Murdoch Set To Buy Family Cable Concern
By Geraldine Fabrikant
New York Times, June 12, 1997
At first glance, it would appear to be a merger of the sacred and profane.
Rupert Murdoch -- the man whose Fox Network brought to television the risque ''Married . . . With Children,'' the nihilistic series ''The Simpsons'' and the violent children's program ''Mighty Morphin Power Rangers'' -- agreed yesterday to pay $1.9 billion to acquire the cable channel controlled by Pat Robertson, the religious-right purveyor of ''The 700 Club'' Christian talk show, family-oriented movies and reruns of such wholesome programming as ''The Mary Tyler Moore Show.''
But in fact, Mr. Murdoch and Mr. Robertson are similar in key ways -- politically conservative, yet pragmatic executives concerned with creating the largest audiences possible for their television fare.
That is why, whatever Mr. Murdoch's plans for spicing up Mr. Robertson's Family Channel, analysts say he must take care not to totally alienate the viewership that has turned the operation into the nation's ninth-largest cable network, reaching 67 million homes.
Mr. Murdoch has always been ''completely unconcerned with the very social agenda that Mr. Robertson seems to cherish, such as sexual abstinence, heterosexuality and the patriarchal family structure -- in short everything that 'The Simpsons' makes fun of,'' said Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media studies at Johns Hopkins University.
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