Following his father's death, when he was…

Following his father's death, when he was 21, Rupert Murdoch had returned from Oxford to take charge of the family business News Limited, which had been established in 1923.

Murdoch, having turned its newspaper, Adelaide News, its main asset, into a major success, had begun to direct his attention to acquisition and expansion, buying the troubled Sunday Times in Perth, Western Australia in 1956 and over the next few years acquiring suburban and provincial newspapers in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and the Northern Territory, including the Sydney afternoon tabloid, The Daily Mirror, in 1960.

The Economist describes Murdoch as "inventing the modern tabloid" as he develops a pattern for his newspapers, increasing sports and scandal coverage and adopting eye-catching headlines.

Murdoch's first foray outside Australia involves the purchase of a controlling interest in the New Zealand daily The Dominion.

In January 1964, while touring New Zealand with friends in a rented Morris Minor after sailing across the Tasman Sea, Murdoch had read of a takeover bid for the Wellington paper by the British-based Canadian newspaper magnate, Lord Thomson of Fleet.

On the spur of the moment, he launched a counter-bid.

A four-way battle for control ensued in which the 32 year old Murdoch was ultimately successful.

Murdoch establishes Australia’s first national newspaper, The Australian, in 1964, based first in Canberra and later in Sydney.