Together with fellow Capital Cities executive Daniel Burke, Murphy engineered the acquisition of the American Broadcasting Company in 1986 for $3.5 billion.

[2] His father, Charles, was a lawyer involved in Democratic Party politics and later worked as a judge in the Judiciary of New York; his mother, Elizabeth (Sawyer), was a homemaker.

[2][3] His fortunes changed when broadcaster and author Lowell Thomas, and his business manager/partner, Frank Smith, led a New York City-based investor group to buy control of Albany, New York-based Hudson Valley Broadcasting Company,[5] in 1954 and hired Murphy to run the WROW stations as their new general manager.

Although Murphy did not have any broadcast experience, his leadership and conservative financial restraint helped bring WROW-TV (now WTEN) to profitability three years later.

[1][6][7][8] The merger was engineered by Murphy and the man who replaced him as WTEN's station manager, Daniel B. Burke, who became ABC's president.