"It was the night we started Sky Television: Feb. 6, 1989," says the Fox Sports chairman and CEO and DirecTV Entertainment group president, one of Rupert Murdoch's longest-serving executives, speaking with characteristic gusto. "It was a bitter London February night, with horizontal rain. We were launching four channels, and everyone said we couldn't do it. I was running around like a cut snake, to use an old Australian expression: I had an armful of tapes that I was racing from one building to another that had to be on the air in half an hour's time -- it was all very chaotic. I'm beating my way through the rain, and out of the murk appears the boss -- resplendent in a dinner suit because there had been a big party for all the good and the great -- and he says, 'Do you know what this means?' I had no idea where he was going. I looked askance at him and said, 'What?' He said, 'It means the end of Communism.'"

The Berlin Wall fell months later, on Nov. 9, 1989, and while not even his most devoted lieutenants would claim that Murdoch was responsible for the fall of Communism, but Hill's anecdote illustrates the type of visionary thinking that has set Murdoch apart and made the News Corp. chairman and CEO not only a successful entrepreneur but also the avatar of Marshall McLuhan's notion of a global village.

That village has become a lot smaller during recent years, thanks in part to Murdoch and his quests and conquests. He has connected people across cultures, class boundaries and continents -- initially through newspapers, then through broadcast television, films, books, satellite TV and now the Internet.

At a time when many moguls might be reflecting on their past glories, Murdoch is quite decidedly fixed on the future. Having built News Corp. from a one-newspaper entity to a $24 billion-a-year media firm, Murdoch has made headlines recently with $1.2 billion worth of Web-based acquisitions, including the purchases of online community MySpace.com and the video game-oriented IGN Entertainment. He has earmarked a total of $2 billion for Internet investment and stated that he might even increase that number -- and what is most striking is the enthusiasm he shows for this portal to the world to come.

"The amazing thing about the Internet is that there is so much passion for it," says Murdoch, 74. "People want to join MySpace, blogging, for free," he adds, struck by the notion that 32 million users have signed up for that site, with another 125,000 joining each day. "And we haven't done anything at all -- haven't promoted or packaged or advertised it, which we will do."

Ross Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media and an integral force behind News Corp.'s Internet business plan, recalls a meeting six months ago at which key company executives presented their investment strategy to Murdoch. One onlooker, cowed by the plan's magnitude, sputtered, "We can't do that!"

"Rupert swung around, looked at the executive and said: 'What do you mean we can't? Of course we can!'" Levinsohn remembers. "And it struck me: I am sure there were plenty of times in the past where somebody said, 'You can't start another broadcast network,' or 'You can't start another cable news network.' It was a telling moment. You have got to think big and dream big because anything is possible."

Says News Corp. president and chief operating officer Peter Chernin: "There is a general misinterpretation of Rupert. People think that he is driven by power, or he is driven by money -- (and) that's completely inaccurate. What Rupert is driven by is curiosity: Rupert is the most curious man I have ever met, relentlessly trying to discover new things and build new things."

What Murdoch has built is arguably the most global of all media concerns. In stark contrast to his beginnings as the proprietor of an Australian outback newspaper, he now heads a vast information-based empire that spans the planet and includes such holdings as 20th Century Fox, Fox Broadcasting and a host of cable networks, about 175 newspapers and a satellite TV operation that crisscrosses the world with services including British Sky Broadcasting, DirecTV and Asia's STAR.

Murdoch's path has taken him from being a minor provincial oligarch and son of a local hero to an international magnate whose goodwill is sought by prime ministers and presidents alike, from being an observer on the world stage to a player so potent that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi met with him last month, in part to obtain assurance of Murdoch's neutrality ahead of that nation's upcoming elections. Not for nothing did the BBC recently describe Murdoch as the most influential man alive.

Whether Murdoch sees himself that way is open to question. A longtime associate jokes that the difference between Murdoch and the late, unlamented British mogul Robert Maxwell, who aspired to be his rival, is that Maxwell thought he had power and did not, whereas Murdoch has power but does not necessarily think so -- or at least doesn't worry about it as much as onlookers might think.

Privileged path

Keith Rupert Murdoch was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1931, the son of Elisabeth and Keith Murdoch, the latter an esteemed journalist who gained a reputation as a correspondent covering World War I's Battle of Gallipoli and later on London's Fleet Street.

Murdoch pere went on to become editor of the Melbourne Herald, a top daily newspaper, and his elegant demeanor and strong business skills allowed him to rise to chairman of its parent company -- which he built into Australia's dominant newspaper syndicate. He was knighted in 1933.

Rupert, the second of four children and only son, to some degree rebeled, embracing socialism during his years at Oxford University, where he was known fondly as "Rupert the Red." Meanwhile, despite his capitalistic ways, Sir Keith never could obtain an ownership stake in the Herald Group. His overtures were rebuffed, and though well-paid, he remained an employee, toiling to enrich others -- a point not lost on Rupert, who for all of his life has built to own, zealously guarding his family's voting control of News Corp.

Sir Keith did have the foresight to assemble a small legacy for his son, picking up the Brisbane Courier-Mail and the Adelaide News as investments.

"The Adelaide thing was something he just visited every three months or so," Murdoch says. "He had had it for about three years, and it was a tiny public company: The market (capitalization) was only about 50,000 (Australian) pounds, or about $300,000. My father took his life savings and bought 51% of it right before he died."

It was Sir Keith's death in 1952, while his son was still at Oxford, that shifted Rupert's life into a very different gear. After Herald Group executives pressed Sir Keith's widow to sell the Courier-Mail, Rupert returned to Australia to run the Adelaide paper. He was 22, fresh out of college and the head of his own publication -- though with a circulation of 75,000, the Adelaide News was emphatically an also-ran to that city's other publication, the Herald-owned Advertiser.

Murdoch's command of the operation stunned his subordinates and might well have come as a pleasant surprise to family members, who couldn't have failed to notice that his grades at Oxford put him distinctly toward the bottom of his class.

At the News, Murdoch did everything from writing headlines to learning the minutiae of how printing presses work (the latter would prove invaluable years later when Murdoch took on entrenched British labor unions after purchasing the London Times).

Known locally as the "boy publisher," Murdoch acted with mature authority, slashing budgets and staff, deploying marketing initiatives and increasing the paper's daily editions. The Herald eventually merged its Adelaide operation with the News, leaving Murdoch with operational control. (It was with no small degree of personal satisfaction that Murdoch would go on to purchase the Melbourne Herald in 1986.)

Murdoch's love of the newspaper business flourished in Adelaide, and that passion continues to this day. In conversation, there is no topic -- not politics, not television, not the Internet -- that arouses his passion like newspapers.

"When the patriarch was alive, my father was a very active editor and publisher," Murdoch says. "He was still a journalist, still writing editorials, right before he died. He'd go through the papers in the morning with a pencil. I have some great memories of that -- I was very lucky."

Even now, while running an international media conglomerate, Murdoch finds the time to look at dozens of newspapers each day. "I skim -- reading and skimming are two different things -- but I look pretty closely (at some)," he says.

The New York Post appears on Murdoch's desk every day, and the London Times goes home with him every night.

"Sometimes I ask for the competition to be sent to me, too," he says. "I spend a couple of hours with the newspapers over the weekend so at least I can talk to the editors or get a feel for their quality or their problems."

Era of expansion

Back in Australia, the News was healthy enough by the late 1950s that Murdoch could expand his operations, and soon he purchased the Sunday Times in Perth, a port city 1,400 miles west of Adelaide. Even with a new wife and child, Murdoch's energy was relentless as he flew back and forth, hiring and firing staff members.

He shook things up by mounting loud promotions and upping the sensationalist content of the Times, which some critics say is the paper that marked the birth of "Murdoch journalism."

One Murdoch biographer, Thomas Kiernan, has described the Times' tabloid style as "exaggerated" and nothing more than "the rewriting of cryptic, laconic news-service copy into lavishly sensationalized yarns," topped with an "eye-shattering ... gratuitously blood-curdling headline: 'Leper Rapes Virgin, Gives Birth to Monster Baby.'"

But William Shawcross, a more temperate author, quotes a Perth-based journalist as recalling that "the Sunday Times had been tawdry before Murdoch bought it and remained tawdry afterward, though perhaps more sparkily so."

The Times marked the first of many building-block acquisitions for Murdoch's intercontinental empire. In 1969, he crossed to the United Kingdom, where he purchased working-class tabloids the News of the World and the Sun and then the upper-crust Times and Sunday Times, Britain's most prestigious papers. Murdoch entered the U.S. market with his 1973 takeover of the San Antonio Express and the San Antonio News, launched national tabloid the Star a year later, then purchased the Post and TV Guide -- the latter in a $3 billion acquisition that came to be characterized as one of Murdoch's few missteps.

Global citizen

Perhaps it was inevitable that Murdoch's deep involvement in print media would trigger comparisons with Charles Foster Kane, the publisher kingpin of Orson Welles' 1941 film "Citizen Kane." The conservative-leaning Murdoch has made no secret of throwing his newspapers' weight behind his hand-picked candidates, but the record indicates a more complex figure than the right-wing ideologue Murdoch is frequently portrayed to be. Political leaders who have benefited from his support include not only conservative icons Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan but also Britain's New Labour Party Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

Manhattan-based journalists are now busy speculating whether Murdoch will endorse liberal Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., for reelection or in a possible presidential bid.

"Although Rupert is widely assumed to be an ideological creature solely of the right, the fact is that he's a businessman before he is an ideologist, and he likes to be with a winner," longtime London Times New York bureau chief Nicholas Wapshott told the New York Observer in June.

Adds Chernin, "We have a wide variety of newspapers around the world -- also a huge variety of video news divisions, from Sky News to India -- and they have wide and varied points of view."

Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes believes that no matter whom Murdoch supports, he simply "can't escape criticism."

Murdoch shrugs off his critics' carping. "I don't say that they hate us, but they certainly write negatively," he says.

Ailes has inspired his share of vitriolic media coverage as head of Fox News Channel, which touts itself with the catchphrase "Fair and Balanced" but which liberal media outlets characterize as a right-wing mouthpiece. Murdoch counters that the channel simply has counterbalanced preexisting forces.

"When we started Fox News, (American news) presentation was very monolithic," he says. "Network news and CNN all followed the style and the agenda of the New York Times. And they said so: (CNN founder) Ted Turner said, 'I want to be the New York Times of the air.' Unless a story was really presented to them on a plate, the three big network half-hours were really follow-ups of the stories that were in the New York Times. I think Fox News has changed that tremendously."

Fox News was itself the outgrowth of one of Murdoch's boldest ventures: the 1985 acquisition of 20th Century Fox. With the help of then-Fox executive Barry Diller, Murdoch accomplished the previously unimaginable -- the launch of a fourth U.S. broadcast network -- in a move that would pave the way for his modern empire.

It is telling that the numerous biographies of Murdoch give the 20th Century Fox purchase scant mention. The $575 million acquisition was the means to a greater end: Fox would become the programming pipeline that would fuel Murdoch's new television service.

He had been looking around for an engine to drive his television dreams for some time. In 1983, Murdoch had made a run at Warner Bros. parent Warner Communications; the takeover was quashed, but not his appetite. He jumped at the chance to buy Fox from oilman Marvin Davis and by 1987 had Fox Broadcasting up and running. It was a gargantuan feat.

Moving to combine production and distribution in such a manner was not a simple challenge. Numerous government regulations limited broadcast and publishing synergy, and at the time, none of the other studios was allied with a broadcast network.

Among the obstacles in 1985 were FCC rules prohibiting foreigners from owning networks and entities from owning newspapers and TV stations in the same market. There were also financial interest and syndication rules that restricted networks from owning their programming.

But Murdoch was not worried about the rules. He would start Fox slowly so it would not initially be classified as a network -- any service that provided more than 15 hours a week of national programming -- and buy time to get the rules changed. He became a U.S. citizen later that year.

The plan worked. As Fox grew, Murdoch convinced Washington that it would be healthy for competition to start a new network. He managed to obtain a "temporary waiver" to the FCC rules, later made permanent through strenuous lobbying that saw the both the fin-syn and cross-ownership rules diluted. Game over! Today, every U.S. broadcast network is paired with a film studio.

That Murdoch paid less than $600 million for the Fox studio, and more than $2 billion for the stations that would form the backbone of the fledgling Fox network, illustrates the dynamic at play within News Corp.

But corporate expansion and the stock market crash of 1987 conspired to create a financial crisis for Murdoch in 1990, when News Corp. reported revenue of $6.7 billion and saw more than $7 billion in debt come due. With News Corp. shares plummeting from $24 to $8 as a result of the Black Monday crash and Murdoch's buying sprees continuing unabated, creditors became nervous. A refinancing plan was put in place, but at the last minute, one small bank in Pittsburgh refused to go along with the scheme, demanding repayment of a $10 million loan.

That $10 million loan nearly caused the entire collapse of News Corp.: An extraordinary race against time ensued in which Murdoch and his financial advisers struggled to convince the company's 100-plus creditors to agree to a deal by which they would all be paid at the same time. Only at the eleventh hour did the Pittsburgh bank capitulate, to Murdoch's great relief.

The mogul managed to get through the ordeal without parting with substantial blocks of stock, which likely would have forced him to lose control of the company he created (a fate that befell his rival, Turner). At one point, though, Murdoch reportedly did have to sign over as security personal assets, including his New York penthouse.

Today, the studio and the Fox owned-and-operated stations are News Corp.'s cash machines. The network, Fox Broadcasting Group, is described by one corporate spokesman as a "loss leader" for the Fox Television Stations Group, largely because of the high cost of primetime programming.

20th Century Fox also provided the content and infrastructure with which to launch several highly profitable cable networks including FX and Fox Sports, with the latter now reaching 80 million U.S. homes. Reorganized under the Fox Entertainment Group umbrella, News Corp.'s U.S. film, TV and other entertainment properties were spun off in a 1998 initial public offering that raised $2.8 billion -- the largest pure-play media IPO to date.

Murdoch continues to expand News Corp.'s global footprint with BSkyB (the world's most successful direct-to-home satellite broadcaster) and STAR (which reaches about 300 million viewers). In 2003, he obtained a long-sought U.S. satellite perch by acquiring a major share of Hughes Electronics -- including DirecTV -- for $6.6 billion.

But one of Murdoch's most impressive moves to date has been a sale, not an acquisition: He and Haim Saban sold Fox Family Worldwide to the Walt Disney Co. in 2001 for an astonishing $1.7 billion, a figure that left then-Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner with egg on his face.

Inevitably, Murdoch has made enemies along the way. The Communist government of China has kept an arm's-length relationship with the entrepreneur, despite his repeated attempts to expand in that market -- possibly in response to Murdoch's widely quoted comments positioning satellite TV as "an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes." Conversely, Murdoch drew ferocious criticism for pandering to China during the mid-1990s when he kicked the BBC World Service off STAR because it was deemed critical of the Chinese government.

And yet, while Murdoch has left bodies in his wake, his trusted aides describe him on and off the record as a loyal boss who gives them immense leeway -- so long as they deliver results.

"He always asks the right questions," Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman Tom Rothman says.

"If you are making a big movie, he'll say: 'Do you love it? Is the script great?' He is also a guy who really has a very keen understanding of creative people."

Rothman adds that Murdoch does not waver, even under exceptionally challenging circumstances -- as when "Titanic," a Fox-financed 1997 feature, went $100 million over budget. Murdoch backed Chernin's decision to keep "Titanic" afloat and not pull the plug because he believed that the film ultimately would succeed.

To those who do not know him, Murdoch is, in Winston Churchill's famous words, a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma: a conservative whose thinking has placed him at the center of the information revolution; a small-town boy who has become a globetrotter nonpareil; a billionaire many times over (who recently purchased Laurence Rockefeller's New York penthouse condominium for $44 million) whose tastes reportedly are rather simple, and a ruthless businessman who can be surprisingly humane.

Murdoch is, according to those who know him, a rather old-fashioned gentleman. Publishing maverick Judith Regan speaks of his "impeccable manners" and genteel behavior, and a key News Corp. executive describes the great taste one encounters inside Murdoch's handful of homes.

To filmmakers at the Fox studio, though, Murdoch remains elusive, somewhat mysterious. "Titanic" director James Cameron recalls running into him in the hallway after a tense budget meeting with Fox film executives during the making of "Titanic." "I expected him to give me a hard time, but he didn't," Cameron says. What Murdoch did tell him: Make sure the movie is "better than good."

"Star Wars" creator George Lucas describes Murdoch as "a man who obviously works at a higher level than most people in this industry. He's looking at the very big picture, which is always interesting."

Says former 20th Century Fox executive Tom Sherak: "He is very competitive; he wants to win; he is very direct. I know people look at him as this rough, powerful Republican, but he is a very kind man who demands and expects both excellence and the truth -- and he won't settle for less."

The road ahead

What lies ahead for Murdoch -- and News Corp. -- is unclear. Lately, Murdoch has taken action to fend off Liberty Media's John Malone, who has been gobbling up News Corp. stock, fueling speculation about his long-term intentions. Murdoch also has had to grapple with a shareholder revolt regarding his "poison pill" strategy to keep Malone at bay.

The Malone battle has fueled discussion about one of the most pressing issues facing News Corp.: succession plans. Analysts have speculated that Malone or another outsider might want to wrest control of the company from Murdoch or his heirs.

For the time being, voting control rests in the hands of the Murdoch family trust's 28.5% majority share of the company's voting stock -- but Malone's quick drive-up to an 18% voting stake clearly troubled his one-time ally.

While Malone proclaims innocent intentions, Murdoch has had to deal with internal problems in the wake of his son Lachlan's widely publicized exit from News Corp. and his post as publisher of one of his father's favorite baubles, the New York Post. Some observers have speculated that Lachlan, the heir apparent, was chafing under his father's reins, but Lachlan said he simply wished to return to Australia and spend more time there with his wife and son.

Lachlan's departure has left his brother James, who heads BSkyB in London, as the only remaining Murdoch child working within the company. The family also clearly has been shaken by rifts that emerged in the wake of

Murdoch's 1998 split from his second wife, Anna, after 31 years of marriage. Rumor has it that Anna was intent on his retirement, but in 1999 Murdoch married Yale MBA Wendi Deng -- whom he met while she was working at STAR -- and did not slacken his workload.

Rupert and Wendi have since had two daughters, and family rifts deepened when Murdoch explored changing the legacy trust created by Sir Keith to allow his children with Deng to share News Corp. voting rights with their four elder siblings. In his 2001 book "Virtual Murdoch," biographer Neil Chenoweth characterizes the Murdoch succession as "arguably the largest transfer of wealth and global power of the late 20th century."

For now, Chernin has been designated Murdoch's hand-picked successor to helm the company. But the executive, who recently renewed his contract with News Corp., leaves the door open to the possibility that Lachlan might return. "I can't say whether he is going to come back," he says. "I assume he will at some point."

As for his own future, Chernin adds, talks about succession "are private conversations between Rupert and I."

But Murdoch's future is not of immediate concern. After surviving prostate cancer, he appears in excellent shape and is looking forward to further action -- still a long way from lamenting, like Alexander the Great, that there are no new worlds to conquer.

Murdoch laughs when asked about retirement, emphatic that he enjoys every moment of his working life. Whatever the daily struggles, he says, "there is no better job in the world."