century Fox Studio

****

LATIN AMERICA

* Sky Latin America satellite TV reaches 58% of the 87 million Latin American households.

****

BRITAIN

* British Sky Broadcasting (40% ownership) satellite programming service that reaches 6.5 million homes.

* 4 national newspapers--News of the World, the Sun, the Times of London and the Sunday Times.

* Times Literary Supplement

****

GERMANY

* Vox (50%) music channel

****

INDIA

* Zee network (50%)

****

ASIA

* StarTV reaches 260 million households in 53 countries--India and Indonesia are largest

* Channel V music (50%)

* ESPN-Star Sports

****

JAPAN

* JSkyB (25%), Japan’s satellite TV service

****

AUSTRALIA

* Dominant newspaper publisher: the Australian national newspaper reaches 70% of the population. the Daily Telegraph (Sydney); the Herald Sun (Melbourne); nearly 100 daily, weekly and suburban papers.

* FoxTel cable television service (50%) and 31 programming services in which it has an interest.

* Festival Records

* Rugby International

****

News Corp. Highlights (1997)

Major revenues by geographic segment

United States: 70%

Britain, Europe: 18%

Australia: 12%

Major revenues by industry

Television: 25%

Filmed entertainment: 29%