[cheering and applause]
[man 1] Welcome, one and all, to The Late Show.
I'm your host, Stephen Colbert.
[audience cheering]
About two hours ago,
Fox News settled their defamation suit with Dominion Voting Systems.
Damn it!
I wanted to see Rupert Murdoch
put his hand on the Bible and burst into flames.
[audience laughing]
[dramatic music playing]
-[horns beeping] -[man shouting]
[Jim Rutenberg] 2023 was one of the worst years
in Rupert's entire career.
[shouts] 'Cause Fox Lie!
[Jim] Fox News settled a lawsuit with the Dominion voting machine company
for almost a billion dollars.
Fox was already strapped for cash.
Tucker Carlson can only afford one facial expression.
[man 2] Dominion had accused Fox News of knowingly pushing
false conspiracy theories
about what former President Trump had claimed were rigged voting machines.
So Fox knew this was all BS, and yet they were hyping it to their viewers anyway.
[chanting] Detox from Fox.
[Jim] During the 2020 presidential race,
Fox hosts gave airtime
to conspiracy theories about a stolen election.
These fraudulent ballots will just be counted again.
Fox News was trying to sell their bullshit that Trump really won the election.
The machine ran an algorithm that shaved votes from Trump
and awarded them to Biden.
[man 3] The judge ruled that everything Fox aired about Dominion
and its voting machines in the 2020 election was false.
[camera clicking]
[Jonathan Mahler] Their decision to buy into the big lie
created a credibility problem for the company and for shareholders.
So there are tensions within the Murdoch family.
Liz, James, and Prue are concerned
about the direction of the company under Lachlan,
because this Dominion Voting settlement happened under his leadership.
At Fox News, there has always been a push to the right.
But now this is an existential matter for the family.
[Jonathan] An enormous amount is at stake.
I mean, this is the most powerful media empire in the world.
And it begins to provoke a conversation among the children
about, well, what is gonna happen when Rupert dies?
Where do we go from here? What will happen with the companies?
So James is passing through London,
and he reaches out to Liz and Prue to meet with them.
It's worth acknowledging Lachlan is not invited.
[Jonathan] James reserves a private room inside the Claridge Hotel in London.
And that meeting becomes a source of a lot of debate… [scoffs]
…and a lot of controversy.
[Jim] Because as this is all unspooling,
there's this article in the Financial Times
that really sets Lachlan off.
There's a quote from a source close to James
that says, basically, when Rupert dies, Lachlan's out.
[Jonathan] Of course, that fuels Lachlan's paranoia.
-[man 4] Who is going to succeed? -[man 5] Waiting in the wings…
[Jim] The chatter that James will effect a coup with his sisters
was, in Lachlan's ears, deafening.
The clear indication is,
if James were to somehow effect a coup,
he would change the direction of Fox and would take it to the left.
[Jonathan] And that's all in the air as this meeting happens.
[pulsing music playing]
[Jim] So, at Claridge's,
Liz, James, and Prue are definitely venting about Lachlan
but all say that they didn't talk about getting rid of him.
The most memorable thing about it is Liz has a beer.
[bottle opens, fizzes]
But afterward, Prue gets an alarming text from Lachlan
asking her to call him.
Prue is beside herself.
Maybe he's found out about their meeting. She doesn't know what to say.
And she writes to Liz,
"Lachlan trying to reach me!"
And she does a kind of exploding-head emoji.
[music continues]
[Jonathan] But, as it turns out, he was reaching out to tell her
about some changes at one of the company's boards.
[Jim] So it was actually pretty innocuous,
but still, Lachlan's very unhappy.
He's constantly reminding or pointing out to his dad,
"Look, look, look. They're planning a coup."
Rupert spent his entire lifetime building Fox News
and the rest of the conservative empire,
so he sees it as his legacy.
[Richard Cooke] And there is only one of his children
that Rupert trusts with the Murdoch media empire
operating in the interests of conservative politics.
He knows Lachlan will act as an instrument of his will,
even posthumously.
[Jim] So Rupert and Lachlan decide, "We've got to figure this out."
And thus begins an aggressive plot
to take control of the empire once and for all.
[dramatic music playing]
[music softens]
[music ends]
-[children chattering] -[string music playing]
[Paul Barry] Rupert portrays himself as someone who came from nothing,
who built his empire out of nothing.
But he grew up in a house that had 30 rooms.
It had a tower,
four acres of gardens,
a ballroom. They had ten servants.
So Rupert wasn't just born with a silver spoon in his mouth.
He had a whole set of gold cutlery.
[Paddy Manning] His father, Keith,
was the most powerful newspaper man in Australia,
with one of the top-selling tabloids in Melbourne.
And Rupert grew up
wanting to emulate his father.
The way that his father made money was through a populist messaging apparatus.
[Paul] He pioneers modern tabloid journalism in Australia.
Snappy headlines, competitions,
sport, and crime.
[Paddy] He was a kingmaker in his day.
He was able to seat and unseat prime ministers.
[Paul] Rupert's born in 1931.
He's the second child.
The first is a girl. Two more girls come after.
Rupert, as the boy, was naturally the one that his father looked to to succeed him.
But he was not great at sports.
He was not particularly focused in school.
His headmaster said he was the most unpleasant,
most difficult pupil he'd ever taught.
He was rebellious, arrogant, didn't like authority.
So he's a guy who's got a lot of privilege about him,
and he behaves like that.
[church bell tolls]
[man 1] Keith had sent him to Oxford to rub shoulders with future influencers
and make something of himself.
And instead, Rupert was driving fast,
gambling, drinking, smoking, having a great time.
[curious music playing]
[David] So Keith Murdoch was not convinced that Rupert was a good representation
of what the Murdoch family name should embody.
[bells chime]
[Rupert] I was sleeping in one Sunday morning in my flat at Oxford
when my tutor came in and woke me up and told me that my father had died.
Any memory I really have of it is one of, um, complete shock.
[David] Rupert's father died rather abruptly.
In his will, Keith Murdoch said that he hoped for his only son,
Keith Rupert Murdoch,
to have a useful, altruistic, and full life
in newspapering and broadcasting,
which is quite a charge.
I was burdened with this anxiety
for Rupert.
He was so very young,
and I did long to be able to help Rupert
to prove worthy of his father.
[Walter] From Elisabeth's perspective, she's got this 21-year-old son
who's totally unproven when it comes to being a journalist,
let alone running a media empire.
And so after the funeral, Keith Murdoch's former colleagues take control.
[Paddy] The executors of his estate talked Dame Elisabeth into selling
the bulk of the media business that Keith had built up.
Rupert is outraged.
He believes that the people that used to work for his father
have now betrayed him,
and his inheritance has been stolen out from under him.
[David] Rupert carried this with him for his entire life.
Not a chip, but a boulder on his shoulder.
[Paddy] And he spends the next 45 years getting even.
[reporter 1] Mr. Murdoch, sir.
[cameras clicking]
[Paul] People always ask, "What drives Rupert?"
Everyone thinks that it's money, but it's really the game.
[Paddy] By the mid '90s, Rupert was on a winning streak.
The Murdoch empire is sprawling.
It's in the US, UK, and Australia.
[Sarah] He has 20th Century Fox, movie studios, television.
[woman 1] His communications empire
includes everything from satellite companies
to some of the biggest newspapers in the world.
Forbes magazine estimates his fortune to be worth $4 billion.
[McKay Coppins] Rupert had already acquired a villainous reputation
for his down-market tabloids and conservative politics.
[Rupert] Our company is a reflection of my thinking,
my character, and my values.
[Sarah] His guiding light was poking whoever he viewed as the Establishment.
When it's going well, push it.
[Jim] 1996 is the most important year in Rupert Murdoch's career.
And it's important for two words.
Fox News.
As you know, Fox has had a phenomenal growth in the last few years,
and now we have to move, uh, to making ourselves the best in news programming.
Rupert saw a real business opportunity.
Good morning, and welcome to MSNBC.
[Sarah] He saw all of the news operations
fighting for the same left-of-center audience,
and there's no real conservative voice in the news.
[reporter 2] Murdoch is vowing to offer an alternative
to what he claims is a liberal bias in the media.
Recognizing an audience that isn't being catered to
and speaking to them directly,
this is the model for the Murdoch media empire.
[Sarah] So Rupert launched Fox News.
We've been very lucky in being able to obtain the services of Mr. Roger Ailes.
I'd like to thank Mr. Murdoch for the kind words. Thank you all for coming…
[Sarah] Like Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes was deep into conservative politics.
We'd like to, uh, restore objectivity where we find it lacking,
and, uh, we just expect to do fine, balanced journalism.
Roger Ailes is one of the smartest people I've met.
Smartest, canny.
It's like talking to Satan. Like, Satan's smart.
[Matthew Belloni] It depends who you are, how you describe the relationship
between Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch.
They are either supervillains that came together to dominate the world,
or they are mutual geniuses who recognize market value.
Considering his choice of Ailes,
and that his conservative fingerprints are smudged all over his newspapers,
many analysts wonder if he will use the TV news channel
to spread his gospel.
[man 2] How did it happen?
How did television news become so predictable,
and in some cases, so boring?
Well, we're going to try to be different.
[theme music playing]
[man 3] We launched in the fall of 1996.
[reporter 3] The debut of the Fox News Channel.
[man 3] We were sort of outcasts, like pirates,
and being part of that sort of outsider, anti-establishment crusade was fun.
Chandra Levy was killed by an acquaintance…
But one of my fellow editors at CNN said,
"Be careful. Ailes does not have the best reputation."
He has this pugnacious sort of style,
so he was known as a ruthless character.
[woman 2] The Fox News Channel was Roger's fiefdom.
He had a lot of latitude and unilateral control.
But he followed the playbook of the other Murdoch media properties.
[Matthew] It was taking the ethos of the New York Post
and bringing it to a vibrant television screen.
Whether it was an American flag
or splashy graphics, there's something to look at.
[David Shuster] "Ding," Fox News alert.
"Ding." [laughs] Over and over and over.
They believed that you had to grab the audience, the viewer, visually first.
[David Shuster] Fox hired people who were good-looking.
[Sarah] More makeup, more hairspray, shorter skirts, and higher heels.
Roger Ailes came up with the idea of a translucent desk
because he wanted the audience to be able to see the legs of his female anchors.
[anchor] …got rid of valedictorians.
Ailes wanted an image that you would stop on.
And… you know, I don't think he was wrong.
[applause and cheering]
[Richard] They realized that what the American public wanted,
almost more than anything else,
was an attractive young woman with the opinions of an old man.
[Sarah] Just as Ailes and Rupert Murdoch are launching Fox,
a story on the national stage breaks through.
[theme music playing]
-[reporter 4] The president's on trial. -The impeachment of President Clinton.
Bill Clinton strung us all along.
[Sarah] It's Bill Clinton's alleged affair with Monica Lewinsky,
and it's catnip for Fox News's viewers.
[reporter 5] CBS News has uncovered new pictures…
[Sarah] Everybody was covering that story,
but no one was covering it with the same kind of glee that Fox was.
This is a very good day for a number of lawyers
involved in the Monica Lewinsky investigation.
We're hitting a sitting president. Hitting him hard.
He definitely lied.
[David Shuster] We were encouraged to play by different rules.
To go all in on a scandalous tabloid kind of story…
Monica Lewinsky's chance…
[David] …without the kind of careful journalistic balance
that had preceded years before.
The Lewinsky case challenges all of us.
You and I, the American people, will have to render the final verdict.
[Alisyn] That's when Fox News Channel found its voice,
and the ratings spiked.
Tonight, it's worth pointing out that the Fox News Channel has succeeded
against all odds.
It's hard to imagine that they could have launched with as much of a bang
if they didn't have that story to chew on every single night.
Fox News established that you can make a ton of money and get a huge audience
not by doing straight news, but by giving people what they want.
[woman 3] For all you kids at home, Santa just is white.
You know, I mean, Jesus was a white man too.
[Sarah] They took this populist tendency and put it on steroids.
Mexico has announced it will provide up to 200,000 survival kits
to those planning to illegally cross the border into the US.
[Richard] Rupert said it was like picking money up off the street.
He was shameless about it, proud of it,
and with good reason.
It made him phenomenally wealthy and powerful.
[McKay] Rupert made very clear early on
that he wanted this huge, multinational conglomerate,
publicly traded, wildly successful media company
to be a family business.
[Lachlan] We talked as a family together about business.
And, of course, that today is still the case.
So I talk with my sister and my brother and my dad about business
on… on… on almost a daily basis.
[Elisabeth] We were given wonderful opportunities.
We've also been very much aware of the fact
that there's pretty serious expectation that you better prove what you're doing.
As they talk about it within the family, he wasn't raising children.
He was raising possible successors.
[Sarah] And it created this rivalry among the kids.
It's like he's throwing blood into the water and letting them fight it out.
[Elisabeth] I think my drive comes from the same place
that my dad's does.
There's obviously a sense of competitive drive,
and there's a sense of real ambition.
[enigmatic music playing]
[David Folkenflik] In the late 1990s,
Elisabeth goes to work for her father at Sky,
the major British satellite TV conglomerate.
Rupert really installed very tough people there.
[McKay] It was, like, macho and nasty and belligerent.
[Claire] What I heard from people who worked with Liz
is that she's like her dad.
She's a very ideas-oriented person.
Elisabeth has a creative eye that neither of her brothers really possess.
[Claire] If we're talking about what her big contribution to the company is,
it's that she spotted, I think it was called Pop Idol in the UK,
and said to Dad, "I think that we need this show."
[man 4] America has made their decision.
[Claire] And they renamed it American Idol.
[man 4] Kelly Clarkson.
[audience cheering]
[Claire] It was transformative for Fox.
[Paul] People, they're impressed by her.
She has shown that she can build and run TV stations.
[Claire] I think she thought that, one day, she might be the CEO at Sky.
I think Dad thought otherwise.
Perhaps because she was a woman, it wasn't enough.
[David] He treats her as disrespectfully and in as sexist a manner
as you could expect that a person of his generation might do.
[Paul] She's a young mother with two kids.
[Sarah] And Rupert makes these sexist, undermining comments
about her having children
and how she needs to figure out what she wants to do with her life.
She feels she's not being given a chance.
And so she faxes a resignation letter to her father.
[Sarah] It's a classic Murdoch move.
And her father respects that.
[Elisabeth] I think he was surprised that I decided to leave.
But I think also great pride. Um, I think he got it.
[purposeful music playing]
[Sarah] She starts her own production company called Shine.
[Rupert] She's not given up her ambitions, by any means,
to play a part in the company.
But we'll have to see how things settle down in her own career.
[McKay] There were always rumors in the company
that Liz was the dark horse candidate to become Rupert's successor.
And she was playing the long game.
That by building her own successful company
outside of the Murdoch umbrella,
that one day she would come back and "kill her brothers."
[cameras clicking]
Morning, everybody.
[woman 4] 25-year-old Lachlan Murdoch
is taking over control of his father's Australian operations.
[Paul] By the mid to late '90s,
Lachlan is in charge of the whole of the Australian empire.
He's a bit of a rock star, but he's not a journalist.
He's not a businessman. He's not got an MBA.
[woman 5] There's a lot of focus on who will be Rupert Murdoch's successor.
Do you think that could be you of the four children?
Oh, I… I can't think that far ahead.
I'll do the best job I can, and we'll see what happens.
I'm very pleased about it, but it'll be a test.
[Paul] He's not incredibly highly regarded,
but he's got good people around him.
And those good people know that if they want to get into the organization,
they need to help Lachlan, because Rupert is looking.
[reporter 6] They're Australia's glamorous, golden couple.
Lachlan Murdoch, heir to a media fortune,
and Sarah, a successful model, TV presenter,
and all-round great Aussie girl.
[quirky music playing]
[reporter 7] Fit enough to marry a supermodel,
Lachlan Murdoch started his wedding day with a morning run.
-Mr. Murdoch, looking forward to the day? -Absolutely.
[woman 6] The Murdoch clan has gathered at the family's property near Yass
for what's been labeled the wedding of the year.
[Paddy] He's married the supermodel Sarah O'Hare,
and he started a family.
He's fabulously rich.
They are like royalty.
[Matthew] He loves it there. He loves the lifestyle.
He feels like he is at home.
[Paddy] But if he's to be the successor, it's clear that Lachlan has to come
where the center of gravity is for News Corporation,
and that's in America.
[reporter 8] Goodbye, Network 10 Australia,
and hello, New York.
[Paddy] Lachlan and his family move to New York,
and he becomes an executive at News Corporation.
[dynamic music playing]
He was clearly the favorite.
♪ Twenty-five cents for the New York Post ♪
[McKay] He was learning the ways of the New York Post
and the newspaper business,
which was what Rupert cared about most,
and he was the oldest son.
[Paul] Lachlan from the very beginning, really, is the one who's being groomed,
and the one who's being given the easiest run.
And Rupert is describing Lachlan as the "first among equals."
That doesn't go down too well with James.
[McKay] James was running an independent hip-hop label
called Rawkus Records with his friends.
They actually discovered some of the emerging hip-hop talent in Brooklyn.
Mos Def.
♪ I'm Slim Shady… ♪
[McKay] They worked with Eminem at one point.
[curious music playing]
I think James wanted to think of himself
as someone who was going to chart his own course,
and he resisted Rupert's efforts to put him to work in the family business.
But there was this gravitational pull from Rupert
to get James back into his orbit.
[suspenseful music playing]
Rupert decided to buy Rawkus Records.
I don't think Rupert particularly cared for the emerging hip-hop scene,
but buying the label
was an easy way for him to force his son's hand
and get him into the company.
Also, James had grown up
believing that the Murdoch media empire was the center of the universe.
So when his dad said, "I want you to come work for me, son,
I'm gonna trust you with this," it meant a lot.
[indistinct chattering]
[Paul] Rupert manages to put him in a suit and get his hair cut,
and bring him into line.
[David] James goes over to work for Star TV in Asia.
[McKay] James is 27 years old at this point.
He's had really no meaningful corporate experience.
People at News Corp thought it was a suicide mission.
There was no reason to believe
that a green 27-year-old could go to Hong Kong
and turn around a company
that had lost, I think, in recent years, $100 million.
But James, I think, was excited by the challenge,
excited that his dad seemed to trust him, and earnestly went out there
believing that he could do big things there.
[Jim] James had to show that he could play his father's game.
He needed to prove it to his father but also to the world.
That meant compromising on some things.
[reporter 9] There were political protests on the issue of human rights.
[Sarah] James is very willing to look the other way
when it comes to human rights abuses in China.
[reporter 10] Murdoch pulled out of publishing the memoirs of Chris Patten,
the former governor of Hong Kong and critic of the Chinese government.
[tense music playing]
[Richard] They made him eat shit.
They made him give speeches
about how you had to respect other countries' ways of doing things,
and democracy wasn't always the answer.
[James] The press doesn't need to talk down to people.
The press doesn't need to educate. The press is just a tool.
[Sarah] He wants to own the identity of being a Murdoch
and being a kind of ruthless businessman.
[McKay] His early assignments,
he was really eager to prove himself to his dad
and to be seen as a good soldier.
[fireworks whistling]
[Richard] So James spearheaded these efforts.
And for a while, it looks like it will work.
But China is a graveyard for a lot of Western businesses.
The Chinese Communist Party, they just played him along.
It all wound up not doing anything for him
other than wasting time and money.
He is unsuccessful in opening up China to the degree that they had hoped.
[Paul] But James always had a pretty high opinion of himself
and I think he was incredibly competitive with Lachlan,
and so I don't think he ever gave up.
James, welcome to Walk the Talk.
Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
[McKay] He pivots the growth strategy to India,
where he develops a big new slate of programming,
including an Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,
which becomes a national sensation.
Best of luck to you, Naveen.
[McKay] He also sees
a lot of organizational mismanagement and chaos.
James had to instill a professional corporate culture.
And he, by all accounts, succeeded.
Within, I think, two years of his time, Star turned a profit in Asia.
James actually remembers coming back for a board meeting one day
and having one of the directors pull him aside and say,
"I didn't think you had it in you. Congrats."
At the time, both James and Lachlan were on the board for News Corp.
And when they would get in the room at these board meetings,
it was an opportunity for both of them to perform for their father.
[cartoon music playing]
And I think maybe implicitly to compete with each other in front of their father.
[tense music playing]
James would come in challenging every point that Lachlan made.
They were bickering a lot.
And some people who remember those moments
will say that they felt bad for Lachlan,
and that it was awkward for everyone involved.
But the fact that James was succeeding
started a lot of speculation inside the News Corp headquarters
about whether James would actually overtake his older brother
to become the successor.
[music ends]
Lachlan, meanwhile, has been laboring
in the claustrophobic confines of the New York News Corp headquarters,
working at Fox News.
[Paul] He's thought of as quite lazy by some people,
as quite arrogant by some people,
as quite pleased with himself by some people.
Now, that may be unfair, but it's a recurrent story that you get.
[McKay] But his words carried a certain amount of weight,
maybe a disproportionate amount of weight,
because he was the boss's son.
And there were certain people in the company,
like Roger Ailes,
who really resented how much respect Lachlan commanded.
[Matthew] The impression at Fox at the time
was that they were babysitting,
and they did not like that.
So Lachlan knew that he had to prove himself
at a pretty significant moment for Fox News.
-[siren wailing] -[man shouting]
[woman 7] An incredible plane crash into the World Trade Center
here at the lower tip of Manhattan.
[reporter 11] Another plane just flew into the second tower.
[Sarah] 9/11 and a terrorist attack on the United States
was a perfect moment for Fox.
[reporter 12] You're either with us against the terrorists or you're with…
[Sarah] They were taking advantage of a broad fear in the American public
and harnessing it and running with it.
[Alisyn] Roger Ailes personally had an anti-Muslim bias,
and that attitude showed up quite vividly on air.
[reporter 13] Palestinians dancing in the street.
How did that make you feel?
That was the drum that we beat every day, all day.
[Paddy] In the days after 9/11,
there was a panic about anthrax being sent around
to various government offices and media businesses.
[George W. Bush] As all Americans know,
recent weeks have brought a second wave of terrorist attacks upon our country.
Deadly anthrax spores sent through the US mail.
[reporter 14] In just a week, we have had four confirmed cases of anthrax,
all with media connections.
-[tense music playing] -[applause]
America has always stood for human freedom.
[Sarah] So amid this environment where everyone is on high alert,
the yearly Al Smith dinner hosts Roger Ailes.
Actually Bill Clinton, this year…
[Sarah] That happens to be the night
when they learn that an envelope full of white powder
has been sent to the Fox office.
[Paddy] The FBI comes in.
They identify that it is anthrax. They close off the newsroom.
Lachlan is managing it under advisement from the FBI
as a kind of workplace incident.
[Jonathan] Ailes is losing his mind. He's…
"We're under attack! We're under attack!" He's freaking out.
Ailes wants to go nuclear.
[Paddy] He's thinking, "This is big news."
And directly against the advice of the FBI, he goes public.
"Fox News is under attack."
Anthrax spores mailed to this building where Fox News Channel sits.
[Paddy] Lachlan finds out about this,
storms downstairs to confront Ailes directly.
"What are you doing?"
[Sarah] Lachlan tries to calm Ailes down,
but they end up verbally fighting
in front of a huge number of people in the office.
This is not done to Roger Ailes.
[Paddy] He was probably the only person inside News Corporation
that even Rupert was scared of.
[Jim] Roger Ailes lets Rupert have it.
"I am not gonna be lectured by your children."
He's furious.
[Paddy] And in the end,
Rupert backs Roger over Lachlan.
[Jim] Ultimately, he'll give Ailes a brand-new contract.
So Rupert basically sent the message to Lachlan
that, "You're not to cross Ailes."
"You're second fiddle here."
[McKay] Lachlan is incredibly frustrated, incredibly insulted by all of it.
And also is starting to realize
that even though he's supposed to be the heir apparent,
that his dad has no interest in retiring anytime soon.
[sprightly music playing]
[reporter 15] How does having a young family again
affect your views on retirement?
Your own retirement, that is?
-Oh, it delays it forever. Hm. -[laughter]
[Sarah] At this point, Rupert and his third wife,
Wendi Deng Murdoch,
have two daughters, Grace and Chloe.
[Matthew] The other children were never big fans of Wendi Deng.
They were skeptical of her.
Oh, come on.
[Sarah] And James and Lachlan saw Wendi as being tough on their dad.
But Wendi wanted him to keep up with her.
[exhaling deeply]
Wendi has him under a sort of regimen.
He is on a strict diet of green juice, and he's not allowed to have dessert.
[Jim] He undergoes this makeover.
He dyes his hair red. He starts wearing a leather jacket.
Rupert goes from the Upper East Side, established stodginess,
to downtown hip.
It's like the Fountain of Youth for Rupert.
And unlike Anna, who didn't want anything to do with the business,
Wendi wanted to know what was going on in the company
and was very interested in it.
[Claire] Wendi went everywhere with him,
and she's becoming also an advisor to the company.
[Sarah] She was very ambitious,
and she had a lot of hopes for her two daughters.
She says that she wants her own children
to have the same standing as Rupert's other children.
Where does that stand today, succession?
The little girls are too young to consider this at the moment.
Do you consider them… You have said, "They're all my children."
They'll all get treated equally financially.
He goes on Charlie Rose,
and that is how his own children learn that he is slicing up the trust
and giving his two youngest children an equal stake in the inheritance.
[cash register rings]
[Paddy] Each of the four elder children got paid $150 million
for agreeing to include Grace and Chloe on the Murdoch Family Trust.
So Rupert's six kids have an equal financial stake,
but only the four eldest kids have a vote.
[Charlie] You ran into some buzz saw within the family
because of that decision?
We've resolved everything very happily.
In fact, it sets off a bomb with the other kids.
But he doesn't apologize for this
and runs roughshod over their feelings and their desires.
[Jim] We've seen this his entire life.
When Rupert wants something,
he will stop at nothing to get it.
[McKay] Often, the Murdoch family would come together
for Christmas or Thanksgiving
on Rupert's superyacht called Morning Glory.
[laid-back drumbeat playing]
James had been married to his wife, Kathryn, for a while.
And Kathryn remembers these legendary games of family Monopoly
that the Murdochs would play.
Once, she caught Rupert cheating…
[chuckles] …and called him out on it,
and he just kind of smirked and shrugged.
Apparently, this was a common feature of their family Monopoly games.
And that sort of tells you everything you need to know about him.
[Jim] So, after the changes to the trust, the family is divided.
There's a lot of tension.
And especially with Rupert's favored successor, Lachlan.
There are a lot of things going on in Lachlan's head at that point.
And he was still feuding with Roger Ailes.
Ailes wants to get Fox Television to back a new series
called Crime Line, hosted by Geraldo Rivera.
Lachlan says it's too expensive, and he blocks it.
Roger goes directly to Rupert.
Rupert reassures him and says, "Don't worry about the boy."
[tense music playing]
[Paddy] "Don't worry about the boy. Do the show."
[Sarah] It was a classic Murdoch moment. Business over family.
[Paddy] Lachlan was in the air on his way back to America from Australia
and found out about it when he landed.
[music peaks, ends]
He felt betrayed.
Rupert had backed Roger over him again.
[McKay] Lachlan tried to be the good son and the loyal deputy.
But every time he tried to make a decision
that one of the other executives didn't like,
they would go over his head to Rupert.
And Rupert would often overrule Lachlan.
So I think, for Lachlan, the proximity to his dad
ended up being bad for his place in the succession race.
[reporter 16] Some surprise news out of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp overnight,
with his eldest son, Lachlan, quitting his job as an executive.
[reporter 17] Lachlan Murdoch will remain on the News Corporation board,
but plans to return home to Australia and pursue an independent career.
[McKay] So now Liz and Prudence were out of the running to be heir apparent.
And after Lachlan resigns in a huff, moves back to Australia…
[suspenseful music playing]
…James is the only viable successor left.
[bell chimes]
[reporter 18] James Murdoch has been given a larger role
overseeing all of News Corp's European and Asian operations.
[reporter 19] 30-year-old James Murdoch was appointed the new CEO of Sky
two weeks ago.
Everyone wants to see the value of the company grow.
That's what we're gonna work to do.
[McKay] James' promotion was pretty controversial.
There were howls of nepotism and outrage that Rupert's relatively young son
was going to be entrusted with this crown jewel of British broadcasting,
on top of the fact that this was the job that Liz had been after.
[Kara] I'll tell you that James… I met with him in London.
He was so arrogant.
Master of the universe kind of vibe.
[Sarah] At this point, even though he hasn't gone to business school,
he starts talking like he went to business school.
The abolition of media boundaries is a trumpet call to expansion,
to do more.
[McKay] James starts to effect a public persona
that a lot of people around him suspected was modeled after Rupert.
[Sarah] He encourages all of his employees to call themselves pirates.
So in his London office,
he has a life-sized statue of Darth Vader
and talks about them running the Death Star.
[David] He is a good ambassador for his father,
and he's also making the case that,
"I can be the brash disruptor."
"I can be the bold new force, just as you once were."
The irony is that the more he seemed to act like Rupert,
the more Rupert felt alienated by James.
But also, we look forward to the government's…
[McKay] James begins to cultivate his own inner circle.
He starts dining with prime ministers
and cozying up to the liberal, respectable Establishment.
He wanted to modernize and run this company
by what he considered to be the best practices and standards.
So he was going to fire the more toxic executives and employees
and emphasize human resources and start to listen to the lawyers more.
All of this really rubbed Rupert the wrong way.
He was really suspicious of James trying to cozy up to the Establishment.
It kind of makes Rupert regret that he doesn't have Lachlan around.
[Paul] After being forced out by Roger Ailes,
Lachlan is in Australia with his tail between his legs.
He was still on the News Corporation board.
The profit motive is not only fundamental…
[Paddy] But he was doing his own thing,
looking to make big investments for the company.
He was kind of humiliated, but he still wants to emulate his father.
[Paul] The question is, how good a businessman is Lachlan?
One of the things that's powering newspapers at the time is classified ads,
but it's quite clear that the newspapers are fading
and the Internet's gonna take all the advertising revenue
and real-estate ads in particular.
So Lachlan says, "We need to get a share of that."
And so when realestate.com comes along, he buys it.
This is clearly a great deal, and it's a great deal for everyone involved.
It's win-win-win.
[Paul] The decision to invest in realestate.com.au
makes the family billions of dollars,
and it becomes the most valuable property in the News Corp business in Australia.
I think they only paid $10 million. It's now worth more than a billion.
[McKay] By taking himself out of the running
and moving back to Australia to set up his own shop
and start building his own little media empire,
Lachlan becomes more desirable to his father as a successor.
I think that his dad kind of wants what he can't have.
Mr. Murdoch, the market's wondering about your succession.
You said this week that, virtually, you'll die in the saddle,
but you have to think of it.
It would be very nice. It's every father's, uh, natural desire
to see, I think, his children follow him if they're up to it.
And we'll have to see how they, uh, work it out.
I hope not fight it out, but, uh…
I hope to be around for a few more years.
[somber music playing]
[Jonathan] Rupert is not a person who likes to talk about his death.
[Sarah] But now he's 94 years old,
and he's clearly preparing for one day when he eventually passes.
[Jim] At this point,
Liz, James, and Prue share concerns about the direction of the company.
[man 7] Good morning, Mr. Murdoch.
[Jim] Rupert sees Fox as his legacy.
And he's convinced that Lachlan is the only one
that will carry on what he built.
At the same time, Lachlan's looking over his shoulder,
worried that after his father dies,
there could be a coup, and he could be pushed aside.
So Rupert and Lachlan start looking into the Murdoch Family Trust.
If Rupert doesn't get the trust built around Lachlan,
it's over.
They want to figure out,
is there a way to poke a hole in this trust?
And what they find is there actually is a way,
as long as it was solely for the benefit of all of the heirs.
The simplest way to understand it is the trust had eight votes.
Four controlled by Rupert, one controlled by each child.
So Rupert could never be outvoted,
but no child could be in control when Rupert died.
So Rupert and Lachlan want to create
two new entities that will control the trust.
And those entities will be able to override the one that exists currently.
They're keeping it secret from all the other children,
and they're going to do it under a crazy codename,
"Project Family Harmony."
You have named your plan
to take the voting rights of three children away from them
Project Family Harmony.
I mean, just mind blowing.
[tense music playing]
[McKay] There was a period of a few weeks,
and then James got an invitation to join a Zoom call
for a special meeting on the family trust.
He did not know what this meeting would be about.
He had no reason to believe there was any need to meet about the family trust.
James was completely blindsided by this.
Then his managing director received an agenda.
He called James and said, "You need to look at this."
"Your dad is making a move for the entire empire."
[computer bleeps]
About a week after that, the Murdoch family get on the Zoom.
[computer bleeps repeatedly]
[Jim] There's a lot of tension in the room.
[McKay] You have James and his two sisters, Prudence and Liz,
and his older brother, Lachlan.
And you have Rupert
surrounded by a hundred lawyers.
He starts just kind of robotically reading from this script.
[Jonathan] He tells them, "I'm going to change the family trust."
[McKay] "You'll still have your shares, but you'll have no voting power."
"You'll have no ability to make decisions."
[music intensifies]
"It's just gonna be Lachlan who has control."
So the meeting does not go particularly well.
There's shouting. There's yelling.
It became very emotional.
[Jonathan] James can't believe his father is saying this.
[McKay] That he was willing to do something so provocative
and so harmful.
This is what had become of his family.
[Jim] Rupert says, "You would come in."
"You would change this company. You would take it to the left."
"That's the golden goose you're playing with."
"You need to go along with this."
"It's good for all of you in spite of yourselves."
What's notable is that Lachlan is silent
when he had helped architect the whole thing.
Liz can't contain herself.
She says, "How are you gonna get consensus with a gun to our heads?"
It was brutal.
[computer chimes]
It's total war.
[instrumental music playing] get consensus with a gun to our heads?"