News Corp., the media empire founded by mogul Rupert Murdoch, has bought all of Latvijas Neatkarīgā televīzija and a large share of TV5, Latvian media report.

A subsidiary, News Corp. Europe, acquired 100 percent of LNT and 70 percent of sister station TV5, the news agency LETA reported May 15. Details of the May 8 deal were not announced.

LNT was founded in 1996 with the merger of PICCA TV and NTV5, becoming Latvia’s first commercial broadcaster. TV5 began as a station for Rīga residents.

LNT held a 20.1 percent share of the Latvian television market in April, according to media research firm TNS Latvia. That was the largest share of any station. TV5, meanwhile, held a 2.2 percent share. Commercial station TV3, with its popular “Dejo ar zvaignzi” program, held a 17.8 percent share. LTV1 and LTV7, the two channels controlled by the state-run Latvijas Televizija, together had a 15.2 percent share.

A 1950 oil painting by the Latvia-born American artist Mark Rothko has sold for a record price of USD 72.8 million, the auction house Sotheby’s announced May 15 in New York.

The painting, “White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose),” was described by Sotheby’s as “the first fully-realized painting of Mark Rothko’s mature style—the canvas with which Rothko succeeded in articulating the painterly dialectic that he would maintain throughout the remaining decades of his career.” The Abstract Expressionist painting, never before offered at auction, was in the private collection of David and Peggy Rockefeller, who acquired it in 1960.

“At first glance, the unwary viewer might discern little more than a mere four shapes arrayed upon a ground,” art historian David Anfam wrote of the painting. “Look closer, though, and everything becomes changeful, nuanced and contrapuntal—like a fugue of feelings translated into colors.”

The auction house had estimated the Rothko painting would sell for more than USD 40 million. An anonymous bidder bought the painting.

The painting measures 205.8 centimeters by 141 centimeters (81 inches by 55.5 inches).

Rothko (1903-1970) was born Marcus Rothkowitz in Daugavpils. His family moved to the United States in 1913.