Matthew Rickardson

The Simpsons, ideologically, is not the kind of thing you might think would sit that easily with a small-c conservative like Rupert Murdoch.

He has made several cameo appearances where he was introduced as... Rupert Murdoch, the billionaire town.

He's willing to take a hit for the greater good of the company.

You know, this is a man who will do anything to increase the ratings and the audiences.

The billionaire town.

He's also buying up...

Film studios.

With Titanic as a movie that his studio financed, it could have ruined him, the gamble that he took on Titanic, and instead it made him.

Was it over a billion dollars that Titanic took?

He's got those mediums which make a lot more money and he's also doing similar things in Australia and in the UK.

He's the king of the world!

He develops a global media empire is what he does.

But I think his ambition is always to come back to news.

The Simpsons doesn't get you into the White House or the front or the back door of Number 10 Downing Street.

Being a news mogul does.

The other piece of the puzzle in helping him develop in America is the regulatory environment.

There was this thing called the Fairness Doctrine, which came up after the Second World War.

What that said was that if you were going to cover contentious affairs on television, you had to present both sides of the story.

Reagan was all about deregulation, getting rid of as much regulation as you can.

So the Fairness Doctrine goes, and what happens then is that unleashes or unlocks the door for the rise of people like Rush Limbaugh.