Is the Murdoch media empire on shaky ground?

Samantha Hawley: Hi, I’m Sam Hawley, coming to you from Gadigal Land. This is ABC News Daily. We’ve been hearing the Murdoch name a fair bit recently as the family manoeuvres its way through various legal challenges around the world from a $1 billion payout in the US to a high profile defamation suit in Australia. Now it’s Prince Harry’s turn. He’s after Rupert Murdoch over historic phone hacking allegations. Today, Media Watch host Paul Barry on whether the Murdoch empire is on shaky ground and the family’s succession plans. Paul Barry, it seems there’s been a lot going on for Rupert Murdoch recently. His media companies have been in court a fair bit in the US, in the UK and here. So let’s talk about the legal action he’s been facing in a moment, but just a quick reminder first of how big his media empire is, some of us may have forgotten.

Paul Barry: Well, I mean, News Corp is huge around the world. It’s obviously big in Australia where it has something like 60%, two thirds of the metro papers and also Sky News has got huge influence here. It’s also really big in Britain, although not such, the figures aren’t so high. But it has The Sun, which is the, has been the highest selling tabloid and The Times, which is one of the big broadsheet papers. So it’s got immense influence in Britain. And then in the States, it’s got Fox News, which is the biggest, most powerful right wing cable network, biggest, most powerful cable network, full stop, and has again, tremendous influence in US politics.

Fox News promo: Fox News Media brings America Together. America is watching news and fearless.

Paul Barry: And he’s also got the post in New York. So massive, massive, massive $10 billion company, Huge influence.

Fox News promo: America’s news and much more.

Samantha Hawley: Yeah, massive. It’s good to put that into context before we go on. So, Paul, let’s now have a look at these legal battles, because there are a few, as I mentioned. Let’s start in the UK because Prince Harry is taking the Murdochs on in London’s High court.

Reporter: This is the latest salvo against the British tabloid press. This time, Prince Harry wants to take Rupert Murdoch’s news group newspapers to trial.

Samantha Hawley: That’s in the court at the moment. What’s that about?

Paul Barry: Prince Harry has got a very, very late entry into the phone hacking race. You know, the phone hacking cases in Britain have been going on for ten years, at least now.

Reporter: It’s not often that the media, which is supposed to be a critical pillar of democracy, is actually caught red handed on the wrong side of the law. But this is well and truly the case for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Now that key verdicts are in on one of the most sensational long running.

Paul Barry: News Corp has paid out something like not quite, but nearly 2 billion Australian dollars to more than a thousand claimants. And it’s still going through the courts.

Reporter: Of his ongoing legal action against News Group newspaper in the UK High Court. He claims that their titles The Sun and the now defunct News of the World used illegal means like phone hacking.

Paul Barry: They blew the whistle recently, saying, okay, that’s the end of it. You’ve all got to put your claim in now or miss. And so a whole bunch of people put their claims in. So there’s another flood coming at the moment and Prince Harry is one of them. He’s basically revealed in court that his brother William got a big settlement, secret settlement from from News Corp, from News UK, and he wants the same, essentially. And he’s claiming that The Sun and News of the World made more than 100 payments to private eyes and other people to hack his phone and to dig dirt on his private life.

Samantha Hawley: What is News group and the Murdochs saying about this case, the Prince Harry case?

Paul Barry: They’re saying that he’s out of time, that he should have made his claim years ago and that it’s too late and they’re trying to persuade the judge to throw the case out. Rupert said when when this first came, was revealed, it was the most humble day of his life. I don’t think he’s really ever showed much humility since then.

Rupert Murdoch: I would just like to say one sentence, this is the most humble day of my life.

Samantha Hawley: Okay. Now let’s look at what’s happening in the US, because the Murdochs have avoided a big case there going to trial. Just remind me about that.

Paul Barry: Well there’s a voting machine company called Dominion Voting Systems, which provided machines for the 2020 US presidential election.

Various reporters: Dominion. Dominion Voting. Dominion Voting Systems. Right now.

Donald Trump: Dominion is a joke. Okay. Not a very funny joke.

Paul Barry: Donald Trump, as we know, and his lawyers, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell spread the big lie that the election was stolen and that these machines switched votes from Trump to Biden. And despite a lot of people at Fox, perhaps almost everybody at Fox, thinking that was complete nonsense, the network aired those claims.

Reporter: Their machines can be hacked, but it’s far worse than that. They were flipping.Votes in the computer system or adding votes that did not exist.

Paul Barry: And so you had Fox spreading this big lie. Dominion said, Look, you’ve been spreading lies about us. And so Dominion sued. It sued for 1.6 billion US dollars. And then on the very day that the trial’s beginning, Fox folds and it folds for 800 nearly 800 million US dollars, which is an absolutely eye watering sum of money.

Samantha Hawley: It’s like 1.2 billion Australian dollars. So, you know, this is adding up, right?

Paul Barry: Billion here, billion there. Sooner or later, a lot of money.

Samantha Hawley: Yes, it’s a lot of a lot of money.

Paul Barry: Well, I think it’s worth saying there’s a couple more cases coming down the line which are going to be at least as bad as Dominion, it seems to me. Smartmatic, another voting machine manufacturer, is suing for 2.7 billion US dollars, has the same sort of cause of action as Dominion had. It’s hard to see why they would lose where Dominion has already won so easily. So that looks like being another absolutely gargantuan payout and another slap to the Murdochs. And then they’re going to have shareholder actions from all the people who are saying, well, what the hell are the directors doing? Why do they allow this to happen?

Samantha Hawley: So now let’s have a look at the battle here, just tell me about what was going on with the case against Crikey, which is an online sort of news publication.

Paul Barry: Yeah. Crikey is a fairly small online publisher, mainly analysis, a little bit of news. I have a small shareholding in it for disclosure. It published an article accusing Trump of being an unhinged traitor and Lachlan Murdoch, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Capitol riots. Basically, that was referring to what Fox had done by spreading the lie and suggesting that by doing that, Fox had incited these people to go and march on the Capitol. It was going to be a very, very hard case for Crikey to defend if the judge decided that that’s what the article actually said, and I think it probably would have done. But Murdoch pulled out and Murdoch pulled out, I think, for obvious reasons. They’ve just paid a bucket load of money to settle a case in the US because they don’t want their dirty laundry washed, washed in public and so they don’t want that evidence rerun in a case in this country. It would, I think, have been a public relations disaster for for for the Murdochs to do that.

Samantha Hawley: So it sounds like the biggest worry for Murdoch is not the money that they have to pay out, but the airing of the dirty laundry if cases go to trial, they want to avoid that at all costs.

Paul Barry: Exactly. And Lachlan Murdoch would have had to go on the stand and he would have to be questioned about why they allowed Fox hosts to spread stuff that they knew to be lies.

Samantha Hawley: So I pull the Murdochs are putting out spot fires all over the place and all over the world. Why are they getting into so much trouble right now?

Paul Barry: Well, I think in terms of I mean, the Prince Harry case is a phone hacking case and that’s something that happened more than ten years ago, but the shockwaves are still being felt. And that was essentially revealing stuff that celebrities did not want revealed and the public just lapped up. And The Sun and News of the World made this on an industrial scale. That’s how they sold papers. And they got that information by paying people to hack phones or to go through rubbish bins or to whatever it was, but a whole bunch of illegal methods and they got caught. So that was that, that was that business model. If you look then to the States, the business model was to run a network which retailed outrage and conspiracy theories and grievance. And the idea that the world was ganging up against the listeners and that they no longer had any power. And when there came a contest between truth and ratings, which happened after the 2020 election, the audience wanted to be told that the election had been stolen. And when Fox tried to stop telling them that they all quit the network, they stopped listening to it or they stopped watching it. And so the bosses at Fox said, Well, we need to spread this stuff because otherwise we’re going to lose our audience. So that’s their business model, the business model of outrage and and and conspiracy theories. And essentially, both of those eventually have run into trouble, rightly so. And it’s good, but I don’t imagine it’s going to completely change that business model forever. I think, you know, those things still exist.

Samantha Hawley: I was going to say, do you think there might be some thought within the executive of the Murdoch empire that perhaps this model needs to change a bit? We did see this week one of the biggest stars on Fox News, Tucker Carlson, part ways with Rupert Murdoch.

Fox News promo: Good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson. Tonight, one of the hallmarks of people.

Samantha Hawley: He was so popular, I mean, so, so popular, 3 million people watched him every night. And the things he said on a nightly basis were, quite frankly, outrageous. Yeah.

Tucker Carlson: In order to win and maintain power, Democrats plan to change the population of the country. They hate white men more than they hate global warming. Your response? When you see children wearing masks as they play should be no different from your response to seeing someone beat a kid in Walmart.

Samantha Hawley: Is that a sign that the approach might be changing or is something else at play?

Paul Barry: Look, I don’t think it’s a sign that the approach is going to change, because I think what’s happened really is that Fox has become captive to its audience. The audience demands this stuff and they’ll leave if they don’t get it. And so that is the way that Fox makes his money. And money is what the Murdochs are interested in. So I don’t see how they’re going to be able to abandon that wholesale and still have a network that people want to listen to. I think what’s happened with Tucker Carlson is, well, I think there’s two things at play. I think first is that there’s an ex Fox producer is suing for toxic workplace and alleging misogyny and sexism and pointing the finger at Carlson in particular. And I think the second thing is it’s just a matter of, look, we are in charge of this network. You know, we’re the bosses. You’re the host. We’re in charge. The network is bigger than you are. So I think it gives them at least the network, the power to to change. But I very much doubt that it is going to change in a, you know, in an enormous way.

Samantha Hawley: Okay. So question is, Rupert Murdoch you’re saying there you don’t think he’s going to change the model? That seems pretty clear, but he’s pretty old now, Paul, he won’t be around forever and once he’s not around, what will change?

Paul Barry: Yes. Rupert is 92. Recent profile in Vanity Fair suggested he’s been much sicker than anyone realised, and he seems to be making some erratic decisions. For example, divorcing Jerry Hall, saying he’s going to get married to this other woman and then two weeks later, changing his mind. And Lachlan, for his part, again has been in charge with Rupert of the network. I don’t think he’s covered himself in glory either. So I think the current grip that they have, Rupert and Lachlan on this company, News Corp, is likely to be threatened. If it were any other company, they would be kicked out. But as it as it is, they control 40% of the votes, the Murdoch family. So that’s probably unlikely to happen. But what is likely to happen is that after Rupert dies, there are going to be four children with equal shares in running the network in terms of their voting power. And there is speculation that three of them could gang up against Lachlan and kick him out, just like succession on TV.

Samantha Hawley: It reminds me of a television show.

Paul Barry: That would then have, I think, serious implications for what the future of Fox would look like.

Samantha Hawley: The power could shift dramatically, the empire could change dramatically. And then what we see and what we read from the Murdochs will change dramatically as well.

Paul Barry: Look, it could do. I mean, completely speculation. And Rupert’s not dead yet, but it must be a possibility at least, that the control will be taken out of the Rupert and Lachlan axis, who are very conservative and be given to someone like James, who is much more to the left and much more liberal and, you know, cares about climate change and a whole bunch of other things that liberal people care about. So I think it’s a possibility.

Samantha Hawley: The plot thickens. Thank you very much. It’s a pleasure. Paul Barry is the host of Media Watch. If you want to know more about the Fox settlement in the Dominion case, have a listen to The Price Murdoch paid For Trump’s Big Lie from April the 20th. That’s in your feed. This episode was produced by Flint, Duxfield, Veronica Apap, Sam Dunn and Chris Dengate, who also did the mix. Our supervising producer is Stephen Smiley. I’m Sam Hawley. ABC News Daily will be back again on Monday. Thanks for listening.