A new deal ensures that for Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, the future is conservative

Could Rupert Murdoch’s $40 billion media empire ever lean liberal?

Over the past few years, as Murdoch’s four children battled in court over who would control properties including Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post after his death, the possibility was slim but real. If Elisabeth, Prudence, James, and Lachlan Murdoch divided the estate equally after Murdoch’s death, those not named Lachlan could move it in a more liberal direction.

Rupert Murdoch, 94, made it clear that he wanted Lachlan — “a loyal fighter when it comes to following in his father’s controversial footsteps,” as The Guardian put it in 2023 — to take over. The companies are a “protector of the conservative voice in the English-speaking world,” Murdoch told his children in 2023, according to reporting by The New York Times.

Now, it seems, that voice will be conserved. The four siblings have reached an agreement for Lachlan to control the Murdoch media empire after their father’s death, and until at least 2050.

“It means security for the common-sense worldview critical to not only the businesses but the audiences they serve,” Col Allan, a former New York Post editor close with Rupert Murdoch, told The New York Times. And for Fox News’s fans and critics, it means many more years of what they’ve become accustomed to.