[Bandit5906]

Murdoch opens Costa Mesa plant // 2006-05-17
Media mogul's new facility makes devices that protect pay-TV content from piracy.

For media mogul Rupert Murdoch, "The OC" is not just a money-generating television series on his Fox network.

Orange County is home to a critical piece of technology in his empire's satellite, cable and other subscriber-supported television services.

On Thursday, Sir Keith Rupert Murdoch – ranked by Forbes magazine as the world's 84th richest man – snipped a blue ribbon to celebrate the opening in Costa Mesa of the new headquarters of NDS Americas, a Murdoch subsidiary that makes encryption devices to prevent piracy of pay TV programs.

"NDS technology today safeguards more than $30 billion in revenues and content," Murdoch said. "Every move forward in today's digital media world, in which content can be accessed anywhere at anytime on any device, NDS will play an even greater role."

NDS employs almost 3,000 people worldwide, including 171 in Costa Mesa, where employees test, market and manufacture "Smart" cards sold to Murdoch's DirecTV and other satellite and cable broadcasters around the world.

The credit card-sized devices have embedded chips that allow boxes atop TV sets to decrypt scrambled digital signals so viewers can watch and record programs and play online games, among a growing array of pay-for-use services.

NDS opened an office in 1995 in Newport Beach and a year later a manufacturing plant in Lake Forest. The two operations are now housed in the 85,000-square-foot Costa Mesa plant.

"Orange County has a good software engineer population to choose from," said Dov Rubin, general manager of NDS Americas.

During a tour of the facility, Murdoch saw the plant that churns out 1.5 million Smart cards a month and rows of cubicles where engineers test and debug the decryption devices.

He was also shown products under development that will help subscribers sort through hundreds of channels, record broadcasts and integrate pre-recorded material or programming from the Net onto their TVs.

Murdoch started what became NDS in 1987, when he was preparing to launch his BSkyB satellite television service in Britain. He needed an encryption system to prevent viewers from pirating – instead of paying for – his programs.

"There was no encryption system that didn't damage the picture badly, so we searched the world, and we found these people in Tel Aviv, and we got the company started," Murdoch said after touring the plant.

News Corp. reported total income of $1 billion in the quarter ending March 31, including $69 million from its direct-broadcast satellite division. The vast majority of income came from entertainment, television and other programming, which Murdoch said will continue to dominate his company.

"Content can be provided to everybody," Murdoch said. "We wanted to also have a distribution system that would guarantee that our content would get out there to homes. And if we have a great idea for a new channel for DirecTV, then the cable companies will want to have it, too."

[JT]

In a way it's pretty pathetic that Murdoch made only 1% of what one oil corp. made last year, and imagine what you or I could do with only 1% of what Murdoch made. I dream big I guess.