For more than seven decades, Rupert Murdoch has been one of the most consequential figures in international media. Newspapers, television networks, film studios, satellite broadcasting and publishing have all, at different times, formed part of a business empire carrying his influence across Australia, Britain and the United States.
Yet the beginnings were considerably more modest.
Murdoch did not start with Fox, The Times, The Sun or a multinational corporation. His story began with an inheritance from his father, Sir Keith Murdoch, and a relatively small newspaper operation in Adelaide.
Now, at the age of 95, Rupert Murdoch is overseeing another generational transition. The newspaper inheritance he received from his father and transformed into a global media dynasty is passing into the era of his eldest son, Lachlan.
The Inheritance
Sir Keith Murdoch was already an important figure in Australian journalism long before his son entered the business. He had risen through newspapers to become editor and later chairman of the powerful Herald and Weekly Times group.
There is, however, an important distinction in the Murdoch story. Sir Keith exercised enormous influence over the organisation, but the Murdoch family did not simply own the sprawling newspaper group he had helped build.
When Sir Keith died unexpectedly in October 1952, the 21-year-old Rupert was studying at Worcester College, Oxford. The inheritance left behind was considerably smaller than the empire with which the Murdoch name would eventually become associated.
At its centre was the family’s interest in News Limited and the Adelaide afternoon newspaper The News.
Before returning permanently to Australia, however, Murdoch did something significant. He went to Fleet Street to learn the newspaper business.
Learning the Trade in Fleet Street
Murdoch worked at Lord Beaverbrook’s Daily Express, then one of Britain’s great mass-circulation newspapers.
He worked on the sub-editors’ desk under Edward Pickering, gaining practical experience of how a successful popular newspaper was assembled, edited and sold to millions of readers. Beaverbrook had known Sir Keith Murdoch and took an interest in the young Australian’s progress.
It was an education that would prove useful.
Murdoch returned to Australia and took up the reins at News Limited. In 1953 he became publisher and joined its board, taking control of the company the following year. At the time, its principal asset was a majority interest in Adelaide’s number-two daily newspaper.
There was no global empire waiting for him. He would have to build it.
Building the Australian Business
The young Murdoch proved to have an appetite for expansion and risk. He began acquiring newspapers and competing with much larger Australian publishing interests, with News Limited expanding beyond Adelaide and purchasing Sydney’s Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror in 1960.
Then, in 1964, Murdoch made one of his most significant early moves by launching The Australian, the country’s first national daily newspaper. The provincial newspaper proprietor was becoming a national media figure.
Britain came next.
Murdoch Comes to Britain
Murdoch entered the British newspaper market at the end of the 1960s. He acquired control of the News of the World and then The Sun, transforming the latter into a mass-market tabloid.
In 1981 came an even more prestigious acquisition when his company bought The Times and The Sunday Times. The young Australian who had once learned his trade on a Fleet Street sub-editors’ desk had returned as a proprietor.
Expansion into the United States followed. Murdoch acquired newspapers including the New York Post and ultimately moved deeply into television and entertainment.
News Corporation was established in 1980 to consolidate the expanding international collection of newspapers, television and other media assets.
The transformation was extraordinary. An inheritance centred on an Adelaide newspaper had become an international media corporation.
From Newspapers to Television
Murdoch’s great skill was not confined to buying newspapers. He repeatedly moved into new forms of media as technology changed the industry around him.
Television became central to the empire. In the United States came Fox and the television network that carried its name. In Britain, Murdoch made an enormous gamble on satellite broadcasting, eventually creating the business that became BSkyB and later Sky.
Sky is no longer part of the Murdoch empire. Comcast acquired it in 2018 after a takeover battle in which Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox sold its existing stake.
Nor does today’s Murdoch empire resemble the vast conglomerate of previous decades. Much of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment business was sold to Disney in 2019.
What remained was reorganised principally around two companies: Fox Corporation and News Corp. Those companies now form the heart of the inheritance over which the next generation will exercise influence.
The Question of Succession
For years, one question followed Rupert Murdoch’s advancing age: which of his children would eventually succeed him?
There were several possible answers.
Elisabeth Murdoch developed a substantial career in television production. James Murdoch occupied senior positions throughout the family businesses and was once widely regarded as a potential successor. Lachlan Murdoch also rose through the organisation, although for a period he stepped away from executive responsibilities before later returning.
The differences between the siblings eventually became more consequential. The question was no longer simply which child would receive which assets. At stake was control of the family’s voting interests in Fox Corporation and News Corp.
That distinction matters because the Murdoch inheritance is not merely a collection of valuable shares. It includes influence over major media institutions.
Rupert Steps Back
The formal transition began before Rupert Murdoch’s death.
In 2023, he stepped down as chairman of Fox Corporation and News Corp and became chairman emeritus. Lachlan became sole chair of News Corp while continuing as executive chair and chief executive of Fox Corporation.
The operational succession had therefore already begun, but the question of long-term family control remained.
That was finally addressed by an extraordinary family settlement in 2025.
The agreement separated Prudence MacLeod, Elisabeth Murdoch and James Murdoch from the trusts holding shares in Fox and News Corp. The arrangements established a new structure involving Lachlan and Rupert’s younger daughters, Grace and Chloe, with voting control over the relevant shares resting with Lachlan through the structure’s appointed managing director.
The arrangement is intended to run until 2050. The succession question that had surrounded the Murdoch family for years had effectively been answered.
From Father to Son, and Father to Son Again
There is an intriguing symmetry to the story.
In 1952, Sir Keith Murdoch died and left his young son Rupert an interest in an Adelaide newspaper business. Rupert could have remained the proprietor of a relatively modest Australian newspaper operation. Instead, he spent more than 70 years acquiring, launching and transforming media businesses across the world.
The names accumulated along the way became some of the most recognisable in journalism and broadcasting: The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, Fox and many others.
Some businesses were subsequently sold. Others were reorganised. Some of Murdoch’s most audacious investments, including Sky, eventually passed into different ownership.
Yet the central business dynasty survived.
Now it is happening again. Rupert inherited from Sir Keith. Lachlan succeeds Rupert.
The difference is the scale of what is being passed from one generation to the next.
More Than a Family Fortune
The Murdoch succession matters for reasons extending beyond the considerable wealth of the family.
News organisations occupy an unusual position in democratic societies. Their owners do not merely control commercial assets. Their organisations select stories, investigate institutions, publish opinions and help determine which subjects dominate public discussion.
That does not mean a proprietor dictates every article or controls every journalist. Large media organisations contain editors, reporters and executives with their own responsibilities. But ownership and voting control still matter.
That is why the battle over the Murdoch Family Trust attracted attention far beyond the family’s financial affairs. It concerned the future governance of companies owning influential media organisations across several countries.
The Second Murdoch Era
Rupert Murdoch remains alive and, at 95, remains chairman emeritus of both Fox Corporation and News Corp.
But the transfer of power is no longer a hypothetical question about what happens after his death.
Lachlan Murdoch is already executive chair and chief executive of Fox Corporation and chair of News Corp. The family arrangements designed to preserve his control have also been established.
The transition is therefore better understood not as an inheritance waiting to happen, but as one already under way.
More than seven decades ago, a young Rupert Murdoch left Oxford, spent time learning his craft on London’s Daily Express and returned to Australia to take charge of the newspaper interests his father had left behind.
From that inheritance he constructed one of the world’s great media empires.
Now the circle is closing.
Sir Keith passed a newspaper business to Rupert. Rupert transformed it beyond recognition. As one Murdoch era approaches its end, Lachlan has been chosen to begin the next.
