NEW DELHI, July 19 (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch knows something about power and how to wield it. In Britain, the media magnate's backing was long seen as a prerequisite for anyone hoping to become prime minister; in the United States Murdoch's Fox News has helped drive debate and the growth of the right-wing Tea Party.     In fast-growing Asia, though, Murdoch has considerably less clout.    Take India, where the 80-year-old has made frequent, whirlwind visits over the past decade.     "Whenever he came to India he felt he was entitled to an audience with the prime minister," said Sanjay Baru, a former media advisor to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who recalls a brief meeting between Murdoch and the Indian premier in 2005 during which Murdoch "sat for a few minutes and talked about what was happening in the world at the time and a few nice things about the Indian economy and then left."     "Afterwards, the prime minister turned to me and asked 'why did he want to see me?' and I said 'I guess he wanted to be able to tell everyone that he saw you," Baru added with a chuckle.     As pressure mounts on Murdoch on both sides of the Atlantic following a phone hacking scandal that has killed plans for a full buy-out of satellite television operator BSkyB , many point to Asia as News Corp's best hope of growth. But the meeting between Murdoch and Singh illustrates the Australian-born businessman's predicament there: Murdoch might be able to get in to meet a prime minister, but his influence is limited.

In India, Murdoch's television network Star India remains a gem in News Corp's global portfolio with 400 million weekly viewers in one of the world's fastest growing markets.     At the same time, tight foreign media ownership rules, a quagmire of bureaucracy, powerful Indian media rivals with deep political sway and an entrenched suspicion of foreign media entrants have slowed Murdoch's expansion in the subcontinent.     China, too, has proved troublesome. Beijing introduced fresh curbs on foreign broadcasters in 2005, limiting access to its 1.4 billion people. Last August, Murdoch's protracted struggle to crack the country's hermetic, highly censored media market seemed to finally lose steam when News Corp sold off its controlling stake in three key TV channels. .     With Murdoch now facing a parliamentary inquiry in Britain, an FBI probe in the United States , and a possible review of media laws in Australia, some say he might face fresh scrutiny in India and Asia.     "After what's happened, I think everybody would look twice before saying yes (to Murdoch)," Baru told Reuters. "There will be more questions asked now than there was in the past."     EARLY PROMISE     When Rupert Murdoch first entered India in the mid-1990s with the launch of Star India, the network's mix of cricket, MTV, Bollywood and soap operas proved a wildly popular cocktail of entertainment with many of the country's 1.2 billion people.     Murdoch saw Asia's potential at a time when regional broadcasting wasn't considered viable across a highly fragmented and culturally diverse region. In 1993, he bought a majority stake in a fledgling Hong Kong-headquartered network called Star TV that was launched just two years earlier by Richard Li, the son of billionaire Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing.     As with his seemingly risky early bet on BSKyB in the United Kingdom, Murdoch's timing was good, riding India's surging television viewership growth to transform Star into one of the leading regional broadcasters in Asia, where it now reaches 65 countries.

While Murdoch's newspapers in Britain fomented an aggressive and profitable era of tabloid journalism, he's largely escaped controversy in India by beaming tamer, lighter entertainment television fare, tailored to India's conservative and religious social fabric. Suhel Seth, a media commentator and advertising industry player, said the tabloid scandal won't hurt Murdoch's Asia properties "at all. He's got an extensive, varied and very enriched portfolio of channels. He's got some remarkable joint ventures as far as regional channels are concerned." Murdoch's revenues from Australasia, Latin America, the Middle East and Asia were around $5.4 billion, or around 16.5 percent of News Corp's total revenues in 2010, a relatively small percentage but one with substantial growth potential. News Corp provides no specific breakdown of its earnings from Star India or Star Asia, but media consultancies such as Media Partners Asia estimate Star India made $106 million in profits last year off revenues of $545 million, glowing results in a market with rampant piracy of cable signals and low fees. "Star India saw particularly robust advertising growth and we continue to develop market-leading capabilities in that important and burgeoning region," wrote Murdoch in News Corp's 2010 annual report.

TATA TIE-UP

In the mid-2000s, Murdoch spent years courting approval for a pay television tie-up with his close friend and Indian billionaire Ratan Tata.

Some media commentators say Dayanidhi Maran, a former government minister now ensnared in a multi-billion dollar telecoms licensing scandal , may have stalled Murdoch's bid at the time to protect his media magnate brother's south India TV empire.

Murdoch eventually succeeded in launching the pay TV service with Tata in mid-2006, taking a 20 percent stake of Tata SKY, a direct-to-home satellite broadcasting service.

Overcoming the entrenched fear of foreigners interfering with the domestic news and political agenda will not be easy. "When I was minister of information and broadcasting, the ground rules were very clear, the foreign investor would have no editorial control whatsoever, and that continues," said Ravi Shankar Prasad, a former Indian minister of broadcasting.

"This is an ongoing process. India is different from the England or the U.S.A foreigner cannot become the owner of a media network here, and that's a big safety valve." The hurdles faced by Murdoch aren't unique to the media industry. India enforces restrictions on foreign investment everywhere from the pension and insurance sector to retail, hampering desperately needed foreign direct investment flows to help boost patchy nationwide infrastructure and sustain India's double-digit economic growth. Wal-Mart , the U.S. retail giant, and Carrefour

have tried for years to gain unfettered access to India, which is often touted as the next great global consumer market worth an estimated $450 billion. Little wonder Murdoch's keen to expand in India. While newspapers struggle with digital rivals and shrinking advertising revenues around the world there have been fewer such problems in the subcontinent KPMG forecasting newspaper advertising growth of 13 percent annually up to 2015. "This is a growing market, everywhere else the newspaper market is shrinking. In India it's linked to literacy. As literacy improves profitability is very high, you have regional languages, you have advertising spreads. I always see India in the next 30 or 40 years being an extremely lucrative market," Seth said.  (Additional reporting by Manasi Phadke in Mumbai; editing by Simon Robinson and Bill Tarrant)   [20110720 123532 GMT]