Murdoch Settlement Sees Lachlan Win Control of Media Empire

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00:00Ros, this has been quite the drama, hasn't it? Does this succession drama then for Rupert Murdoch,

00:04does it put this issue to bed once and for all?

00:08Yeah, well, by and large, it does. As you say, this was going on for some years,

00:12real-life succession drama. But what we have now is a case where the other three kids,

00:17you know, Prudence, Elizabeth and James, no longer, you know, have those voting rights

00:22as part of the family trust. So they don't have that interest in the company.

00:26They're basically being given a billion dollars each to walk away. And the concern had been

00:31because they each had that voting right, that the three of them might band together to move

00:36against Lachlan at some point. And Rupert Murdoch obviously concerned they would take his empire

00:41in a different direction, perhaps move away from some of the conservative, you know, elements of

00:46things like Fox News and so on. And there would be a collective push there. That's off the table.

00:51Lachlan is obviously now free to run the company, possibly for decades to come.

00:56You can't imagine there's going to be cosy family dinners necessarily going on after all we've seen

01:01playing out in the courts. You don't know what the family dynamics are. But in terms of the business

01:06itself, this is now put to bed. And to your point, this is a re-empowered Lachlan then with this sole

01:11control, effectively, of this empire, this business empire. What are we watching? What do we expect him

01:17to do with all that power that he now has? Well, certainly, like many companies, you know,

01:22News Corp, Fox are adapting to a fast changing media landscape. But he has put in a new streaming

01:27service at Fox recently, you know, sports, media, entertainment, Fox One. Over at the Wall Street

01:33General, he's moving to boost digital subscribers in the real estate business in Australia, digital

01:38advertising. You can see very much adjusting to a digital landscape across all the parts of the

01:44company. But it is a big, sprawling company. There are lots of other smaller parts to it. So does he take a look at

01:51some of that and say, do we need to shrink any of that down to really focus here on driving, you know, a much

01:57more modern media outfit in a digital landscape? We can't really think about these media assets owned by

02:02Murdoch and the Murdoch empire without thinking about the political impacts as well. How is it likely? What are the

02:07potential political ramifications of this of this power? Well, particularly in the US, obviously, where Fox is a

02:13juggernaut and has had a boost with Donald Trump being back in the White House and back in the limelight. And

02:19their, you know, their ratings have gone up as a result. However, even that is a fragmenting

02:23landscape. You have Donald Trump inviting all kinds of influences, podcasters into the White House,

02:30getting press passes, you know, massive followers. And he's talking to them very directly. He's also

02:35had some falling out with individual Fox anchors. And so it's not all sunshine and roses there either.

02:42I mean, obviously, Fox is the biggest player in this space. This removes the prospect of Fox,

02:46moving away from its conservative roots. And that had been, again, Rupert Murdoch's concern. But even there,

02:53you're going to have a shifting landscape where how do you counter all these rising individuals who were being just as

02:58popular?

02:59popular.