"Media Empire" inherits his father's legacy, Murdoch steps down at the age of 92
92 year old billionaire Rupert Murdoch announced on the 21st that he will step down and hand over the media empire he founded, led by Fox News, to his son, Lachlan Murdoch.
As the flagship of conservative media in the United States, Fox News Channel has a profound impact on American public opinion and politics. After Lachlan takes over, there will be speculation about the extent to which Fox Group and News Corporation will shift their policy stance.
【 Inheriting Father's Business from Son 】
According to the Associated Press, Murdoch will become the honorary chairman of Fox Group and News Corporation starting from November. Lachlan will serve as the Chairman of News Corporation and continue to serve as the CEO of Fox Group. Forbes magazine estimated in 2020 that the wealth of the Murdoch family business was approximately $19 billion.
On the 21st, Murdoch issued a resignation letter to all employees and stated that he will not be idle after stepping down. According to him, the Murdoch family business is like a community, and he will be an active member of this community, "watching our programs with a critical eye and reading our newspapers, websites, and books with great interest.".
Murdoch inherited a newspaper left by his father in Adelaide, Australia in 1952, gradually building a news and entertainment media giant with significant influence in the United States and the United Kingdom. Fox News Channel was launched in the United States in 1996, and within six years, its audience satisfaction surpassed that of CNN and Microsoft National Broadcasting Corporation. Fox Broadcasting Network competes against traditional American television giants with programs such as The Simpsons.
Murdoch also controlled the Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and The Times and The Sun in the United States, and founded Sky Television in the UK, but later transferred his 40% stake.
Lachlan served as the CEO of Fox Group since 2019. He rose to the management level of the family business from the late 1990s to the beginning of this century, but resigned in 2005 due to disagreements with former CEO of Fox News Channel, Roger Ayers. In 2015, he returned to oversee Fox Entertainment.
The media empire controlled by Murdoch has been exposed to scandals such as monitoring celebrities and a series of sexual harassment. Murdoch sold most of his entertainment division assets to Walt Disney in 2019. In recent years, Fox Group has also been forced to compensate $787 million and dismiss anchor Tucker Carlson due to allegations of inaccurate coverage of the 2020 presidential election.
[Change or remain unchanged]
Regarding the direction of the Murdoch family business after the handover of power, Michael Wolf, the biographer of Murdoch, infers that Lachlan has actually been at the helm for many years and is closest to his father Murdoch's conservative political stance. He is unlikely to make significant adjustments in the short term.
Virginia Tech media professor Megan Duncan also believes that as long as Murdoch remains the honorary chairman, his family business will not undergo significant changes.
Nicole Hummer, a political historian at Vanderbilt University, said that as the 2024 US presidential election approaches, Lachlan may try to bring back the audience who supported former Republican President Donald Trump in order to avoid losing ratings to competitors. This audience has been lost since the 2020 US presidential election. Although Murdoch himself has a complex relationship with Trump, the majority of the audience on Fox News Channel are Trump fans.
According to data from the Righting website, which tracks conservative media, in July this year, Fox News Channel's website had nearly 74.8 million views, while the second ranked Washington Observer website had only 7.5 million views. But overall, the American public is increasingly inclined to obtain information from smaller websites and digital media such as blogs.
Howard Polskin, the head of the "Righting" website, told the Associated Press that if Murdoch retires in 2000, the impact on conservative media in the United States may be greater, but "the conservative media landscape has now become more diverse.".