传媒大亨默多克的中国狂热

传媒大亨默多克的中国狂热

许多大企业在过去20年来，均曾试图寻找进入中国市场的契机，但极少数能像默多克（Rupert Murdoch）的新闻集团（News Corporation）这样对中国市场热切又坚定的。(chinesenewsnet.com)

《纽约时报》6月26日大篇幅报导了默多克多年来在中国市场投入的心力。(chinesenewsnet.com)

报导指出，默多克与中国官员的接触频繁，他旗下的福克斯新闻网（Fox News）还曾协助国家广播网建立新闻网页，默多克也曾给予中国共青团电视资讯方面的指导。(chinesenewsnet.com)

默多克的第三任妻子邓文迪，曾在默多克其下的香港卫星广播网Star TV工作。邓文迪目前的角色便是管理投资与处理中国方面的事务，不过，在76岁的默多克退休或逝世后，此家族企业新闻集团该如何继续，却是一个待解决的问题。(chinesenewsnet.com)

虽然年事已高，但默多克对中国的热情并未随着时间减损。实际上，中国法律上的限制以及管理疏失曾让默多克在进军中国时遭遇挫折，2005年新闻集团竞标主要时段播放权失利后，默多克曾认为自己在中国的事业遇到了“砖墙”，因为那一场“战役”中，默多克投入了数千万美元的经费。(chinesenewsnet.com)

不过，当默多克企图买下《华尔街日报》母公司道琼斯之际，默多克在中国的营业成绩相对来说较少被注意，因为他的管理风格比起营收或亏损，更吸引人。(chinesenewsnet.com)

几位在中国为默多克工作的人士表示，默多克与中国审查·单位以及国家广播部门合作密切，他培养自己在政治方面的联系，好让他的事业能尽量不受法律的干扰。(chinesenewsnet.com)

举例来说，在某些演说或受访的场合，默多克经常公开支持中国领导的政策、攻击反对者的言论。在一封由中国记者团体对道琼斯股东发出的信中，这群人控告默多克“牺牲新闻整体性，来满足个人或政治目标。”(chinesenewsnet.com)

不过，默多克的立场让他成为受中国领导欢迎的外国媒体大亨。默多克不但曾与江泽民在北京会面，也在北京、纽约与伦敦等地不断与其他中国高层有所接触。与默多克合作的电视频道比起任何其他的外国媒体集团，还要快打入中国实际上，中国对新闻集团来说，并不是一个非有不可的市场，因为该集团在中国的营收只占整个公司的一小部分，约为680亿美元，但默多克花了15年的时间来推动成立卫星电视网，好涵盖世界每个主要市场，这市场包括中国。


新闻集团主席默多克和夫人邓文迪
(chinesenewsnet.com)

新闻集团在电视与电影方面的对手如华特迪士尼公司（The Walt Disney Company）、维雅康姆（Viacom）、时代华纳(Time Warner)等，也试图将经费投入中国市场，希望取得一张当地的通行证。(chinesenewsnet.com)

不过，据默多克同僚表示，新闻集团跟对手不同的地方在于，该集团投入的更多。(chinesenewsnet.com)

在新闻集团中负责政府关系的H. S. Liu指出：“中国发现新闻集团是个真正的国王，掌控每一件事……他的对手有的则是巨大的官僚组织。”(chinesenewsnet.com)

对默多克来说，中国的意义大於企业上的收益。1997年，默多克拜访上海时，遇见了当时在香港新闻集团工作的邓文迪，邓文迪前往上海的目的，是担任默多克的翻译。(chinesenewsnet.com)

在家中是长女的邓文迪，于山东出生，邓文迪呱呱落地时，默多克正在收购伦敦的《世界新闻》。邓文迪一家人后来搬到了徐州，从此邓文迪在当地长大。(chinesenewsnet.com)

1996年，邓文迪在默多克的Star TV里实习，隔年，她遇到了默多克。(chinesenewsnet.com)

默多克在中国的热切经营，还可从几件事情中看出端倪。2001年，新闻集团封杀了末代港督彭定康所写的一篇文章，理由是该文描述一位中Gong外交人员和脱衣舞俱乐部之间的关系，被断定将影响默多克在中国的前途，因此，默多克也拒绝出版彭定康的《Eastand West》一书，因为书内对中Gong多所批评。(chinesenewsnet.com)

另一方面，默多克旗下的HarperCollins出版公司，则愿意出版邓小平女儿邓榕所着的《邓小平——女儿心中的父亲》一书，此书描写了邓小平的生平，而默多克则可得到100万美元的报酬，只是，此书的销量并不好。(chinesenewsnet.com)

此外，Star TV也配合中国的口味来调整节目内容。1994年，Star TV撤下了英国广播公司BBC的新闻，理由是BBC的新闻不断播放一名在天anmen广场前、躺在tanke车下的青年画面，让中国政府感到气愤。(chinesenewsnet.com)

默多克表示，此决定是出于商业考量，不是政治因素。


新闻集团积极与道琼斯商议收购事宜。（路透社）
(chinesenewsnet.com)

《纽约时报》称，中国馆方向来不喜欢西方新兴媒体对中国的报导，而希望能以自己想要的形象在世界面前露脸，默多克正好提供了这样的管道。(chinesenewsnet.com)

1996年，默多克与曾是中央人民广播电台记者的刘长乐联手开办了兼具新闻与娱乐频道的凤凰卫视，凤凰卫视的前身是香港卫视中文台，由默多克从李泽楷手中收购过来。(chinesenewsnet.com)

在合作计画下，刘长乐掌控的今日亚洲和默多克旗下的Star TV在新组建的凤凰卫视中各持股45％，余下的10％由华颖国际广告公司所有；显然看好中国传媒市场的默多克希望借与刘长乐共同成立的凤凰卫视做管道，打入中国内地市场。(chinesenewsnet.com)

但实际情况是，由于中国的政策限制和盗版等因素，默多克在进入中国市场方面一直鲜有突破性的进展。(chinesenewsnet.com)

直至2006年6月，本与今日亚洲并列为第一大股东的Star TV，做出减持股份的决定，之后Star TV将以17.6％的持股退居第三席，今日亚洲则以37.5％的持股成为凤凰卫视的单一最大股东。Star TV将凤凰卫视19.9％的股权出售给中移动。(chinesenewsnet.com)

默多克在声明中表示，希望藉此与中移动结缘，双方将建立广泛的战略合作伙伴关系，共同开拓无线传媒业务。(chinesenewsnet.com)

此外，新闻集团也将触角伸到中央电视台。当默多克得知央视希望发展新闻网时，默多克派出了福克斯新闻小组协助央视设计与经营新闻网。(chinesenewsnet.com)

此外，新闻集团也与美国“国家地理频道”筹建电视节目制作合资公司，国家地理频道由新闻集团与国家地理电视和美国全国广播公司共同拥有，该计画每年提供300小时的电视节目，为中央电视台下属的两家数字付费电视开发商“中数传媒”和节目供应商“央视风云传播”提供支持。(chinesenewsnet.com)

默多克前中国地区经理指出，新闻集团的想法是，以他们的技术来交换中国方面同等的回馈。(chinesenewsnet.com)

1998年12月，江泽民会见了默多克，肯定了新闻集团在促进“让世界了解中国和让中国了解世界”方面所做的努力。


默多克与星空卫视。
(chinesenewsnet.com)

1999年3月，新闻集团北京代表处成立，2000年，Star TV在上海设立代表处，成为首家获准在沪设立代表处的境外传媒公司。2000年5月，默多克任命他的二儿子杰智（James Murdoch）为Star TV的总裁，他本人每年至少前往中国考察两次，显示出默多克对中国市场的重视。(chinesenewsnet.com)

2000年至2003年间担任总裁的杰智，曾于2001年在洛杉矶的演说中表示，在中国的西方记者支持所谓的扰乱力量，对中国政府来说，是“非常、非常危险的”。(chinesenewsnet.com)

2002年，Star TV通过广东有线电视网正式开播。虽然据新闻集团2005年的年报显示，Star TV视吸引了超过820万的用户，创该台历史最高，但由于广东当地电视台在节目上插播自己的广告等因素，Star TV的盈利状况始终不佳，且新闻集团的掌控范围只有9个频道，除了被获准在广东省全面落地，其他绝大部分频道都被局限于在三星级以上宾馆与涉外小区内播放，默多克想要更多。(chinesenewsnet.com)

好消息在2004年底降临。该年新闻集团以间接方式，将自制内容通过青海卫视向全国观众播放，此外，新闻集团也购买了中国25个省分的主要时段播放权。2005年8月，这项试图通过青海卫视扩大在中国收视范围的举措却被国家广电总局叫停，一度引发“新闻集团准备撤离中国”的话题。(chinesenewsnet.com)

但这位传媒大亨并未放弃，2006年11月，默多克分别拜会了北京奥组委主席刘淇与中 宣部部长刘云山，表明为2008年北京奥运会宣传作贡献的愿望。(chinesenewsnet.com)

此外，默多克还投身手机事业。同年11月，默多克出现在Star TV与中国移动在京举办的新闻发布会现场，与中移动董事长王建宙一同现身。这次两人是为了宣布共同推出“[V]无线原创音乐平台”而来。(chinesenewsnet.com)

此平台建立于中国移动的移动梦网上，提供2.87亿的中国移动用户直接通过手机下载歌曲，并投票选出自己最喜爱的作品，而优秀的作品将被拍摄成专业MV，并在Channel[V]、Star TV及全国多家电视频道播出。(chinesenewsnet.com)

另一项计画，便是针对中国的MySpace事业。邓文迪去年底与新闻集团高管一道工作，就MySpace进入中国的合资计划展开行动；今年春季，此计画已开始执行。且MySpace的每个网页上，均有报告“不当资讯”的连结，当使用者能随时通知官方。微软、Google、雅虎在中国的网页也有类似的机制。(chinesenewsnet.com)

此外，默多克将很快地能将北京当成另一个家。默多克于北京花费500万美元，为家人买下了距紫禁城不远的一处四合院，目前新装潢已接近完工。(chinesenewsnet.com)
Murdoch’s Dealings in China: It’s Business, and It’s Personal


By JOSEPH KAHN
Published: June 26, 2007

BEIJING, June 25 — Many big companies have sought to break into the Chinese market over the past two decades, but few of them have been as ardent and unrelenting as Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.
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Rupert and Wendi Murdoch at a Hollywood party in February.
The Murdochracy
Ventures in China
Murdoch, Ruler of a Vast Empire, Reaches Out for Even More (June 25, 2007)
Times Topics: Rupert Murdoch
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A receptionist at the News Corporation’s offices in Beijing. Television channels affiliated with Rupert Murdoch beam more programming into China than any other foreign media group.

Mr. Murdoch has flattered Communist Party leaders and done business with their children. His Fox News network helped China’s leading state broadcaster develop a news Web site. He joined hands with the Communist Youth League, a power base in the ruling party, in a risky television venture, his China managers and advisers say.

Mr. Murdoch’s third wife, Wendi, is a mainland Chinese who once worked for his Hong Kong-based satellite broadcaster, Star TV. Her role in managing investments and honing elite connections in China has underscored uncertainties within the Murdoch family about how the family-controlled News Corporation will be run after Mr. Murdoch, 76, retires or dies.

Regulatory barriers and management missteps have thwarted Mr. Murdoch’s hopes of big profits in China. He has said his local business hit a “brick wall” after a bid to corral prime-time broadcasting rights fell apart in 2005, costing him tens of millions of dollars.

But as he seeks to buy Dow Jones, the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, his track record in China has attracted attention less because of profits and losses than for what it shows about his management style.

Mr. Murdoch cooperates closely with China’s censors and state broadcasters, several people who worked for him in China say. He cultivates political ties that he hopes will insulate his business ventures from regulatory interference, these people say.

In speeches and interviews, Mr. Murdoch often supports the policies of Chinese leaders and attacks their critics. A group of China-based reporters for The Journal accused him in a letter to Dow Jones shareholders of “sacrificing journalistic integrity to satisfy personal and political aims,” a charge the News Corporation denies.

His courtship has made him the Chinese leadership’s favorite foreign media baron. He has dined with former President Jiang Zemin in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing and repeatedly met other members of the ruling Politburo in Beijing, New York and London. Television channels affiliated with Mr. Murdoch beam more programming into China than any other foreign media group.

“The reality is that the Chinese government is not going to let anything radical happen in media,” says Gary Davey, an Australian who once ran Star TV for Mr. Murdoch. “But we got a lot farther than anyone else did.”

News Corporation officials in Beijing and Hong Kong declined to comment for this article. After The New York Times began a two-part series on Monday about how Mr. Murdoch operates his company, the News Corporation issued a statement:

“News Corp. has consistently cooperated with The New York Times in its coverage of the company. However, the agenda for this unprecedented series is so blatantly designed to further the Times’s commercial self interests — by undermining a direct competitor poised to become an even more formidable competitor — that it would be reckless of us to participate in their malicious assault. Ironically, The Times, by using its news pages to advance its own corporate business agenda, is doing the precise thing they accuse us of doing without any evidence.”

China has never been a make-or-break proposition for the News Corporation, since its operations here represent a small part of the company, which is valued at $68 billion. But Mr. Murdoch pushed for nearly 15 years to create a satellite television network that would cover every major market in the world, including China.

He coveted the $50 billion in ad spending that flows mainly to China’s state-owned news media whose products, even after years of improvements, still reflect propaganda directives as well as consumer demand.

The News Corporation’s competitors in television and film, the Walt Disney Company, Viacom and Time Warner, also had to accommodate Chinese demands as the price of admission to the local market.

But Mr. Murdoch gave more, his associates said.

“The Chinese discovered that Rupert was a real emperor who controlled everything himself,” said H. S. Liu, who oversaw government relations for the News Corporation in China. “His rivals had big, cautious bureaucracies that could not always deliver.”

China has long meant more than business to the Murdoch clan. Mr. Murdoch’s father, Keith, wrote about China as a war correspondent in the 1930s. As a newspaper proprietor in Australia, he collected Ming dynasty porcelain.



When Rupert Murdoch visited Shanghai in 1997, Wendi Deng, then a junior News Corporation employee in Hong Kong, flew up to serve as his translator. Together they explored Shanghai, which was then emerging as a lively center of finance and commerce.
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Jiang Zemin, then president of China, meeting with Mr. Murdoch in 1997.
The Murdochracy
Ventures in China
Murdoch, Ruler of a Vast Empire, Reaches Out for Even More (June 25, 2007)
Times Topics: Rupert Murdoch

“He was knocked over by the place,” recalled Bruce Dover, a former China manager for Mr. Murdoch, “and by her.” Within two years, Mr. Murdoch had left his second wife, Anna Mann, and married Ms. Deng.

Clawing Back

Mr. Murdoch’s initial foray into China was disastrous. Shortly after he purchased the satellite broadcaster Star TV in Hong Kong for nearly $1 billion in 1993, he made a speech in London that enraged the Chinese leadership.

He said that modern communications technology had “proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere.” Star could beam programming to every corner of China, and Murdoch had paid a big premium for the broadcaster for that reason.

Prime Minister Li Peng promptly outlawed private ownership of satellite dishes, which had once proliferated on rooftops. Star TV faced a threat to its viability.

Chinese leaders rebuffed his attempts to apologize in person — a ban that lasted nearly four years. But he sought to placate them. One target was Deng Xiaoping, then retired but still China’s senior leader.

HarperCollins, Mr. Murdoch’s book unit, published a biography of Mr. Deng written by his daughter, Deng Rong. Although it mainly recycled propaganda about Mr. Deng, Mr. Murdoch threw an elaborate book party at Le Cirque in New York. The book sold poorly.

He also cultivated ties with Mr. Deng’s eldest son, Deng Pufang, who is disabled. Mr. Murdoch chartered a jet to ferry a troop of disabled acrobats that the younger Mr. Deng had promoted to perform abroad, according to a former News Corporation official.

Star TV overhauled its programming to suit Chinese tastes. In 1994 it dropped BBC News, which had frequently angered Chinese officials with its reports on mainland affairs.

Mr. Murdoch said the decision was made for business reasons, not political reasons. Mr. Davey, who then ran Star TV, agreed that cost was a primary consideration.

But he said he had pressed the British broadcaster to stop showing a video of a man facing down a tank outside Tiananmen Square — an indelible image from China’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1989 — during its on-air programming breaks. He said the BBC refused, calling the video a “journalistic presentation.”

“The BBC never got the sensitivities of the situation,” Mr. Davey said. “It was relentless and stupid. Neither party was too upset about ending the relationship.”

If Star was a potential threat to the one-party state, it was also a new opportunity. Chinese officials disliked Western news media coverage of China and wanted to present their own face to the world. Mr. Murdoch provided the access they wanted.

In 1996, he entered a joint venture with Liu Changle, a onetime radio host for the People’s Liberation Army who had connections with propaganda officials. Their joint news and entertainment channel, called Phoenix, beamed programs to the small number of urban households permitted to see foreign broadcasts in China. Mr. Murdoch transmitted the same programming around the world on his satellites.

Phoenix imitated the fast pace and on-the-scene reporting style popular in the West and shook up the mainland’s staid news media, which still featured well-coiffed narrators reading scripts about meetings between senior leaders held that day. But Phoenix also tended to steer clear of the most sensitive political topics and could be bombastically nationalistic.

Phoenix may have demonstrated that the Chinese news media could become more sophisticated and dynamic without threatening the party’s power. It also showed that Mr. Murdoch could be an asset.

“Officials realized he had a good intentions,” Mr. Liu said.

After Phoenix proved a hit, Ding Guangen, a hard-liner who exercised sweeping control over all Chinese news media as chief of the country’s Propaganda Department, granted Mr. Murdoch his first meeting. So did Zhu Rongji, then the prime minister.

Mr. Zhu noted that Mr. Murdoch had become an American citizen to comply with television ownership rules in the United States. He joked that if he wanted to broadcast more in China, he should consider becoming Chinese, a person who attended the meeting recalled.

Friendly Relations

The News Corporation’s outreach intensified. When Mr. Murdoch learned that China Central Television, known as CCTV, was struggling to develop a news Web site, he dispatched a team from Fox News to help design and operate one. Another News Corporation team brought People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, online.



China also needed help encrypting satellite transmissions so it could develop a pay-TV service, a specialty of the News Corporation’s NDS subsidiary. NDS helped Beijing create a proprietary encryption system. It never realized sizable royalties, people who worked at the News Corporation said.
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The Murdochracy
Ventures in China
Murdoch, Ruler of a Vast Empire, Reaches Out for Even More (June 25, 2007)
Times Topics: Rupert Murdoch

Similarly, the company brought delegations of Chinese officials to Britain, so they could study how Mr. Murdoch’s BSkyB unit had become a lucrative gateway for satellite television in Europe.

“Our thinking was that we would show off our technology and they would contract News Corporation to do the same for them,” said Mr. Dover, Mr. Murdoch’s former China manager. “Their thinking was, ‘We want this for ourselves.’ ”

“It ended being more of a giveaway,” Mr. Dover said.

In late 1998, President Jiang invited Mr. Murdoch to Zhongnanhai. The official Xinhua news agency, reporting on the session, made clear that the media baron had a new reputation.

“President Jiang expressed appreciation for the efforts made by world media mogul Rupert Murdoch in presenting China objectively and cooperating with the Chinese press over the last two years,” Xinhua said.

The Murdochs often echoed the Chinese government line. In a 1999 interview with Vanity Fair, Mr. Murdoch spoke disparagingly of the Dalai Lama, whom the Chinese condemn as a separatist. “I have heard cynics who say he is a very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes,” he said.

James Murdoch, who ran Star TV from 2000 to 2003, said in a speech in Los Angeles in 2001 that Western reporters in China supported “destabilizing forces” that are “very, very dangerous for the Chinese government.” He lashed out at the Falun Gong spiritual sect, which had just endured brutal repression in China, calling it “dangerous and apocalyptic.”

The Journal won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the suppression of the Falun Gong movement in 2001. Last month, seven China-based reporters for The Journal wrote a letter to Dow Jones’s current controlling shareholders arguing that the articles on Falun Gong “may never have seen the light of day” if The Journal had been owned by Mr. Murdoch.

News Corporation officials say such fears are baseless. While several reporters who worked in China for the company’s publications in the 1990s say Mr. Murdoch’s editors pressed them to tone down their coverage of delicate issues that could anger the Chinese leadership, reporters serving in such posts now say they have not come under similar pressures.

By the late 1990s, Mr. Murdoch was traveling several times a year to the country. He was often joined by Wendi Murdoch, who left her formal position in the company but continued to scout for investments in China and participate in strategy decisions there, several people who worked for the News Corporation said.

One of her roles: introducing her husband to Chinese entrepreneurs. Many of them had received business degrees in the United States, as she had at Yale.

The Murdochs invested about $150 million in half a dozen start-up Internet and telecom companies at the height of the Internet bubble between 1999 and 2001. Only one, Netcom, returned an appreciable investment profit, two former News Corporation executives said.

But one of the entrepreneurs the Murdochs befriended during the investment spree was Jiang Mianheng, the son of President Jiang. Ms. Murdoch and some other News Corporation employees argued internally that the younger Mr. Jiang could help Star distribute its broadcasts more widely, two former News Corporation executives said.

It is unclear what role, if any, Mr. Jiang played. But in 2002, the company became the first foreign broadcaster to receive “landing rights” to sell programs to cable systems in Guangdong Province, near Hong Kong.

The license came with a catch. The News Corporation again consented to transmit Chinese programs — this time, the English-language news, talk shows and cultural shows on CCTV’s Channel 9 — to the United States and Britain. Time Warner later agreed to similar terms. But the market appeared to be opening, with the News Corporation in the lead.

Prime Time

The News Corporation and its joint venture partners controlled 9 of the 31 foreign channels, including news, movies, music videos and sports, more than any other foreign media company. Officially, however, it could still reach only government and foreign compounds and luxury hotels, as well as homes in Guangdong. Mr. Murdoch wanted more.

Good news appeared to come in 2004. The authorities began allowing Chinese-foreign joint ventures to produce shows that could be broadcast locally without the restrictions that apply to overseas content.
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The Murdochracy
Ventures in China
Murdoch, Ruler of a Vast Empire, Reaches Out for Even More (June 25, 2007)
Times Topics: Rupert Murdoch

Mr. Murdoch interpreted the order liberally. The News Corporation allied itself with a state-run broadcaster in the western province of Qinghai. The arrangement covered not only production but also distribution. Through middlemen, the News Corporation also purchased prime-time slots in 25 Chinese provinces. It had become a backdoor national broadcaster.

Aware that the venture pushed the limits of what regulators allowed, the News Corporation sought to arrange political cover, people involved in arranging the deal said. It recruited a media and stock market entrepreneur named Ding Yuchen to join the venture as a partner. Mr. Ding’s father, Ding Guangen, was the longtime propaganda chief. A second partner was the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League, considered the political power base of China’s new top leader, Hu Jintao.

In comments to News Corporation investors in early 2005, Mr. Murdoch boasted of a “new venture,” which he did not name, “where we’ll have nearly 50 percent of a prime-time channel, which will have access to well over 100 million homes.”

It did not endure. The News Corporation used Qinghai to broadcast branded shows it had produced for its own, more limited channel. When they began appearing nationally, competitors complained that Mr. Murdoch was getting special treatment.

The Propaganda Department forced the News Corporation to end its involvement with Qinghai shortly thereafter. The cost of the debacle: between $30 million and $60 million, people connected to the company at the time said.

News Corporation executives said they felt the political winds had shifted against them. President Jiang, who retired from his final post as military chief in 2004, had lost much of his day-to-day influence. President Hu’s propaganda team pulled in the reins. Mr. Murdoch said publicly that he had hit a “brick wall.”

Mr. Liu, Mr. Murdoch’s partner at Phoenix, said the Qinghai venture “is not something I would have tried” because it ran afoul of media regulations. But he said Mr. Murdoch had not lost the good will of senior officials. “They still recognize his contributions,” he said.

When Mr. Murdoch visited China late last year, he met Liu Yunshan, Mr. Ding’s successor as propaganda chief, and Liu Qi, the party secretary of Beijing and the top coordinator for the 2008 Olympics.

The News Corporation also entered an alliance with China Mobile, the state-owned company that is the world’s largest mobile communications operator. Mr. Liu of Phoenix said the move “could open a new, lucrative highway” to provide media content to China’s 480 million mobile-phone users.

Wendi Murdoch has stepped up her role in China. She plotted a strategy for the News Corporation’s social networking site, MySpace, to enter the Chinese market, people involved with the company said. The News Corporation decided to license the MySpace name to a local consortium of investors organized by Ms. Murdoch.

As a local venture, MySpace China, which began operations in the spring, abides by domestic censorship laws and the “self discipline” regime that governs proprietors of Chinese Web sites. Every page on the site has a link allowing users or monitors to “report inappropriate information” to the authorities. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo have made similar accommodations for their Web sites in China.

The Murdochs will soon be able to call Beijing home. Workers have nearly finished renovating their traditional courtyard-style house in Beijing’s exclusive Beichizi district, a block from the Forbidden City. Beneath the steep-pitched roofs and wooden eaves of freshly coated vermillion and gold, the courtyard has an underground swimming pool and billiard room, according to people who have seen the design.

Plainclothes security officers linger on the street outside. One neighbor is the retired prime minister, Mr. Zhu, who invited Mr. Murdoch to become Chinese.