Company News America (first package)
Date Announced 6/19/1996
Site 1211 Sixth Avenue at 47th St.
Total Subsidy $20.7 million

Amount tied to job creation

 $5 million
Promised Job Creation 1,475
Promised Job Retention 2,212
Length of Contract 15 years
Competing Sites none
Conditions none
Notes The city and state offered the package to Rupert Murdoch's News America to keep Murdoch's new 24-hour news channel, online service and other businesses in New York. The subsidies include $8.2 million in sales tax exemptions and $7.5 million in low-cost power. Two years later, in 1998, News America received $24.4 million in incentives to build a new printing plant in the South Bronx. News America refused to include the printing plant in the 1996 deal (see separate entry).
Corporate Notes Rupert Murdoch's News America owns New York Post, New York Magazine and Fox Television. According to the Daily News, Rupert Murdoch's net worth in 1996 was an estimated $4.8 billion.
Critics "Rupert Murdoch is the last person in the world who needs a handout from the city, but he's obviously been emboldened by other companies who received lavish benefits after playing the phony card of pretending to leave" said State Senator Franz Leichter (Daily News, 6/20/96).
A note on sources -- or why many of these profiles appear incomplete. They are. Good Jobs New York compiled the numbers in these profiles from press releases and news accounts of the deals. Unfortunately, more detailed information on these subsidies is very difficult to obtain -- even though it should be readily available to the public. In many cases, neither the company nor the city nor state released certain information, particularly the terms of the agreement, i.e., the conditions which the company had to meet in order to receive the subsidy. It should also be noted that the value of the subsidy may not end up being equal to the value estimated at the time of the agreement. And it should not be assumed that the actual number of jobs retained and created will be the same as the numbers predicted.

Because the public deserves easy access to information about how taxpayer dollars are being spent, Good Jobs New York will update these profiles as we uncover more information.

Good Jobs New York  - May 25, 2001