Rupert Murdoch’s decision to put his son Lachlan in sole charge of his media business was met with surprise by staff at his company’s London Bridge headquarters, who had expected the 92-year-old to be carried out of the building in a coffin.
As a result, two questions are being asked: is Lachlan committed to the company’s British media outlets, which range from the Sun to the Times and TalkTV? And is Rupert actually relinquishing hands-on control – or is this just a legal technicality?
Kelvin MacKenzie, the former Sun editor, predicted there would be change for some of the British outlets – but that the UK chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, would be safe. “If I were working for TalkTV I’d be calling up GB News and asking for any jobs as a teaboy,” he said. “And if I was on Times Radio I’d be looking at the job shop. But Rebekah will be fine. As Rupert said to me: ‘Rebekah certainly knows how to game my family’.”
Yet MacKenzie warned his former colleagues in London to be wary of Lachlan in the longer term, claiming he would prioritise investment elsewhere in the world. “He doesn’t give a fuck about the UK,” MacKenzie said.
One immediate question is whether News UK still wants to buy the Telegraph and the Spectator, two rightwing titles due to be auctioned by Lloyds bank next month. Rupert Murdoch, whose resignation statement included a diatribe about elites and groupthink, has long coveted the weekly Spectator for its cachet in rightwing circles.
For now, every indication is that the company will press ahead with a bid – suggesting Rupert is still very much in control.
Alice Enders, of the media research firm Enders Analysis, said: “Rupert has always played an outsized role in his businesses. For example, people know it is Rupert Murdoch who is interested in buying the Spectator. Normally you’d find people saying it’s the company – ‘News Corp is interested’. Rupert is still very much in control.”
One of the biggest differences between Lachlan and his father is their cultural connection to Britain. Murdoch, who attended the University of Oxford, returned from Australia in the 1960s to build a media empire in London, exerting political power over multiple prime ministers and building up a business that ranged from high-end broadsheet newspapers to the tabloids that produced the cash to build a satellite TV business – and ultimately a shift into more profitable US business.
Lachlan, unlike his father and his siblings, does not have the same deep roots in the UK. Instead, the new sole chairman has been focused on US operations, overseeing businesses such as the highly profitable Fox News from Sydney after his family relocated from Los Angeles.
Responding to suggestions that Lachlan had rarely been seen in London, a News UK spokesperson said he spent a week in the UK in June when the entire company’s board visited for a scheduled meeting. They also said Brooks would be staying in her current role.
In recent years Rupert was often seen on the newsroom floor and was known for taking an active interest in the stories and political positioning of the Sun and the Times, especially during the pandemic when he was holed up in an Oxfordshire mansion with ex-wife Jerry Hall. It was there he signed an eye-wateringly expensive deal with Piers Morgan to launch TalkTV, a channel that averaged just 8,000 viewers on Tuesday and has been repeatedly trounced in the ratings by the nimbler and more extreme GB News.
MacKenzie said the transition announced on Thursday showed that Rupert knew when to sell a company, such as when he offloaded Sky and other big assets in 2018 at the peak of the market. But he laughed at Murdoch’s decision to appoint himself “chairman emeritus”, suggesting his former employer had mocked such titles in the past.
He recalled being in Murdoch’s office in Grays Inn Road during the 1980s, asking why then-Sunday Times editor Frank Giles had been given the title “editor emeritus”.
“I asked, ‘what does that mean?’. Murdoch said: ‘It means he’s not the fucking editor of the Sunday Times.’”
To complicate matters, appointing Lachlan as sole chair does not mean that the Murdoch family succession issue is settled for ever. Rupert still controls the family trust that owns most of the shares of News Corporation and Fox, enabling him to push through Thursday’s formal transition of power. But when Rupert dies the family trust will be split between his first four children – meaning Lachlan could have to strike a deal with his siblings James, Elisabeth and Prudence if he wants to remain in charge.
Lachlan is partly estranged from James, his former co-chief executive, who has openly criticised the family business’s support for Donald Trump and climate change denial. As a result Lachlan’s future could rely on a deal with Elisabeth, who was at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge conference on Wednesday, and his publicity-shy half-sister Prudence.
For his part Rupert has made clear he will remain very much involved, telling staff: “I will be watching our broadcasts with a critical eye, reading our newspapers and websites and books with much interest, and reaching out to you with thoughts, ideas, and advice.”
In a nod to his distaste for remote-working, he added: “When I visit your countries and companies, you can expect to see me in the office late on a Friday afternoon.”
Enders said Rupert is not leaving the stage: “While it is very much the end of an era, the fact is he retains the ownership interest in the family trust, which to be honest gives him the same power whether he is in the saddle or on the deck chair.”
