Original subtitles

[soft drumbeat playing]

[McKay Coppins] I met with James a few times

throughout the fall in 2024

when the trial was going on.

Everybody was speculating about what would happen, who would win.

And there's this interesting moment that happened.

[suspenseful music playing]

James, Liz, and Prudence

met at James's country house in Connecticut.

I think all of them were sort of grappling with the fact that this whole process

might have driven a permanent wedge into the family,

and they might not come back from this.

And they wondered if there might be an opportunity

to patch things up with their father and brother.

And so James and his sisters wrote this letter to Rupert

that basically proposed a détente.

"We can pause the litigation,

get the lawyers out of the room,

get the probate commissioner out of the room,

and just talk about this like a family."

"We feel like maybe you don't realize how much pain this has caused us,

but we could work something out

if we just try to approach it in good faith."

A couple of days go by, and they get a letter back from Rupert

that says, "I've reread all of your testimony from the trial."

"I'm more convinced than ever

that I was right."

"If you wanna talk to me, talk to my lawyers."

And that's it.

[music peaks, subsides]

[music ends]

[soft, suspenseful music playing]

[Jim Rutenberg] For months, the Murdoch family have been

in Reno, Nevada

in this pitched fight to win control of the empire.

As Rupert sees it, Lachlan is the only one that will carry on what Rupert built.

If Liz, James, and Prue win this case,

his entire life's work will be over.

[music intensifies]

[reporter 1] Bill Barr, any comment on the way in?

How are you involved in today's case?

[Jim] He's hired the former attorney general of the United States

Bill Barr,

this gigantic figure in conservative politics,

in Trump-world politics.

[Jonathan Mahler] He and Rupert have become quite close in recent years.

In fact, at Rupert's 90th birthday party,

Bill Barr played bagpipes.

Rupert has brought him in as his new managing director on the trust.

That made something that would have seemed totally implausible,

the idea that Rupert should be able to change an inviolable trust,

that made it at least plausible.

Barr is basically the hired gun

to make the case that this is about the financial value of these companies

and protecting all the beneficiaries.

Barr wants to prove that it's bad for companies

when succession is unresolved.

So he orders an analysis, a report,

of what's happened to other companies that have been tied up in succession fights.

It turns out that in some of the companies that were studied for this report,

succession struggles actually were good for shareholders,

and shareholders made a lot of money.

So Barr sees this. It's not what he wants to hear.

It doesn't help their argument. He puts it in a drawer.

In his testimony, it comes out

that he had not shared this report with the other managing directors.

He never spoke to James's managing director about it.

He never spoke to Liz's managing director about it.

Barr hid that,

and the commissioner found that as a sign of bad faith.

He should've shared that what they were doing

is not for the benefit of all the beneficiaries.

And at the end of the day,

if this is about treating all the siblings equally and fairly,

why were the other children in the dark about all of this?

Reading faces coming out of the building, it's pretty somber.

[Jonathan] Those decisions to lock in Lachlan's leadership

and to preserve Rupert's legacy…

- [camera clicks] - [music ends abruptly]

…those were clearly going to cause some problems for him.

[ominous music playing]

[reporter 2] Hacking the phones of murder victims.

[reporter 3] Heinous and despicable.

[reporter 4] Relatives of dead servicemen.

[reporter 5] Inappropriate payments to police.

[reporter 6] Horrifying.

What does this say about the future of journalism?

The phone-hacking spectacle was so damaging for the Murdoch brand.

I was appalled to find out what had happened.

[reporter 7] Pressure is building on his son James to step down.

[Richard Cooke] James is the bagman in the phone-hacking scandal.

James, fairly or unfairly, had been tarnished.

[intriguing music playing]

[Sarah Ellison] Meanwhile, Lachlan has left the family company

and is in Australia,

licking his wounds, surfing, rock climbing.

[Richard] He is running non-Murdoch media companies.

[reporter 8] Lachlan Murdoch appointed the acting CEO of Network Ten.

He's also made a lot of really bad decisions.

[woman 1] Network Ten needs yet another multimillion-dollar cash injection.

The Ten network posted a $13 million loss.

But he never felt he was out of the race to take over from Rupert.

[reporter 9] The wolves are circling around James Murdoch,

whose handling of the crisis has been heavily criticized.

[McKay] After the phone-hacking scandal broke,

James left Europe in disgrace

and started a new job in the New York headquarters,

where he spends a couple of years working under his dad.

So James feels like he's still the only game in town

when it comes to succession.

[Paul] Then, in 2015,

Lachlan flies in from Australia.

[tense music playing]

[McKay] Almost immediately,

James is asked to meet with Lachlan

at a restaurant in Manhattan.

He sits down, and he is told that Lachlan is gonna run the company

and that James is now going to report to him.

[music ends]

James is just stunned.

[contemplative music playing]

[Jim] He storms off

and sends word, that's it, he's out.

[McKay] As word gets out within the company

that James might have resigned and Lachlan is coming back,

several of the executives make known their concern about the situation.

If they lose James,

they're losing the only Murdoch son who knows how the company works.

He's been working in the trenches for the last decade

while Lachlan has been in Australia kind of doing his own thing.

[Jim] So Rupert comes up with a plan

to try to woo James back.

Rupert decides that he's going to put both of his sons in charge of the company.

James was named CEO,

and Lachlan was named executive chairman of the company,

a title that Rupert also maintained.

[Jim] James has devoted his whole life to this company.

You don't just walk away from that.

But I think there's a way deeper emotional tie here.

Walking away from the company, he knows,

will mean walking away from his family.

So James agrees.

[Sarah] Now you have the two sons anointed together.

[Matthew] They were given this perch,

and it was essentially Rupert saying, "Okay, what are you gonna do?"

[vibrant music playing]

[Matthew] James and Lachlan were the ultimate nepo babies.

These guys were young.

They were 40 years old, and they were being put into these jobs

running one of the five traditional Hollywood studios.

At the time, I was an editor at the Hollywood Reporter.

In my interview with them,

they wanted everyone to know that they have taste, they have vision,

and that they were in charge of the Hollywood studio now.

They had been coached by their communications person.

So they were putting on their best CEO face.

But it was very clear that there was something below the surface

that they were not telling me.

[McKay] There was an endless tug-of-war between the two of them.

James sensed that Lachlan thought

that he could run a big, complicated media company

just by being around his dad.

And James really resented that.

James would look for opportunities to one-up his older brother.

Lachlan was dyslexic

and struggled with some speech issues.

James would challenge him in these board meetings

and pick apart his logic

and witheringly argue against his various ideas.

Lachlan would sort of become flustered and not know what to say.

And when Rupert was in the room, he never stepped in to stop it.

[Paddy] He wants to know whether they have got the fight in them,

to see who can stand up to the pressure.

The media business is a brutal, competitive industry,

and Rupert was playing to win.

[intriguing music playing]

[Paddy] Rupert is by now in his eighties.

He remains this dynamic figure

trotting the world, meeting prime ministers and presidents.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Rupert Murdoch.

[applause]

Oh, thank you, Jeb.

[man 1] Rupert Murdoch delivered the keynote address this morning

at an education conference.

We need to tear down an education system designed for the 19th century.

[Paul] Murdoch uses this big media empire

to push the world in the way that he wants it to go.

Resist corporate domination of public education.

[reporter 10] Members of Occupy Wall Street

repeatedly interrupt Murdoch's speech.

It's okay. A little controversy makes everything more interesting.

- [laughter and cheering] - Uh…

By 2015, Rupert's been able to push a populist, nativist agenda.

Microaggressions and "the patriarchy."

[man 2] Abortion without limits.

Endless chain of migrant caravans.

[David Shuster] By the end of Obama,

Fox News had a huge influence over the dialogue

and the commentary and the issues of our time.

[Sarah] Rupert was a real kingmaker among politicians.

For decades, every candidate goes to kiss the ring.

And then Rupert gets a call.

It's Ivanka Trump.

She wants to arrange a meeting with her husband, Jared Kushner,

her father, Donald Trump, and Rupert.

Rupert, he had known Trump for years.

I mean, they went back to 1980s New York.

[Sarah] They did both share this vision

of knocking down the Establishment in order to make their own way,

but they were at different levels of wealth, at different levels of respect.

Donald Trump was like a feature of the tabloids,

and Rupert Murdoch owned the tabloids.

Rupert didn't take Donald Trump seriously.

But he agreed to have lunch with him.

They sit down.

The first course has just been served,

and Trump says he's gonna run for president.

You know, Rupert, who one has to assume is pretty stunned,

does not look up from his soup and says,

"You're gonna have to be ready to get wrapped up pretty badly."

And "wrapped up" is an Australianism for, you know, getting beat up.

So he's basically warning Trump that, "You're gonna take a beating."

[woman 2] Welcome to the first debate of the 2016 presidential campaign.

I'm Megyn Kelly.

[audience cheering]

[Sarah] The very first Republican primary debate

was hosted by Fox News.

[David] It was one of the first cattle calls

of all the Republican presidential candidates

on stage in front of this big audience.

[Megyn] Center of the stage tonight, businessman Donald Trump.

[audience cheering]

[mouths] Thank you.

[Richard] Murdoch didn't like Trump. He didn't like him as a candidate.

He called him a fucking idiot.

I think Rupert wanted Trump gone.

[Megyn] Mr. Trump, you've called women you don't like

fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.

Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women's looks.

[Sarah] The tenor of her question was aggressive.

It could flatten him, and it could take him out.

- [Megyn] Your Twitter account-- - Only Rosie O'Donnell.

- [cheering and applause] - [Megyn] No, it wasn't.

[audience cheering]

[Sarah] In that moment, Trump successfully brushes it off.

It was Trump who had the better understanding of the public.

That you could say things which were unacceptable and walk it off.

We have to make our country great again, and I will do that. Thank you.

[cheering and applause]

[Sarah] Donald Trump became his own megawatt star on that debate stage.

Trump is a ratings bonanza.

But he sensed that Fox News tried to get rid of him.

[Donald Trump] You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes.

Blood coming out of her wherever.

[David] Trump started openly criticizing Fox.

That had never happened to Rupert before.

[Matthew] When Rupert decided to tweet,

he very pointedly told Donald Trump to get out of the race.

[Richard] It was civil war in the Republican Party.

Murdoch went full-court press, favoring people who weren't Trump.

[Kara] Rupert is a conservative.

He wants conservative politicians to be in power.

But he found Trump worrying and dangerous.

I don't think he likes this Republican Party.

He liked the other one before with the Mitch McConnells and that gang.

[Richard] In the past, Republican candidates had no real power

unless they were operating in line with Rupert's wishes.

And Trump would not.

[Trump] Fox is playing a game. What's wrong over there?

Something's wrong.

I'm gonna be making a decision with Fox, but probably I won't be doing the debate.

[cheering and applause]

The next debate is also hosted by Fox News.

Before we get to the issues,

let's address the elephant not in the room tonight.

Donald Trump does not participate in this next debate.

[cheering and applause]

[Paul] But he sets up his own rival event.

We're told we have more cameras than they do by quite a bit,

so that's sort of interesting.

The Kelly File starts in a moment. Guess who's gonna be there? Senator Ted Cruz.

The ratings tank. Trump took the viewers with him.

[crowd chanting] Trump! Trump! Trump!

[Sarah] Fox's audience turned against Fox and towards Donald Trump.

Normally, Murdoch was able to say and tell politicians what to do,

when to stand up, when to sit down.

But he had never been so clearly smacked down as in that moment.

[intriguing music playing]

[camera clicking]

Trump is gonna win, and the world is gonna be a happy place. Have a good time.

[reporter 11] Mr. Trump, can you clarify…

[Sarah] Rupert Murdoch always goes in the winning direction,

and he sees which way the wind is blowing.

Donald Trump had become the dominant force in conservative politics.

[Kara] Rupert will do what it takes for his business interests,

including holding his nose and backing Donald Trump.

[Jonathan] It was amazing to see Rupert,

you know, in the back of a golf cart, with Trump behind the wheel.

That is the moment where Rupert has come around to Trump.

Trump realizes that he needs Fox News. They need each other.

[David Folkenflik] This moment will change the fate of American media

and American politics

for the decades that followed.

[church bell ringing]

[Jonathan] Around this time, Rupert marries Jerry Hall.

[reporter 12] Rupert Murdoch says he is the happiest man in the world

after he married former supermodel Jerry Hall.

[reporter 13] Jerry was previously in a relationship

with Rolling Stones singer Mick Jagger.

[Jim] James and Lachlan, Prue, and Liz all go to the wedding.

They like Jerry Hall.

- [man 3] Morning. - [photographer] This way, please.

[Jim] It's maybe the last thing

they really come together to do as a family.

- [reporter 14] How was the ceremony? - Beautiful.

[Jim] For the first time in decades, Rupert tries to have a life with his wife.

He's in love.

So he lets his sons run this media empire without him.

It was an opportunity for both of them

to assert themselves as the heads of the company,

the new Murdochs everyone has to contend with.

[laid-back music playing]

[Sarah] And it coincides with the Sun Valley Conference,

which happens every July.

[reporter 15] It is a busy time in Sun Valley.

Top media, tech, and business moguls converged in scenic Idaho

for a meeting of the minds.

[Sarah] The masters of the universe get together

and figure out what the world is going to see, hear, and read.

And this year, for the first time,

James and Lachlan go on their own.

[reporter 16] Hey, Lachlan.

- Hey. - [reporter 16] Good morning.

- Morning, James. - Morning.

[McKay] It's supposed to be James and Lachlan's coming-out party

as the new faces of the Murdoch media empire.

But pretty quickly, things go off the rails.

A media and political bombshell.

Swelling controversy at Fox News.

[woman 3] Former anchor Gretchen Carlson alleges she was fired

after turning down sexual advances

from Fox News chairman and CEO Roger Ailes.

We were in a car, and he took my head and my neck,

and he shoved my face into his crotch.

[McKay] At this moment, Rupert Murdoch is on a plane.

- He's unreachable by phone. - [Jim] They have a crisis.

But maybe the one thing James and Lachlan agree on is that Roger Ailes is bad news.

[Sarah] They both had been wronged by Roger Ailes.

He had mocked James.

He had undercut Lachlan.

[Matthew] And they saw an opening

when the Me Too movement started to gather steam

to essentially take Roger Ailes out.

[Sarah] Very quickly,

they announce an investigation of the claims in the lawsuit.

It's clear what the right thing to do is.

You have to actually get to the bottom of it, do it super fast.

And put out a release about it before Rupert could contradict them.

We hired an independent law firm to go in and investigate all the allegations.

And then other women started to come out of the woodwork.

[woman 4] Megyn Kelly reportedly told investigators

that he had made similar sexual advances towards her.

[reporter 17] Ailes repeatedly called Roginsky into his office.

Laurie Luhn says she was sexually harassed and intimidated by Ailes.

[Alisyn Camerota] Roger would talk about women's bodies.

He would ask if I was naughty.

I mean, there were all sorts of just kind of gross,

really inappropriate things that he would say.

I had gone to him to ask for more opportunity.

I had wanted to anchor.

And he said, "Well, you're not ready yet, so I would have to work with you."

He said, "It might have to happen on the weekends."

"It might have to happen at a hotel."

In that moment,

I had sort of an out-of-body experience of, "Oh, is my career over?"

And then by the time I moved to New York,

I was married and pregnant with twins,

and he didn't say things like that anymore.

[Sarah] Rupert loved Ailes because Ailes was a programming genius.

So he turned a blind eye to some of the things that Ailes was doing.

[reporter 18] Can you comment about the situation with Ailes?

No comment.

[David Shuster] I had figured Ailes would survive this.

Fox News is making so much money,

all they're gonna do is they're gonna pay off the women.

As more and more people stepped forward,

I got the sense that Murdoch didn't like this kind of attention,

didn't want his, you know, profitable news channel

to have this sort of reputation.

[Sarah] So he makes a fateful decision

that will change the entire dynamic of the company.

[announcer] Breaking news.

A media bombshell, and it's not inappropriate

that I'm sitting at the Republican National Convention.

Roger Ailes, the chairman, CEO, and mastermind of Fox News Channel,

he's now officially out.

Ailes was out right as the Republican Convention was going on.

It was really a revenge moment for James and Lachlan.

I humbly and gratefully accept

your nomination for the presidency of the United States.

[David] Once Ailes was gone,

there was an internal debate over the direction that Fox News goes.

[Matthew] The feeling within the company was that Roger Ailes was Fox News,

and that without him, it might not even be able to survive

and certainly would not thrive.

[James] What we need to do is make careful decisions

that we're exploiting the product that we have in as robust a way as possible,

and we're also gonna get the widest possible audience.

[Matthew] James was much more liberal leaning.

He wanted Fox to appeal to a younger audience.

[McKay] And he sees this moment

as an opportunity to steer the network toward less right-wing politics

and a more fact-based approach to journalism.

Lachlan, meanwhile, is adamantly opposed to this idea.

[Sarah] Lachlan's political stripe was very conservative,

as was Rupert's.

And Lachlan wants what's good for business.

[woman 5] Ready? Fox and the man!

[Matthew] They have the number one cable network, $2 billion in profit.

Fox is killing it.

[cheering]

[McKay] The brothers argue ferociously,

and Rupert finally settles the matter by saying

that he himself will step in as acting CEO.

[Matthew] Rupert is tremendously proud of Fox News,

and he thinks that it has given a voice

to people that have not had a voice traditionally in media.

So he was not going to change the trajectory of Fox News.

[Sarah] And in fact, he yanks it further to the right,

and Fox News becomes the cornerstone

of his influence politically in the United States.

We have a moral obligation to admit the world's poor, they tell us,

even if it makes our own country poorer and dirtier and more divided.

[McKay] Under Rupert's supervision,

Fox News becomes even more reckless and unhinged.

He really let the talent run wild.

Got the liberal crybaby snowflakes.

Refugees pouring in now, infecting Europe.

There are no guardrails. There's no accountability.

Legal immigrants, isn't that worse?

The government checked you guys out and let you in?

[Matthew] What matters were the ratings.

And Rupert knows that the Fox audience cares about opinion.

It was good business because that's what they wanted to hear.

This is the battle royal that goes on inside Fox and with the Murdochs,

which is, are we just about the bottom line

and keeping the audience happy,

or do we have some conscience about what we're peddling?

Let's talk about Fox News. Is Fox News fair and balanced?

Look, I mean, I think the leadership at Fox News

makes decisions around how they hire and what they do.

I try not to get too much into that. I'm the chief executive, but…

James feels no ability to shape the coverage,

to tell them to be more responsible.

Slaves that worked there were well fed

and had decent lodgings provided by the government.

[Richard] Privately, James seems to become more and more ethically uncomfortable

with what the role requires.

[siren wailing]

For James, the breaking point comes with Charlottesville.

I think there's blame on both sides, and I have no doubt about it,

and you don't have doubt about it either.

You also had people that were very fine people on both sides.

[McKay] James watches as Donald Trump holds a press conference,

and he watches Fox News's coverage of all of it.

President Trump told some truths.

Yes, there are a lot of truths here.

There was both sides causing violence.

This line, to me, is so important.

He said, "We are all Americans first."

And sees how Fox News is breathlessly defending Trump.

"We condemn all violence." That's what President Trump said.

And all lives matter.

If you don't agree with that, you're a racist.

It really just eats at James.

As he's trying to decide what to do about all of this,

his wife, Kathryn, asks him a clarifying question.

If you're not gonna stand up to Nazis,

who are you gonna stand up to?

[man 4] Last night, 20th Century Fox CEO James Murdoch

slammed the president's response.

An email from Murdoch said, "There are no good Nazis, Klansmen, or terrorists."

[McKay] James puts out his own statement without clearing it with anyone.

It is a stinging rebuke and repudiation of Fox News.

[McKay] That statement drives a further wedge

between him and Rupert.

James really believes that his vision for the company

is better for the bottom line.

And that it's much too risky and reckless

to continue running these news outlets the way that they've been run.

And he thinks that his father and brother, whatever their politics, should see that.

And yet, by the end of 2017,

James's proposed initiatives are going nowhere.

[Paul] The market was changing.

[James] We're moving to a video-entertainment business

that is 100% consumed over IP networks.

[Matthew] Streaming is the next frontier.

Digital giants like Amazon and Netflix

are pushing another revolution in viewing habits

by investing billions in programs.

[Matthew] Fox did not have the heft to go up against

Netflix, Amazon, Apple, all of these well-funded companies.

So James wants to try yet again to buy the rest of BSkyB.

[reporter 19] That's an $11 billion deal.

[Sarah] He believes that if he's able to bring BSkyB into the fold,

they could survive in this brave new world.

And just as they are ready to try to negotiate that,

another major scandal comes out.

[reporters shout] Bill!

[reporter 20] Bill O'Reilly faces questions

about harassment allegations.

[reporter 21] O'Reilly paid a $32 million settlement

to Lis Wiehl, a former Fox News analyst.

[reporter 22] Wendy Walsh, a former Fox contributor,

claims O'Reilly harassed her.

Bill O'Reilly has been sexually harassing people who work for him for years,

and the Murdochs secretly paid off some of those women

even after James and Lachlan promised they were going to clean up the company.

[reporter 23] The star of cable news was forced out yesterday

from his top-rated show.

[reporter 24] Together, O'Reilly and Ailes were paid $65 million to leave.

The women who accused them so far, $33 million.

[Sarah] Fox had made a big show

of how they are going to have a cleaned-up culture,

but this scandal just reminds everyone

of the dirty underbelly of the Murdoch empire.

[McKay] The Fox News controversies

very much get in the way of their broader ambitions.

[reporter 25] At risk, its attempt to buy Europe's pay TV giant Sky.

[Paul] Ofcom, the communications regulator,

decides "Are these people fit and proper persons

to hold a TV license?"

[man 5]

[Matthew] Regulators in the UK were outraged.

[Paul] It would've been a terrific deal,

and it probably would have sealed James's succession if it had gone through,

but it doesn't.

[dynamic music playing]

[Matthew] They had tried to grow.

They'd gone after BSkyB and failed to do that.

[Sarah] And so without telling his children,

Rupert calls Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney.

Bob Iger, over the past 20 years, had been a grower.

Well, I think Star Wars has had a great impact on Disney.

[Matthew] He had successfully bought Lucasfilm,

Pixar, Marvel

to position Disney for the streaming wars.

Rupert and Iger went to the winery that Rupert owns in Bel Air.

They had some glasses of Pinot, I am told.

[Sarah] And Rupert proposes doing something

that, for longtime Murdoch watchers, seems absolutely unthinkable.

[Paddy] Rupert presents the defining deal of his life,

selling the bulk of the film and television assets of 21st Century Fox

to Disney for 50-odd billion.

[Matthew] Fox had Avatar,

The X-Men, FX, Nat Geo.

All these would be additive for Disney.

[McKay] One night at Gramercy Tavern in New York,

Rupert, Lachlan, and James were all eating together

and discussing the Disney deal.

James was very supportive of the deal.

He was sick of being associated with Fox News.

He felt like all of the changes he wanted to make

to modernize and reform the companies

fell on deaf ears.

And he also saw this as a way to set himself up

as potentially the next CEO after Iger left.

But Lachlan was extremely upset.

[Jim] Lachlan likes having a big Hollywood studio.

He didn't come back to run a shaved-down company.

[McKay] He started ranting and raving,

and saying it was completely unfair

that Rupert and James were pursuing this sale over his objections,

and finally gave them an ultimatum.

And said to his dad,

"If you go through with this deal, you will not have a son."

And then he turned to James and said, "And you won't have a brother."

Then he stormed out of the restaurant.

And in recounting that at the trial,

James said Lachlan's prophecy was right,

that a brother and son would be lost over this deal,

and called this the Oracle of Delphi moment.

[horn blares]

Rupert's facing one of the biggest decisions in his career.

[soft, pensive music playing]

[Jonathan] Things are still up in the air when Rupert and his then wife, Jerry Hall,

are on vacation in the Caribbean

on Lachlan's yacht, the Sarissa.

You know, Lachlan's yacht is custom designed.

It has a climbing wall.

The cabin turns into a nighttime sky with the constellations and the galaxy.

And it's also a racing boat, so it's built to move quickly.

And one night, Rupert gets up to go to the bathroom.

He trips, and he can't get up.

[Paddy] He had suffered a broken back. He had to be evacuated by helicopter

and hospitalized.

[Jim] It becomes apparent that to fix his back

will be to risk his life.

That the procedure they have to do could kill him.

[Jonathan] Jerry calls Rupert's children

and says, "Your father is severely injured and may die."

"You probably need to get to his bedside

and make whatever peace you can or want to with him."

[Paddy] They rush to his bedside.

[Jim] The family is operating as if this might be it.

This is also setting in motion the possibility

that the four children are gonna have to fight it out for control.

There was this awareness among everybody

that, um, you know, that day could be coming soon.

I mean, it could be coming now.

[man 6] You have said you'd like to have a member of the family succeed you.

They've got to prove themselves too.

[Paddy] There wasn't a clear plan what would happen if Rupert was to die.

[Rupert] I hope to be able to leave them

a great opportunity, like my father left me.

All the signs are they want it very much.

In the background is always the trust, succession,

who's gonna prevail.

So there's a lot riding on Rupert's recovery.

Of course, he's Rupert.

He does. He even joked, "They can't kill me. Stronger than ever."

Rupert Murdoch is laid up in bed and working from home.

[Matthew] Rupert recovered, and he ended up selling to Disney.

How did you get Rupert to sell some of the crown jewels?

A year ago, I didn't see this one coming. Nor did I see it coming six months ago.

[Matthew] The 20th Century Fox film studio,

the television studios they own,

and the cable networks went to Disney.

Getting the price he did was a great deal.

Each of the siblings got about $2 billion in cash.

[Jim] Lachlan is happy.

He will say that he previously really just opposed the deal

on the basis of price.

And it allowed Rupert and Lachlan to keep the asset that they really care about,

which is Fox News.

But ultimately, it was very devastating for James.

Fox announcing its leadership for the new Fox.

Lachlan Murdoch will serve as chairman and CEO of the company.

Rupert Murdoch will serve as cochairman.

Rupert made it clear there was no role for James at Fox.

And in the end, there was no role for James at Disney.

[man 7] There's been speculation

that you were agitating for a place for him on the Disney board.

No, no, no, no. Uh…

There's no conditions like that.

[McKay] Rupert was convinced that James was angling

to get himself a job at Disney out of these negotiations.

It infuriated him.

And Rupert actually called Iger himself

and said, "Don't give my son a job."

And I think that this was born out of Rupert's concern

that James was not negotiating entirely out of the interest of the company

but was thinking about himself.

Lachlan's prophecy that a brother and son would be lost over this deal was right,

but it wouldn't be Lachlan. It was James.

The sale of Fox to Disney effectively made you a very wealthy free agent.

You think there's a future in which you'd go back to Fox?

[laughs] I don't think so. I think they're off doing their own thing there.

My brother and my father run that, and I'm not worried about it.

- You don't communicate with them about it? - Um, about business, no.

[Paddy] James leaves the News Corporation board.

[Matthew] And the relationship with the rest of the family suffers.

Rupert sees attitudes in James that he sensed as weakness in other people.

[Matthew] He sees Lachlan now

as the last remaining steward of the family business.

And he wants Lachlan to have control when he's gone.

[man 8] Breaking news.

Rupert Murdoch is to step back from the global media empire

that he built over seven decades.

Rupert Murdoch is retiring.

[Paddy] When Rupert finally retired in 2023,

I was surprised

because it had always been said about Rupert, he would be carried out in a box.

He would never retire.

Uh, but now in retrospect, it's clear that by making his announcement,

he was trying to underline as heavily as he could

that Lachlan was the one he wanted to take over the whole thing.

[reporter 26] His son Lachlan will become sole chairman

of both Fox and News Corporation,

with the billionaire now taking on the honorary title of chairman emeritus.

[Jonathan] This is real life Succession.

Now Lachlan is the one who is the heir apparent.

[woman 6] What most people are thinking when they think of succession

is who's the next CEO going to be?

In a family-owned business, you often assume

that a family member will be the next CEO.

They'll have ultimate control. In fact, the real power lies in ownership.

[tense music playing]

[McKay] Rupert had come to believe

that James and his sisters are going to link arms

and take control of the family empire,

boot Lachlan from the corner office,

defang Rupert's conservative media outlets,

and, you know, turn Fox News into MSNBC.

[reporter 27] Anybody have any comment this morning?

[Jim] So what Rupert's thinking is, if he doesn't win this trial,

and if he doesn't get the trust built around Lachlan,

it's like he never existed.

[Jonathan] There is billions of dollars at stake, and there is pride at stake,

and there is a father's affection and respect at stake.

And so when James and Lachlan take the stand,

their history of betrayal, of bitterness, of backstabbing is front and center.

[reporter 28] Are you confident of victory?

[reporter 29] Any comment at all?

[Jonathan] What becomes clear over the course of Lachlan's testimony

is he feels a great sense of betrayal by his brother.

For years, he has felt that James had been seeding stories in the media

about how James was planning to one day push him out.

You know, he says on the stand at one point,

"Thousands of stories."

"There have been thousands of stories about this."

And that James has never come out and said, "I support your leadership."

And he says, "It would've been the right thing to do."

"It would've been the decent thing to do."

The fact that it didn't happen, it fuels Lachlan's paranoia.

[Jim] On the stand, James steadfastly denied all of that.

Again and again, he said, "No, I wasn't planning."

"No, there was no plotting."

[McKay] James would say that this was a fevered conspiracy theory

that Lachlan and Rupert had cooked up

to rationalize the aggressive moves that they would take

to make Lachlan the successor and ensure Rupert's legacy.

At some point at the trial,

he was asked about the years of internal Murdoch family communications.

Texts and emails.

All this stuff that had come out in discovery.

The communication showed that they see him

as just this pious, nagging liberal

who was throwing his politics in everybody's face.

And when James is reading these texts from his dad

to his sisters and his brother,

he became emotional and actually started to cry on the stand.

This is his dad and his brother, who he's loved and he thought loved him.

It laid bare just how far apart he and his father were

in terms of their visions for the company, how they saw the world,

what they believed the Murdoch name should mean,

and just how calculating and manipulative his father could be.

[reporter 30] Now the decision about who will run News Corp

will rest with a judge.

[tense music playing]

I don't think anyone had any idea who was gonna win this case.

So we are constantly working our sources.

[Jim] We're vaguely picking up that each side feels pretty good.

But this is Rupert Murdoch.

He's one of the richest men on earth,

one of the savviest men on earth.

We just had a sense that maybe Rupert would pull this out

because he's Rupert.

So we're waiting.

And then, in December,

we find out the judge has ruled.

[music ends]

[reporter 31] Our top story,

Rupert Murdoch has just lost his bid to alter a family trust.

Rupert and Lachlan lost on every single count.

- [reporter 32] How'd it go, Lachlan? - [reporter 33] Any comment, Mr. Murdoch?

[Jim] It was kinda shocking,

not only that Rupert lost

but that the judge found this whole thing so unseemly.

[reporter 34] The plan was deemed basically a charade.

[reporter 35] The judge said Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch acted in bad faith.

It's just a complete repudiation of everything they said in court.

Basically that this was a ruse

meant to carry on Rupert's legacy through his son.

[Jonathan] For James and Liz and Prue, this is vindication.

This was about as resounding and validating a victory

as you could have.

[McKay] Shortly after the trial was over,

Rupert and Lachlan were together

on the ancestral Murdoch ranch in rural Australia,

talking about how their scheme had fallen apart

and plotting their next move.

[Jim] We knew there was an appeal coming from Rupert and Lachlan,

but the commissioner's ruling was so definitive

that we couldn't see how they could pull something off.

[soft, suspenseful music playing]

[Jonathan] Typically, what happens in these cases

is the state judge would rubber-stamp the commissioner's decision

and reject the appeal.

And so when the judge calls for oral arguments,

James, Liz, and Prue do not go.

They don't take this seriously, but Lachlan and Rupert are there.

Lachlan's lawyer argues that Lachlan has been running the company.

It's doing very well financially.

And it's best for the heirs, for everyone's financial interest,

to lock in Lachlan's control.

And the way that the judge is responding,

it becomes clear that they were open to the argument

that Rupert had a right to change the trust,

that the door is open, at least a crack.

[tense music playing]

[Jim] That can only mean one thing if you're James, Liz, and Prue.

Maybe your victory is not going to be a lasting one.

And now this coup to disenfranchise them and take away their power

might actually happen.

[Jonathan] That changes the dynamic.

It was time to talk about a price.

[Jim] Rupert had always said to Lachlan,

"Bet on yourself. Buy your siblings out."

But Lachlan always seemed hesitant. He never put up the big money.

And so Project Family Harmony, which Lachlan initiated,

was a way for Lachlan to get it for free.

To get control of the company without buying his siblings out.

[Jonathan] But if Rupert and Lachlan were serious

about keeping control of Fox News…

[Jim] James and his sisters are gonna need top dollar.

[Jonathan] Talks were ongoing.

And by the beginning of September, they had an agreement in place.

[Jim] The price was finally right. It looks like things are good.

But for these two brothers,

the acrimony is so high that it threatened to scuttle everything.

And that's because Lachlan,

who's still furious about this commissioner's ruling in December,

he wants an agreement

that the commissioner's ruling has been vacated.

[Jonathan] James wanted this ruling to live on

as proof that he had beaten his brother.

For James and Lachlan,

you know, the jockeying to be the winner,

this is what has defined their entire lives.

[Jim] In the end, cooler heads prevail.

They find compromise language, like, "Okay, we're moving on from that case."

[Jonathan] It's all silly, but I guess it was like a point of pride.

That's how this family interacts. I mean, it's like… It's nuts, but it's true.

[reporter 36] The battle for control of the Murdoch news empire has been won.

Rupert Murdoch's family has reached a deal

which will see the eldest son, Lachlan, take complete power

when the 94-year-old media mogul dies.

[reporter 37] Three of Lachlan's siblings will receive huge payouts for their shares

and will step away from their roles at both News Corp and Fox.

The three siblings are gonna be fully out of the trust.

They are gonna get, between them, $3.3 billion.

[Jonathan] A lot of people were stunned.

[Jim] There was a view, certainly among liberal critics,

that James, Prue, and Liz sold out.

That they took the money and ran.

[Jonathan] They thought that James would never sell out.

That he was planning to keep his shares

so that he could topple Lachlan and transform Fox News.

I think it was always in James's financial interest

to encourage that perception.

But I think, at the end of the day,

what he really wanted was to get as much money as he could squeeze

out of his father and brother.

[reporter 38] A new trust will be formed for Lachlan

and his two younger sisters, Grace and Chloe,

that will hold controlling stakes in Fox and News Corp,

with Lachlan controlling the votes.

[reporter 39] The two youngest children become beneficiaries of the trust,

but with no voting power.

[Jonathan] For Lachlan to get control,

he needed to have Grace and Chloe's shares.

[Jim] Wendi helped Rupert to persuade the girls to just come along.

"You will still get your dividends. Give Lachlan all the voting power."

But when the new trust expires in 2050, Lachlan will be in his seventies,

and Grace and Chloe will be fully-formed adults

who may want more control over the company.

Who knows?

This is the Murdochs.

[contemplative piano music playing]

The succession battle is over, and both sides are claiming victory.

But I think you have to say that Lachlan and Rupert won.

Because Lachlan is gonna be in control of this empire until 2050.

James and his sisters, they got more money, yes.

But it's hard to see this as a victory when you already have billions of dollars

and you just added another billion.

Whereas Lachlan actually got something here that he didn't have,

which was control of this company.

[Jim] But for all this talk of winning, they all lost.

They've got their billions, but they've lost their family.

And that is what being a Murdoch really cost them.

[man 9] How would you describe your dad?

[James] Well, I think the shows make him look dark and sinister.

And really, he's a really nice person, a fun person.

Sometimes, eh?

[man 10] Tell me about some of the things that you would disagree with him about

and how you deal with it.

We don't have long enough.

[man 11] How important is it for News Corporation

to stay in family hands?

To whom?

"How important to whom?" is the question.

[Lachlan] What he's done with his children

is throw them in the deep end, give them great challenges,

and expect them to achieve, uh, in those challenges.

[music fades]

[man 12] Is there a personal price that you're bound to have to pay?

[Rupert] I think so, yes.

This is an all-consuming life.

And, um…

you know, that's really all I can say about it.

[jazzy instrumental music playing]

[music continues]