Guambat Stew: Up against the wall: Murdoch disoriented

Disclaimers first: I have to admit to a deep, dark, secretly held admiration for Rupert. Look, I know he's the PT Barnum of the media world. But there has to be some little bit of admiration for a guy who'd start with a Back of WhoopWhoop (sorry Adelaide) newspaper, add another broken down Podunk (sorry San Antonio) paper, and build what has got to be the most coherent and aggressive vision of world wide media domination that we've ever seen all in one generation.

We get a small glimpse of how he achieved some of that success in a report by Hamish McDonald in today's SMH: http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/murdoch-out-of-step-in-new-china/2005/08/29/1125302506746.html

Remember, Murdoch was seen as a true wizard when he first insinuated the News Corporation tentacles into first China and then India (or was it other way round? Whatever). I seems it wasn't, perhaps, all diplomacy and charm. Maybe a few well chosen connections. My techie friends tell me gold plated connectors are the best.

As the story is told, "After taking steps that many critics saw as craven - kicking the BBC off Star's northern beam, canning former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten's memoirs, attacking the Dalai Lama as "a very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes" - Mr Murdoch got along fine with former Chinese Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin... Mr Murdoch now seems much less close to the next-generation leaders around current party leader Hu Jintao, who is increasingly seen as a "neo-authoritarian" intent on enforcing a political orthodoxy that includes tight media controls."

But it hasn't just been cozy bedfellows that helped Rupert's Star shine bright in China. It appears he also set up some Chinese walls within his cobweb of companies to try to get around some constricting regulations:

"In June, uniformed customs officials and inspectors from the Industry and Commerce Administration appeared in offices of a company linked to Star in Beijing, interviewing staff and confiscating certain documents and company seals relating to allegedly illegal marketing of Star's programming to local outlets....

"Around the same time, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television shut down a deal whereby Star effectively took over the operations of a TV broadcaster based in remote Qinghai province that, via satellite links, could have reached hundreds of millions of viewers around China. The leasing deal with Qinghai TV had been made by a company called Runde Investments, in which a communist "princeling" called Ding Yucheng, son of former communist party propaganda minister and politburo member Ding Guangen, is a prominent investor.... The current propaganda minister - the official title is director of the Publicity Department of the party central committee - is Liu Yunshan, 58, who also has the concurrent position of head of the party's "Spiritual Civilisation Steering Committee". Beijing has said its recent moves against foreign TV penetration were for "national cultural security".

"The alleged direct sales operation was set up through at least one dummy company, according to former marketeer Mr Jiang: "We had to establish our own company in the name of different employees whose ID cards were used for the documentation," he said."