Lachlan Murdoch seemed to have come out on top at News Corp following his father’s decision to step down yesterday.
Rupert’s oldest son becomes sole chairman of News Corp as well as chair and CEO of Fox, aged 52.
But not so fast, according to Michael Wolff’s forthcoming book on Murdoch, Fox News and its falling out with Donald Trump.
Wolff points out in The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty that, on Murdoch’s death – which he predicts will be soon, with several scenes suggesting the man isn’t entirely coherent – voting control passes to his oldest four children in equal amounts: Prudence, 64, Elisabeth, 55, Lachlan and James, 50.
The way Wolff pitches it, Lachlan wants to stay in power; James – who financially backed the 2020 Biden campaign – wants Lachlan’s job in a bid to change Fox into a “force for good”, even though this could cost the family $1 billion in lost ad revenue; Liz thinks Fox needs to be sold off because cable TV is a declining business; and Prudence tends to side with the majority… so Wolff doesn’t think it looks good for Lachlan. I
f any of this sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the final season of Succession almost word for word. Rumours that the writers’ room received leaks from the family look increasingly accurate.
Wolff suggests Murdoch Sr thinks Lachlan is a soft touch, writing: “Murdoch, presented with rumours about [Tucker] Carlson’s possible interest in the presidency, blamed this on Lachlan, holding his son responsible for not controlling the ratings winner at the network… Murdoch told friends with disbelief that Lachlan wanted Carlson to become president: “My son wants his own president.’”
And although Lachlan is seen as the torch bearer for his dad’s politics, Wolff thinks there’s little sign of a Fox/Trump rapprochement. Rupert and Lachlan are both newspapermen, he argues.
They don’t understand TV and don’t know how to manage it. Rupert doesn’t even like watching Fox while, in 2016, the toilets in Lachlan’s house “featured toilet paper with Trump’s face…. (and Lachlan) told people that his wife and children cried when Trump was elected”.
The channel’s mastermind, Roger Ailes, was forced out in 2016, and Wolff says the resulting lack of leadership left a vacuum that Donald Trump filled. “The Fox audience became a Trump audience.” Shortly before Ailes died in 2017, he told Wolff: “Oh, my fucking God…. Poor Rupert wanted CNN. I gave him Fox.”
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