Rupert Murdoch Trivia
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50 free Rupert Murdoch trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Rupert Murdoch trivia quiz follows the Australian-born media mogul from the single Adelaide newspaper he inherited at 21 to a global empire spanning the Sun, the Times, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, HarperCollins, Sky and Fox. It covers his 'Red Rupert' days at Oxford, the Morris Minor road trip that produced his first overseas takeover, the invention of the modern tabloid, the 1968 arrival on Fleet Street, the Thatcher-era Times deal, the Wapping dispute, the failed bid for Manchester United and the birth of BSkyB. On the American side it asks about the naturalisation that let him own TV stations, the Metromedia stations that became the Fox network, the launch of Fox News with Roger Ailes, the Myspace and Dow Jones purchases, the Time Warner and Disney deals, and the phone-hacking scandal that closed the News of the World and produced 'the most humble day of my life'. It finishes with his five marriages, the papal knighthood, the yacht, the Simpsons cameo, Logan Roy, and the family trust fight that handed everything to Lachlan. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's articles on Murdoch, his companies and the events around them, and each explanation adds one further fact. Good for media students, business quiz nights and anyone who watched Succession and wondered how close it was to the truth.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Australian city was Rupert Murdoch born in 1931?
Melbourne
Melbourne was also where his father chaired the Herald and Weekly Times newspaper group; in 1987 Rupert came back and bought the whole company.
Q 02What was Rupert Murdoch's actual first name at birth?
Keith
Keith was his father's name; the boy went by his middle name, Rupert, which was also the name of his mother's father, the merchant Rupert Greene.
Q 03What nickname did Murdoch acquire as an undergraduate at Oxford in the early 1950s?
Red Rupert
Oxford contemporaries called him 'Red Rupert': he kept a bust of Lenin in his rooms at Worcester College, where he read PPE, and was active in the university Labour Club.
Q 04On which of Lord Beaverbrook's London newspapers did Murdoch work as a sub-editor after Oxford?
The Daily Express
The Daily Express gave him a brief apprenticeship in the brash, sensational popular journalism that he then took home and applied to his own newspapers.
Q 05In which Australian city was The News, the small afternoon paper Murdoch inherited from his father?
Adelaide
Adelaide stayed the legal home of his empire long after he left: News Corporation was incorporated there until it moved to the United States in 2004.
Q 06Which newspaper did Murdoch win in 2007 with his $5 billion takeover of Dow Jones?
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal came with Dow Jones after its owners held out for three months; a special committee was set up to guard the paper's editorial independence under him.
Q 07Murdoch launched his first overseas newspaper takeover in 1964 while on holiday in which country?
New Zealand
New Zealand: he read there that a British-based press group was bidding for a Wellington morning daily, counter-bid on the spur of the moment and won a four-way fight.
Q 08From which Australian rival did Murdoch buy Sydney's Daily Telegraph in 1972?
Sir Frank Packer
Sir Frank Packer sold him both Telegraphs in 1972 and came to regret it: he died two years later still mourning the loss of his papers and planning to restart his presses.
Q 09Which Australian Labor leader did Murdoch briefly back to victory in 1972?
Gough Whitlam
Murdoch's papers backed Gough Whitlam's 'It's Time' campaign in 1972, then turned on his Labor government so sharply before the 1975 election that his own journalists struck in protest.
Q 10Whom did Murdoch appoint as The Sun's editor in 1969, telling him he wanted 'a tearaway paper'?
Larry Lamb
Larry Lamb got the job over lunch, Murdoch dropping his other interviews; he brought in the Page 3 feature, which he later regretted, and by 1978 his paper outsold the Daily Mirror.
Q 11From which Canadian press baron did Murdoch buy The Times and Sunday Times in 1981?
Lord Thomson of Fleet
Lord Thomson of Fleet was tired of losing money on papers that a dispute had kept off the streets for almost a year; Margaret Thatcher's government let Murdoch's bid through without a monopolies referral.
Q 12To which London docklands district did Murdoch move his newspapers in 1986, sparking a year-long print dispute?
Wapping
Wapping's new plant had been equipped in secret; when some 6,000 print workers struck against the move they were dismissed, and the strike collapsed a year later.
Q 13Which English football club did Murdoch's BSkyB try to buy in 1998, only for the government to block the deal?
Manchester United
Q 21From which network did Fox take exclusive coverage of the NFL's National Football Conference in 1993?
CBS
Fox outbid CBS in December 1993 with a four-year, $1.58 billion offer for the NFC package, ending CBS's 38-year run of NFL coverage and handing Fox the big-market affiliates it needed to become a full network.
Q 22Whom did Murdoch hire as founding CEO of Fox News in 1996?
Roger Ailes
Roger Ailes ran the channel from its launch in October 1996 for twenty years; when he resigned in 2016 over sexual harassment allegations, Murdoch himself stepped in as acting chief executive.
Q 23Which social network did Murdoch's News Corp buy in 2005, only to sell it at a huge loss six years later?
Myspace
Manchester United's board accepted the offer, but fans organised as Shareholders United Against Murdoch and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission ruled the deal would harm competition.
Q 14Which rival merged with Murdoch's loss-making Sky Television in 1990?
British Satellite Broadcasting
British Satellite Broadcasting, launched in spring 1990 with its square 'squarial' dishes, merged with Sky in November 1990 after both sides ran up heavy losses; the combined company traded as BSkyB.
Q 15Which company bought Murdoch's 39 percent stake in Sky after winning a blind auction in 2018?
Comcast
Comcast bid £17.28 a share in the Takeover Panel's auction, beating the £15.67 offered by Murdoch's own Fox, which then sold its stake to the winner.
Q 16What was Murdoch's first American acquisition, in 1973?
The San Antonio Express-News
The San Antonio Express-News began as two Texas dailies he bought together; he turned the afternoon News into a sex-and-scandal sheet that soon dominated its market.
Q 17Which gossip column did Murdoch co-found with James Brady in 1977?
Page Six
Page Six was named for the page of the New York Post it first ran on, weeks after Murdoch bought the paper; in the 1980s it was moved back two pages but kept the name.
Q 18Why did Murdoch become a naturalised US citizen in September 1985?
To own US television stations
To own US television stations he had to be American, and he was buying the big-city stations that became the Fox network; taking the oath cost him his Australian citizenship.
Q 19Murdoch lost more than $100 million investing in which blood-testing start-up, later exposed by one of his own newspapers?
Theranos
Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes asked him to kill the story; Murdoch refused, saying he trusted the paper's editors, and his stake ended up worthless.
Q 20Which company's six television stations became the nucleus of the Fox Broadcasting Company in 1986?
Metromedia
Metromedia's John Kluge sold Murdoch stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and three more big cities, the base on which Fox launched a fourth US network in October 1986.
Myspace cost $580 million and for a time was the most visited site in the United States; overtaken by Facebook, it went for about $35 million, and Murdoch called the purchase a huge mistake.
Q 24Which family had owned Dow Jones for 105 years before selling to Murdoch in 2007?
The Bancrofts
The Bancrofts, a reclusive Boston clan of more than 30 heirs, at first rejected his $60-a-share offer, far above the market price, then gave way after three months of holding out.
Q 25Which media giant rejected an $80 billion takeover bid from Murdoch's 21st Century Fox in 2014?
Time Warner
Time Warner's board said no even though Fox offered to sell CNN to ease antitrust worries; Fox's own shares slid, and within weeks it dropped the bid and bought back stock instead.
Q 26Which company bought most of Murdoch's 21st Century Fox in a $71.3 billion deal that closed in 2019?
Disney
Disney had first agreed $52.4 billion and raised its offer to see off a rival bid; Fox News and the Fox broadcast network were spun off beforehand and stayed with the Murdochs.
Q 27Which Sunday tabloid did Murdoch close in July 2011 after 168 years in print?
News of the World
News of the World ran 'Thank You & Goodbye' across its last front page; advertisers had fled over the phone-hacking revelations, and the closure cost about 200 jobs.
Q 28How did Murdoch describe the day he faced MPs in 2011?
'The most humble day of my life'
'The most humble day of my life' was how Murdoch described facing the MPs on 19 July 2011; the day before, hackers had defaced The Sun's website with a fake story of his death.
Q 29To whom did Murdoch apologise in person in July 2011?
The family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler
The family of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had just learned that her voicemail was hacked while she was missing; Murdoch followed the meeting with full-page apologies in the national press.
Q 30A Commons committee's 2012 phone-hacking report declared Murdoch what?
Not a fit person
'Not a fit person' to exercise the stewardship of a major international company, the report said; the line cost it the Conservative members' votes, and it passed by six to four.