Lachlan Murdoch, son king for life
In the empire of the Sun King, the heir to the throne has ascended.
The resolution of the Murdoch family succession ends a decade-long battle for the heart and soul of Fox Corporation and News Corp, the world's most powerful and stridently right-wing media organisations.
Had a settlement not been reached before the death of 94-year-old Rupert Murdoch, who has been frail for some time, there was a high probability that the Murdoch family empire – of which Fox and News are the component parts – would have been broken up.
Under the deal announced today, Lachlan Murdoch cements voting control of both Fox and News until at least 2050. Thus when Rupert Murdoch eventually goes to the great hot metal room in the sky, there will be no fundamental change in the strategy or leadership of either organisation.[[Murdoch established his genius for tabloid newspapers in the 1960s and 1970s, when lines of type for newspapers were cast in hot metal by linotype machines. These "hot metal rooms" were full of large vats of hot metal where unprotected workers walked around at high speed. Murdoch roamed the hot metal rooms at night, hunting down tired headlines and flabby stories.]] For this turn of events, tens of thousands of News and Fox hacks, and an equal number of right-wing politicians and commentators, can now breathe easily. Their safe space has been protected.
The US$3.3 billion payout on the dissolution of the Murdoch Family Trust – going in equal shares to Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth Murdoch and James Murdoch – will represent the last instalment of one of the greatest intergenerational wealth transfers in Australian history.