Tom Mockridge profile: a trusted lieutenant of Murdoch's empire
by Amy Willis, telegraph.co.ukJuly 15th 2011
New Zealand-born Mr Mockridge, who has been Sky Italia chief executive since its launch in 2003, started his career as a newspaper journalist; first as a New Zealand finance reporter then for the Sydney Morning Herald. He also spent some time at The Australian.
After several years working as a journalist, Mr Mockridge became an adviser to former Australian prime minister Paul Keating when Mr Keating was Treasurer in the 1980s.
In January 1991 Mr Mockridge joined News Limited, Rupert Murdoch's holding company for newspapers in Australia. He was assistant CEO to News Limited for five years working for chairman and chief executive Ken Cowley.
He later became CEO to Foxtel, News Corp's Australian pay-for cable and satellite TV service. Three years later he moved to Hong Kong for a joint new media venture between News Corp and Hong Kong Telecom, eventually working alongside Rupert Murdoch's Asian satellite TV service Star TV.
At this point Tom Mockridge moved back to New Zealand to head the country's largest newspaper group Independent Newspapers, a publicly listed company part-owned by News Corp. He was also chairman of Sky New Zealand.
In 2002, Tom Mockridge moved to Italy and became CEO of Sky Italia in 2003 after leading the merger between pay-TV networks Stream (owned by News Corp) and Telepiu. The merger attracted the scrutiny of the telecommunications regulator as it created a monopoly of the Italian football pay-TV market.
Sky Italia, which offers pay-TV services, is in direct competition with the Italian media empire Mediaset, owned by Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Mr Mockridge was locked in a seemingly endless war of words with Mr Berlusconi during his time in Italy as legal battles were fought over football pricing, access to Italy's digital field, and TV taxes.
In February 2009, Tom Mockridge was appointed non-executive director of BSkyB.
Original Page: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8639857/Tom-Mockridge-profile-a-trusted-lieutenant-of-Rupert-Murdochs-empire.html
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