Marcus May
Our regular correspondent, Marcus May, muses on whether we are the last generation to experience Murdoch media.
Rupert Murdoch has given the humble printed newspaper, the medium upon which he built his business’s bones, a 15-year deadline until its demise “with a lot of luck”.
This was the most interesting part of Sky News’ The Australian: 60 Years of News, which aired recently with its centrepiece being an “exclusive” interview with Murdoch.
The comment occasioned some further reflection on the future of the Murdoch empire in total.
Back in February 2023, Noel Turnbull, a man with a 40-year-plus career in public relations, politics, journalism and academia, wrote about the “Murdoch Media Problems”, citing that:
The newspaper part of News Corp is looking pretty sick. Profits in the company’s news media business – the New York Post in the US and newspaper operations in Australia and the UK, which also includes radio operations such as TalkSport and the Piers Morgan-led TalkTV – slumped 47% year-on-year in the final three months of the year.
He further revealed:
News Corp, as a result, has announced that 5% of its global workforce will be cut after profits in the final quarter fell by 30% after advertising revenue fell; the book publishing and digital real estate operations slumped amid a fall in advertising; business at its book publishing and digital real estate operations slumped.
All told there was a 64 per cent decline in income in the quarter ending December 31 and the staff reductions will cost 1259 people their jobs.
A year and a half on from Turnbull’s analysis, Christopher Warren, past president of the International Federation of Journalists, this month asks the question:
News Corp is ailing. How long will the Murdochs prop it up?
Warren writes:
News Corp’s annual reports filed with the US regulator show that since the Murdochs split the family’s media assets in 2013, the News Corp arm has paid out more than $1 billion in employee termination entitlements (or “benefits,” as it calls them). Unusually for the company, News Corp last year tied the cuts to a 5 percent headcount reduction, resulting in 1,250 employees being let go.
This year, it looks like it’s planning on culling the deck chairs along its Australian mahogany row. It’s a reorganisation based on a business model: subscription-supported products (tagged, apparently, as “prestige” products, such as The Australian), the advertising-supported bertnews.com.au, and the apparently no longer viable business model of its metro mastheads.
The reported consolidation marks the final step of wrapping the once-powerful Australian mastheads into a national offering through a single subscription, which the city brands now endure purely for marketing purposes.
For News Corp in Australia, it’s been a long-term management of decline, starting with national political news and the syndication of its tabloid commentariat, before following up with common supplements (like travel), then sections (like finance), and, finally, news.
It’s an interesting and detailed article from Warren, and concludes with the question, “For how long will the largely disengaged American family continue to care?”
Now we hear that Rupert is taking legal action to shore up the position of his chosen successor, Lachlan, as head of News Corp, in order to protect the values and policies of the empire that he has created. The current status of that initiative is summarised in a Crikey article HERE.
Whatever the result of the court action, and whatever the longevity of Rupert himself, it looks like News Corp will change – a lot – in the next decade. We can but hope that the change will be towards more accuracy and impartiality.
Read Warren's full article in Pearls & Irritations
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