4.3 billion people within reach

That's three-quarters of the world's population. Viewers tuned to BSkyB in the UK, Fox or PrimeStar in the States, Star-TV in India, Foxtel in Australia, JSkyB in Japan.

But there was a time when Murdoch's embrace could only warm Adelaide.

It was the late '60s when the fledgling magnate turned his attention offshore and went shopping for newspapers in Britain, exciting media attention as he browsed.

A peerage has evaded Murdoch, as he rightly predicted in the 1969 interview. But he is a Knight of St Gregory the Great, thanks to the Catholic Church. And last year, became Humanitarian of the Year, recognition from the United Jewish Appeal in the United States.

Its choice was supported by Benjamin Netanyahu himself.

That award was bestowed on Murdoch six months after news broke of another tax investigation.

Israeli tax raid
Israeli tax investigators had raided his Jerusalem subsidiary, News Datacom, a company crucial to the corporation's worldwide satellite TV services.

Viewers of those services rely on the installation of smart cards to receive the satellite signal. Those smart cards, and the encryption techniques that support them, are products of Israeli know-how, and News Datacom.

In Israel, Hannan Sher, economics editor of The Jerusalem Report, says lips are tightly sealed when it comes to the investigation.

Sher says both the tax authorities and the Murdoch people are unwilling to say anything about where things stand right now.

"There have been rumours, which they will not confirm, that they're moving towards some kind of settlement," he said.

Sher says the rumours have been around for the last six months, but nobody wants to confirm anything, which he says leads him to suspect that they're probably getting fairly close.

A former lawyer for News Datacom is now the Finance Minister in Israel, having replaced the former Minister, who actually instigated the investigation.

A spokesman for Finance Minister Ne'eman confirmed to Background Briefing the Israeli Tax Commission, while administered by the Department of Finance, is completely independent, and it would be against the law for the Minister to exert any influence or to get involved in any way.

As Hannan Sher points out, there's no suggestion of anything improper. But the Cabinet position for News Datacom's former lawyer is some indication of the powerful circles Rupert Murdoch moves in.

NEXT: Looking after our own backyard