Back to results ADNAUS : Room with a View - The Murdoch Chapter Harold Mitchell virtually invented the media shop in this part of the world. In this extract from his new autobiography, the most powerful adman in Australasia finds himself alone in the inner sanctum of one of the most powerful men in the world ... You don’t often get a chance to be in Rupert Murdoch’s office. Alone. And I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. I’m no robot: why wouldn’t I have a snoop around? I was up here at the invitation of transport magnate and Murdoch business partner Sir Peter Abeles. In the 1980s Ansett Airlines was one of our clients. Ansett then was run day to day by Sir Peter, who was a giant of Australian business in so many ways. Rupert Murdoch and Sir Peter were co-chairmen. This business arrangement allowed me insight into what Rupert was about, including his strength in the art of communication with people where it mattered, and only where it mattered. Rupert had only recently become the owner of Channel Ten, which was a troubled network and needed help from advertisers around the world. I was called in for a meeting with Sir Peter at Ansett’s headquarters in Melbourne. At the headquarters I needed to borrow an office room for half an hour or so, so they sent me to the office that was always kept for Rupert. I walked into it, wondering what an office Rupert Murdoch occasionally inhabits might look like. It was fairly regular, and I sat down at a very clean desk with nothing on it. Then curiosity got the better of me. I couldn’t help myself. I opened the right-hand drawer of his desk—who wouldn’t? After all Rupert was in America, a long way away. That’s what I’d hoped. What I saw amazed me. It was a panel of a hundred buttons with a hundred names of people dotted across the world, I suppose an early version of speed dial. It was clear that Rupert could open the drawer and push a button, and the person he wanted to talk to would come on the line. I never knew whether the person would be on the phone or, given Rupert’s power, would simply emerge out of a puff of smoke. Then I was called in to see Sir Peter. I had with me the usual flip chart presentation, where you have eight points on each chart and you talk your way through them. Peter dealt with the points with amazing speed. As I held the first one, his eyes ran quickly down the eight points. ‘I got all that,’ he said in his very heavy Hungarian accent. I did the next eight points. “I got all that.” “Oh, right,” I said. Sir Peter was a big and slightly intimidating man. He exuded a great sense of power. I remember making a mental note to never cross him. I flipped to the next one and started on the next eight points. “Yaya, I got all that.” I turned over the six flip pages, and he read each of them. When I’d finished he said, “OK, I approve.” Business done, he turned to me. “Tell me,” he said, “what do you do?” He was fascinated with me as a media broker. He wanted me to walk him through exactly what a media buyer does. I told him I place ads in newspapers and magazines and on TV and radio on behalf of advertisers, and I advised them how best to spend their advertising dollars. When I’d finished my explanation, his eyes lit up. “You help my friend Rupert very much at Channel Ten.” I wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question. “Not a lot,” I said. “They haven’t been doing very well, and they underperform at their sales level.” I gave him a lot of genuine reasons why we didn’t place a lot of advertising with them. I forgot about the conversation. The next morning at eleven o’clock, my secretary came in ashen-faced: Rupert Murdoch was on the phone. “Hello, Rupert,” I said. “You’ve been talking to my friend Peter,” he said. “Yes,” I replied, as I became equally ashen-faced, trying to remember what I said. “If there is anything I can do to help, just yell out,” he said. I was thinking about that panel of little buttons when my phone rang. It was George Brown, the then manager and chief executive of the Ten Network in Australia. My comment to Peter Abeles had worked its way around the world. “What the hell have you been saying?” George said. “I have just had Rupert on the phone. We’ve got to fix this up.” What an amazing fellow Rupert is, that he is able to have contact all over the world any time of the day or night. The vision of Rupert is in the big office in New York, over in the corner, hunched over a telephone. According to my timetable he should have been asleep when he rang me. He might have been, but even asleep he is a hell of a performer. Brian Morris had a taste of Rupert’s phone panel one night in the 1970s. Brian was managing director of Southdown Press who published Truth, New Idea and TV Week at its absolute peak of circulation and influence. It was a very powerful position. The Walnut Tree in North Melbourne, quite a classy restaurant, was opposite Southdown Press’s offices in North Melbourne. One Saturday night Brian was having dinner with a client when the phone rang. The waiter came to the table. “It’s Mr Murdoch for you, Mr Morris.” Rupert asked him all the questions he wanted to ask, and Brian started to answer. Rupert yelled into the phone, “Brian, can you turn that radio down?” “Rupert, it’s a band. I am at dinner.” “Where are you? What time is it?” For Rupert, business steamed ahead, unconstrained by technicalities like it being late at night on the other side of the world. It’s a great example of how to run an organization that the power of one man can infiltrate so many businesses around the world. It does that because Rupert stays unbelievably involved and must be the greatest user of the telephone in the world. It was a fascinating experience to see the power that he had. Living Large – The World of Harold Mitchell (Melbourne University Publishing), $NZ52.97 from www.fishpond.co.nz. © Copyright AdMedia magazine February 2010 All material appearing is copyright and cannot be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher. Please contact the copyright officer: Ph 0-9-845 5114, Email copyright@mediaweb.co.nz.	Username Password Keep me logged in on this computer Forgotten your password? Enter your email address and we will email your password to you:

ADNAUS : Room with a View - The Murdoch Chapter

Harold Mitchell virtually invented the media shop in this part of the world. In this extract from his new autobiography, the most powerful adman in Australasia finds himself alone in the inner sanctum of one of the most powerful men in the world ...

You don’t often get a chance to be in Rupert Murdoch’s office. Alone. And I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. I’m no robot: why wouldn’t I have a snoop around?
I was up here at the invitation of transport magnate and Murdoch business partner Sir Peter Abeles. In the 1980s Ansett Airlines was one of our clients. Ansett then was run day to day by Sir Peter, who was a giant of Australian business in so many ways. Rupert Murdoch and Sir Peter were co-chairmen.
This business arrangement allowed me insight into what Rupert was about, including his strength in the art of communication with people where it mattered, and only where it mattered. Rupert had only recently become the owner of Channel Ten, which was a troubled network and needed help from advertisers around the world.
I was called in for a meeting with Sir Peter at Ansett’s headquarters in Melbourne. At the headquarters I needed to borrow an office room for half an hour or so, so they sent me to the office that was always kept for Rupert. I walked into it, wondering what an office Rupert Murdoch occasionally inhabits might look like. It was fairly regular, and I sat down at a very clean desk with nothing on it.
Then curiosity got the better of me. I couldn’t help myself. I opened the right-hand drawer of his desk—who wouldn’t? After all Rupert was in America, a long way away. That’s what I’d hoped.
What I saw amazed me. It was a panel of a hundred buttons with a hundred names of people dotted across the world, I suppose an early version of speed dial. It was clear that Rupert could open the drawer and push a button, and the person he wanted to talk to would come on the line. I never knew whether the person would be on the phone or, given Rupert’s power, would simply emerge out of a puff of smoke.
Then I was called in to see Sir Peter. I had with me the usual flip chart presentation, where you have eight points on each chart and you talk your way through them. Peter dealt with the points with amazing speed. As I held the first one, his eyes ran quickly down the eight points. ‘I got all that,’ he said in his very heavy Hungarian accent. I did the next eight points.
“I got all that.”
“Oh, right,” I said.
Sir Peter was a big and slightly intimidating man. He exuded a great sense of power. I remember making a mental note to never cross him. I flipped to the next one and started on the next eight points.
“Yaya, I got all that.” I turned over the six flip pages, and he read each of them. When I’d finished he said, “OK, I approve.” Business done, he turned to me. “Tell me,” he said, “what do you do?”
He was fascinated with me as a media broker. He wanted me to walk him through exactly what a media buyer does. I told him I place ads in newspapers and magazines and on TV and radio on behalf of advertisers, and I advised them how best to spend their advertising dollars.
When I’d finished my explanation, his eyes lit up. “You help my friend Rupert very much at Channel Ten.” I wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question.
“Not a lot,” I said. “They haven’t been doing very well, and they underperform at their sales level.” I gave him a lot of genuine reasons why we didn’t place a lot of advertising with them. I forgot about the conversation.
The next morning at eleven o’clock, my secretary came in ashen-faced: Rupert Murdoch was on the phone. “Hello, Rupert,” I said. “You’ve been talking to my friend Peter,” he said. “Yes,” I replied, as I became equally ashen-faced, trying to remember what I said.
“If there is anything I can do to help, just yell out,” he said.
I was thinking about that panel of little buttons when my phone rang. It was George Brown, the then manager and chief executive of the Ten Network in Australia. My comment to Peter Abeles had worked its way around the world.
“What the hell have you been saying?” George said. “I have just had Rupert on the phone. We’ve got to fix this up.”
What an amazing fellow Rupert is, that he is able to have contact all over the world any time of the day or night. The vision of Rupert is in the big office in New York, over in the corner, hunched over a telephone. According to my timetable he should have been asleep when he rang me. He might have been, but even asleep he is a hell of a performer.
Brian Morris had a taste of Rupert’s phone panel one night in the 1970s. Brian was managing director of Southdown Press who published Truth, New Idea and TV Week at its absolute peak of circulation and influence. It was a very powerful position.
The Walnut Tree in North Melbourne, quite a classy restaurant, was opposite Southdown Press’s offices in North Melbourne. One Saturday night Brian was having dinner with a client when the phone rang. The waiter came to the table.
“It’s Mr Murdoch for you, Mr Morris.” Rupert asked him all the questions he wanted to ask, and Brian started to answer. Rupert yelled into the phone, “Brian, can you turn that radio down?” “Rupert, it’s a band. I am at dinner.” “Where are you? What time is it?”
For Rupert, business steamed ahead, unconstrained by technicalities like it being late at night on the other side of the world. It’s a great example of how to run an organization that the power of one man can infiltrate so many businesses around the world. It does that because Rupert stays unbelievably involved and must be the greatest user of the telephone in the world. It was a fascinating experience to see the power that he had.

Living Large – The World of Harold Mitchell (Melbourne University Publishing), $NZ52.97 from www.fishpond.co.nz.

© Copyright AdMedia magazine February 2010

All material appearing is copyright and cannot be reproduced without prior permission of the publisher.

Please contact the copyright officer: Ph 0-9-845 5114, Email copyright@mediaweb.co.nz.

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ADNAUS : Room with a View - The Murdoch Chapter

Harold Mitchell virtually invented the media shop in this part of the world. In this extract from his new autobiography, the most powerful adman in Australasia finds himself alone in the inner sanctum of one of the most powerful men in the world ...