(New York) Lachlan Murdoch, who in November will take the helm of the family empire built on three continents by his father Rupert, the feared media mogul, embodies continuity and a line just as conservative as the patriarch.
Lachlan, already president of Fox Corporation, parent company of the Fox News television channel, was the favorite against his brother and rival James.
“Lachlan is reputed to be the more conservative of the two [frères]while James has more progressive ideas”, underlines for AFP Reece Peck, professor at New York University and author of Fox Populisma book about the favorite TV channel of American conservatives, and nugget of the Murdoch empire.
PHOTO JOEL RYAN, INVISION ARCHIVES/AP
From left: Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch pictured in 2016 at the media mogul’s wedding in London
And with the approach of a new American presidential election, which promises to be just as electric as the previous one, with Donald Trump favorite of the Republicans but multiple indictments, “it would seem logical” that Lachlan Murdoch “does not shake things up and maintains the audience strategy” of Fox News, adds this media specialist.
“Ultimately, Fox News is a victim of its own success; it has cultivated this demand for conservative and partisan content. And today, it has a market and an audience that wants that,” adds the professor.
Presidential 2020
At 52, Lachlan Murdoch appeared as the natural successor to the patriarch’s three other first children, James, Prudence and Elisabeth, who have all gained ground in recent years, the first at odds with Fox’s increasingly conservative orientations. News.
Even before his appointment on Thursday, Lachlan already held the positions of CEO – since 2019 – of Fox Corporation and co-president of News Corp, the global publishing and media group present notably in North America, Australia and Great Britain. Brittany.
Under his presidency, Fox Corporation notably purchased in 2020, for $440 million, the platform streaming free with Tubi advertising, which allowed it to maintain its advertising revenue.
Lachlan Murdoch also already had an operational role during the 2020 presidential election, when Fox News espoused and echoed the false thesis of a rigged election to the detriment of Donald Trump. This theory fueled the anger of the most virulent supporters of the Republican champion, culminating in the violent invasion of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Accused of adding fuel to the fire, the channel also had to pay the sum of $787.5 million in April to the manufacturer of electronic voting machines Dominion Voting Systems, at the center of this false theory, for s avoid an embarrassing defamation trial.
Breakup and return
Brilliant smile, Hollywood actor look, Lachlan Murdoch was born in London in 1971 and grew up in the United States, where he attended elite schools in Aspen (Colorado) and New York. He graduated from Princeton University, where he studied philosophy.
His journey within the family group has not been a long, quiet river. Very early on, his father gave him a leg up by entrusting him with newspapers in Australia and Lachlan Murdoch rose to prominence within News Corp. He encourages investments in the Australian telecoms group One. Such, which will eventually go bankrupt, but also in a group of real estate advertisements on the Internet, REA Group, a company which is now flourishing.
Based in the United States, he ended up breaking with News Corp in 2005, a departure precipitated by his disagreements with Roger Ailes, an ultraconservative figure on the Fox News channel. Lachlan Murdoch retreated to Australia, where he still often resides, with his wife Sarah Murdoch (née O’Hare), a model and TV presenter with whom he has three children. During this period of withdrawal, he founded the investment company Illyria Pty.
His return takes place ten years later, at the request of his father, while the Murdoch empire has faltered with the affair of illegal wiretapping of the British tabloid News of the World, which caused its closure. He took over as head of Fox Corporation in 2019 but the empire was thinned by the sale to Disney, for $66 billion, of 21st Century Fox, one of the jewels of the group with its studios and its catalog of movie.
His rise coincides with the departure of his brother James, who resigned from News Corp in July 2020.
Even if Lachlan Murdoch takes charge, the succession battle is not over. Many observers consider that the death of Rupert Murdoch will reshuffle the cards, because each of his first four children will have equivalent voting rights within the group.