Media Matters
And the tycoon’s children don’t love his papers the way he does...
Newspaper aficionados may be familiar with Succession, a comedy produced by American cable company HBO. A second series has just begun. The show follows the Roy family, a media dynasty struggling to cope with the decision of the elderly paterfamilias Logan Roy (played by Brian Cox) to step back from a global entertainment empire.
Although the programme-makers are coy, it’s clear the show is partly based on the recent history of Rupert Murdoch’s family. In March, the media tycoon sold 21st Century Fox to Disney while, last year, Murdoch-controlled Sky was gobbled up in this country by US communications giant Comcast. Elder son Lachlan has been put in charge of Fox Corp, which looks after the family’s remaining broadcast and cable American businesses, which are considerable. With his father, Lachlan also runs News Corp, owner of newspapers in the US, Australia and Britain. Meanwhile, younger brother James Murdoch remains chief executive officer of 21st Century Fox, even though it is no longer controlled by his family. Lachlan appears to have won out over James in the battle for succession.
This is significant because Rupert Murdoch is 88, and less active and healthy than he was. Early last year, he suffered a serious back injury in an accident on Lachlan’s yacht, which was evidently a shock for a man of his age. His mother breathed her last when she was 104, and it may be some years before the Almighty elects to gather in her extraordinary son. Still, it is hardly absurd to speculate what will happen when He does.
Although broad-minded, this column is necessarily less interested in the fate of Murdoch’s American assets such as Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, or of the Australian newspapers, than it is in the future of his British titles: the Times, Sunday Times, Sun and Sun on Sunday. What will happen to them?
No one can be sure about Fox Corp and News Corp. They are only about 39 per cent owned by the Murdoch family and, with Rupert’s demise, could be broken up and their constituent parts flogged off to other media companies. Even if News Corp (owner of the newspapers) remains in one piece, it’s hard to imagine Lachlan or James (should he make a comeback) being interested in the British titles.
For one thing, they aren’t fascinated by newspapers in the way their father has been. For another, the Times and Sunday Times are barely profitable, though the recent government decision that they can share resources despite a previous undertaking will improve a faltering bottom line. The Sun and its Sunday sister are losing tens of millions of pounds as their sales continue to slide Swingeing job cuts were recently announced on both titles.
Let’s face it: although these four papers may in British eyes still loom quite large, they are small beer within the Murdoch empire, and not obviously great prizes to any prospective buyer. They were brought together by Rupert Murdoch, who in 1969 took over the floundering Sun and made it a power in the land. Then, in 1981, he acquired the Times and Sunday Times. Over the years, he has lost hundreds of millions of pounds with the Times, and is now haemorrhaging cash with the Sun. He simply loves newspapers and, although a ruthless and brilliant businessman, does not regard them solely as a means of making money. His successors may take a more beady-eyed view. I expect we’ll look back on Murdoch’s stewardship of these papers as a golden age.
I don’t doubt the Times and Sunday Times have a future. So too does the dwindling Sun and, I suppose, the Sun on Sunday. There is, though, no God-given reason why they should continue to exist within the same group. A huge upheaval lies ahead – and it may come much sooner than most people think.
A cheering development in recent times has been the success of several grown-up magazines in bucking the downward circulation trends afflicting most newspapers. One reason is that such publications have a longer shelf life than their counterparts in the daily press, and so are less vulnerable to online
competition. The Economist, Private
Eye, the New Statesman and the Spectator have all been recording improving sales.
So upbeat is the Spectator that it is planning to launch a US monthly edition in October, with a modest initial print run, to add to its successful American website. Most of the articles will be American-generated, though it will also include pieces from the London edition. One of its editors tells me it will showcase ‘good writing’ with a ‘British twist’.
The Oldie has its own success story to tell. Audited figures which have just been released show a three-per-cent increase on the previous period, with an all-time record sale of 47,002 copies per issue. Is America yearning for its own Oldie? Onwards and upwards!