Rupert's World

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- Murdoch's burgeoning media power has been setting off political alarms. In Britain, where, in addition to his TV interests, Murdoch controls one-third of the circulation of the country's national daily newspapers, critics complain that his voice threatens to drown out all others. "It's not healthy for democracy, and it's not healthy for competition," says Robin Cook, a Labour Party spokesman. But in nondemocratic Asia, some experts draw the opposite conclusion about the acquisition of STAR TV. "This has considerable political, social and cultural implications," says Anne Thompson, a media analyst for Mees Pierson Securities in Hong Kong. "Repressive governments can't control information, can't control what people see."

In Marshall McLuhan's vision of the global village, media like television and radio are a form of message as well. Yet today technology is uniting the functions of TVs, phone systems and computers, since digitized data streams can provide voice and image messages to them all. Murdoch thus plans to focus on proprietary entertainment and information, rather than on building delivery systems that could become outdated fast. "We see ourselves absolutely as creators of software, making and packaging entertainment," he says. "And the same holds true for news . . . Satellites are just part of it -- they're what's there now. But who knows? Another technology could come along and blow satellites and cable away."

Murdoch now plans to quit the acquisition game for awhile. "There's really no company that I want to buy that I can see out there," he says. "Quite honestly, we're not negotiating." He also needed time to get ready for his daughter's wedding, which took place last Friday night.