Lachlan Murdoch, 21st Century Fox’s co-chairman, called to order what was “likely the final” stockholders meeting of his family media company on Wednesday. It was a polished, if not anticlimactic, affair that gave us an official name for New Fox — Fox — as the Walt Disney Co. prepares to ingest the former’s film and TV assets, leaving a leaner broadcasting infrastructure, sports programming, and the news operation.
21st Century Fox Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch said Thursday it is still an “open question” whether the company will buy back the regional sports networks it sold to entertainment company Walt Disney Co. in July as part of a $71 billion deal.
New Fox chief Lachlan Murdoch deflected criticism of the company’s stewardship of Fox News, whose strident programming has inflamed Hollywood figures such as longtime Fox creators Seth MacFarlane and Steve Levitan.
Lachlan Murdoch unveiled Tuesday the executive team that will run a new, slimmed-down and live-TV-and-sports focused 21st Century Fox once the company sells a large chunk of its assets to Walt Disney Co., a mammoth $71.3 billion deal that is expected to close in 2019.
He now seems all but certain to assume the helm after his brother, current Fox CEO James Murdoch, sees through a $52.4 billion asset sale to Walt Disney Co. over the next 12 to 18 months. The question — for the global media and investors alike — is what will happen then.
Twenty-First Century Fox would never be interested in buying CNN, Fox Executive Chair Lachlan Murdoch said on Wednesday. “We wouldn’t be allowed to buy CNN and we would never be interested in buying CNN,” Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s oldest son, said at the Business Insider conference.
Exclusives
If the media reports are to believed, Murdoch and his sons James and Lachlan, who are top executives at his companies, have decided that the original content business has gotten too expensive for them. With Netflix planning to spend $8 billion in 2018 on original programming, Amazon.com’s $4.5 billion spending plan, and Apple’s $1 billion budget, it’s easy to understand their misgivings, particularly given the underperformance of 20th Century Fox in both TV production and at the box office this year.
A shareholder proposal calling for 21st Century Fox Inc to do away with its dual-class share structure may inflict a symbolic black eye on the media company’s founder Rupert Murdoch and his family at its annual meeting on Wednesday.
Rupert Murdoch is one of the most driven moguls in media, defying the odds for more than a half-century to build a global media empire from a small newspaper in Australia. So many people were startled to learn the 86-year-old tycoon and his sons appear willing to sell some of their prized 21st Century Fox media assets.
The annual compensation for all three of 21st Century Fox’s Murdochs — Rupert, Lachlan and James — fell in the most recent fiscal year, according to a company SEC filing. Rupert Murdoch’s compensation as executive co-chairman dipped from $34.6 million in FY 2016 to $29.3 million. His son Lachlan, also executive co-chairman, made $20.6 million, down from $23.7 million. CEO James dipped from $26.4 million to $20.3 million.
In its first major international acquisition, the U.S. giant stunned the Fox mogul with a deal that gives the Leslie Moonves-led company a foothold in the fourth-largest English-speaking market.
Australia’s Ten Network shareholders voted Monday to accept a bid from CBS Corp. The “overwhelming” vote in favor of the bid was a loss for Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon, who had lost a court decision earlier that day to delay the creditors’ meeting.
Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon have failed in their legal bid to block CBS Corp. from taking over the insolvent Ten Network. The two had argued that their own bid wasn’t properly considered, but the Supreme Court in New South Wales dismissed the challenge. Murdoch and Gordon have said they’ll appeal the decision.
21st Century Fox Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch says the three-month delay between a film’s release in theaters and in the home will change “sooner rather than later,” portending a dramatic, if long-awaited, shift in the movie industry’s traditional business model.
Since taking over two years ago, James and Lachlan Murdoch seem determined to rid the company of the old-guard culture on which their father, Rupert Murdoch, built his empire.
Since the Roger Ailes scandal broke, 21st Century Fox’s James and Lachlan Murdoch have become more involved in the cable news network. Not only did the brothers unilaterally decide to retain the law firm Paul, Weiss, whose internal investigation facilitated Ailes’s exit, but they are now playing a pivotal role in persuading the network’s brightest star, Megyn Kelly, whose contract expires in July 2017, to sign a new pact.
Rupert Murdoch as the network’s interim chief after Roger Ailes’s ouster is a smart move, but Murdoch’s sons may have a hand in the direction of the empire.
Now that Roger Ailes has stepped down as head of Fox News, the television news industry is bracing for a seismic shift. But the impact on the nation’s political discourse may be just as significant. Without Ailes guiding the network, conservatives and Republican politicians are left wondering whether the talk might soften under new leadership.
Does it need “a tweak or a transformation”? Might Megyn Kelly be its younger, more feminist-seeming new face? Is it just a tonal shift that’s in order, or does the whole news product have to change? These are among the questions that media analyst Ken Doctor surmises Fox News must be asking itself post-Ailes as James and Lachlan Murdoch look to how far they will fashion their company’s golden goose.
Fox News is heading into a general election campaign in its customary spot at the top of the ratings, but without the man who sets its editorial tone every day. For now, Rupert Murdoch will fill the spot left vacant by Ailes departure. “I am personally committed to ensuring that Fox News remains a distinctive, powerful voice,” Murdoch says. “Our nation needs a robust Fox News to resonate from every corner of the country,”
Though Rupert Murdoch has stepped in to run Fox News in the interim, the search is on for a permanent replacement for Roger Ailes. But Murdoch, the 85-year-old executive chairman of 21st Century Fox who hired Ailes to invent Fox News two decades ago, is no long-term solution, and Ailes groomed no obvious successor.Among the names thought to be in the mix: current Fox managers Bill Shine, Jay Wallace and Mark Kranz and Michael Clemente, as well as The New York Post‘s Jesse Angelo.
As of Wednesday night, negotiations between 21st Century Fox and soon-to-be-ousted CEO Roger Ailes were still unresolved. The New York Times looks at the wider implications of his departure at Fox, including how much of Ailes’ management team will remain, and meanwhile staffers remain in the dark on what’s to happen next.
Fox News’s seemingly unassailable position as the most powerful cable news channel was rocked this week by the news that Roger Ailes, the only leader the network has ever known, was negotiating his exit as chairman after accusations of sexual harassment. But no matter how unseemly his departure, Ailes will leave Fox News in strong shape. Speculation about who will replace him has already begun, with names including Bill Shine, Fox News’s senior EVP for programming; David Rhodes, president of CBS News and a former Fox exec; and Jesse Angelo, CEO of The New York Post, thought to be among the contenders.
The fall of Fox News chief Roger Ailes likely marks the end of the Rupert Murdoch era at 21st Century Fox. “The ouster of Ailes, a sorry PR capitulation in [Rupert] Murdoch’s view, is not just an abrupt end to Ailes’ career at 21st Century Fox, but, in a way that’s hard to miss, rather a Murdoch coda,” according to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Michael Wolff.
News of Roger Ailes’ exit from Fox News seems to have been premature. The Fox News chief’s attorney said Tuesday that “there is no agreement,” and CNN’s Brian Stelter and Dylan Byers report that numerous media organizations walked back an initial story, first posted by Drudge Report, that Ailes was in fact out.
Susan Estrich, a lawyer for Fox News head Roger Ailes, released a statement denying reports that Ailes had harassed Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. “Roger Ailes has never sexually harassed Megyn Kelly,” Estrich said. “In fact, he has spent much of the last decade promoting and helping her achieve the stardom she earned, for which she has repeatedly and publicly thanked him.”
The Daily Beast late Tuesday said that 21st Century Fox had confirmed that Fox News chief Roger Ailes, embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal, was leaving the news network. The site later said that Fox News had walked back their confirmation, with the news network issuing the following statement: “Roger is at work. The review is ongoing. The only agreement that is in place is his existing employment agreement.”
Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who has been conspicuously absent among the group of Roger Ailes defenders, has broken her silence, according to a report in New York magazine. According to two sources briefed on parent company 21st Century Fox’s outside probe of the Fox News chief, Kelly told investigators that Ailes made unwanted sexual advances toward her about 10 years ago when she was a young correspondent at Fox.
“In many ways, [Roger] Ailes is Fox News. So the notion that he could be sacked at the height of a captivating presidential election is even more earth-shaking,” says The Washington Post‘s Callum Borchers. “A change at the top would immediately raise questions about the role of Fox News throughout the remainder of the presidential race … and beyond.”
In response to a New York magazine story that said Roger Ailes was to be removed as head of Fox News, 21st Century Fox said late Monday afternoon that its investigation into former anchor Gretchen Carlson’s accusations of sexual harassment is not over. “This matter is not yet resolved and the review is not concluded,” 21st Century Fox said.
Roger Ailes’s tenure as the head of Fox News may be coming to an end. Rupert Murdoch and sons Lachlan and James — co-chairmen and CEO, respectively, of parent company 21st Century Fox — have settled on removing the 76-year-old executive, according to a report from New York magazine.
In the year since Rupert Murdoch handed over the reins of 21st Century Fox to his sons James and Lachlan, the brothers have been remaking the company. During that time they’ve largely kept their hands off Fox News and Roger Ailes. But as Ailes’ sexual harassment scandal plays out, 21st Century Fox now faces questions about succession planning at the linchpin operation. Analysts say, it has become the Murdoch brothers’ biggest leadership challenge since taking over.
The brothers, who took over the 21st Century Fox empire on July 1, sit down together and open up about who’s in charge, sister Liz, the new age of television, politics, Roger Ailes, Dad Rupert and whether their rebellious spirit can create the next great media era.
Some traditions never die, including the one at Fox to offer top executives super-high compensation packages. New CEO James Murdoch and Executive Co-Chairman Lachlan Murdoch’s new contracts run to mid-2019. Both report to the board, but James also reports to his father, Rupert, who’s the other executive co-chairman. Each of his two kids will receive a $3 million base salary and are eligible for a target bonus of anywhere from $8 million to $16 million. Stock incentives will come in at no less than $9 million.
Effective July 1, Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch become executive co-chairmen; Chase Carey named executive vice chairman; and James Murdoch is the new chief executive officer. The moves follow Rupert Murdoch’s announcement last week that he was stepping down as CEO.
Sons James and Lachlan are to take over management of Fox. But will they in fact? Is this really a succession plan? And where will Chase Carey land when he exits?
Rupert Murdoch has elevated son Lachlan to the top of his multi-billion dollar family media empire after a seven-year break, appointing him non-executive co-chairman of both News Corp. and 21st Century Fox Inc. The media mogul also gave his younger son James a bigger role as co-COO at 21st Century Fox, two years after he resigned as chairman of British broadcaster BSkyB following a parliamentary investigation into phone hacking.
The results released Monday from the News Corp. annual meeting last week suggest that most shareholders not affiliated with the family are opposed to one of Murdoch’s children taking control of the media conglomerate when its 80-year-old leader steps down.
Rupert Murdoch’s campaign to keep control of News Corp. suffered a fresh blow on Friday after another key shareholder group called for his eviction from the board of the embattled media company.
Things could be interesting in Los Angeles on Oct. 21 when News Corp holds its annual shareholders meeting. Advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services recommended today that stock owners reject 13 of News Corp’s 15 board members, including the three Murdochs: Rupert and his sons James and Lachlan.
