Ten Years Ago... Murdoch Set To Buy Family Cable Concern

Murdoch Set To Buy Family Cable Concern
[SOURCE: New York Times 6/12/1997, AUTHOR: Geraldine Fabrikant]
Ten years ago, 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 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 were similar in key ways -- politically conservative, yet pragmatic executives concerned with creating the largest audiences possible for their television fare. That was why analysts said that whatever Mr. Murdoch's plans for spicing up Mr. Robertson's Family Channel, he had to take care not to totally alienate the viewership that had turned the operation into the nation's ninth-largest cable network, reaching 67 million homes.
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