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| From left, James, Lachlan and Rupert Murdoch. |
Since taking over two years ago, James and Lachlan Murdoch seem determined to rid the company of the old-guard culture on which their father built his empire.
The sun was setting in New York as James Murdoch, looking confident in cream pants and a dark blazer, stepped before 350 guests in a glass-walled concert hall and waxed poetic about his pet TV channel and its dedication to “scientific literacy.”
The event on Wednesday night was an advertising showcase for National Geographic, which Mr. Murdoch, 44, has doted on since becoming chief executive of its parent company, 21st Century Fox. As a person who cares deeply about “issues related to the environment, conservation, exploration and education,” he told the crowd, “I’m personally grateful for the important work National Geographic does.”
Across town at that same moment, his 86-year-old father, Rupert — who once called climate change “alarmist nonsense” — was still dealing with fallout at his most cherished channel, Fox News. Bill O’Reilly, the pugnacious and top-rated talk show host, had been ousted that day after allegations of sexual harassment involving multiple women.
It was James Murdoch — the one looking so unperturbed at the NatGeo presentation, posing for photos as waiters milled about in yellow suspenders and guests ate skirt steak and shrimp cocktail — who had most aggressively moved against Mr. O’Reilly. The same had happened in July, when Roger Ailes, who founded Fox News with Rupert Murdoch, was forced to resign amid his own sexual harassment scandal.
This is what generational change at one of the globe’s most powerful media conglomerates looks like.
With James and his elder brother, Lachlan, 45, who is the executive chairman of 21st Century Fox, firmly entrenched as their father’s successors, they are now forcibly exerting themselves. Their father remains very involved, but his sons seem determined to rid the company of its roguish, old-guard internal culture and tilt operations toward the digital future. They are working to make the family empire their own, not the one the elder Murdoch created to suit his sensibilities.
“They are both young enough to see and understand that the company has to change,” said Doug Creutz, a media analyst at Cowen and Company. “At some media companies, there is a feeling that people are being dragged kicking and screaming into the digital future. I don’t get that sense with the brothers at all.”
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| James Murdoch, 44, chief executive of 21st Century Fox, during a presentation on Wednesday in Manhattan for National Geographic. |
Fox executives either did not return calls or declined to comment for this article. But a picture of a new Murdoch era emerged in interviews with more than a dozen people who work at the company or are friendly with James and Lachlan, most of whom spoke anonymously for fear of reprisals.
Over his storied career, Rupert Murdoch repeatedly showed that he was willing to trade workplace culture for profits — ride people hard, overlook putrid behavior as long as the results are there, reward infighting. When his sons took over two years ago, however, they immediately set about creating a warmer and fuzzier workplace, at least in parts of the company, and moving away from an anti-politically correct environment that, at least in the case of Fox News, seemed to enable the kind of behavior of which Mr. Ailes and Mr. O’Reilly have been accused. Both men deny the allegations.
Employees at the Fox broadcast network said they were pleasantly surprised, for instance, to be summoned to a town-hall meeting — something that had rarely if ever been done under the archly conservative Rupert Murdoch — where the brothers espoused transparency, workplace diversity and greater cooperation between divisions. In the fall, James and Lachlan introduced additional benefits, including more paid vacation, vastly enhanced reproductive coverage for women and “expanded coverage for our transgender colleagues.”
The brothers concluded the memo on a jaunty note: “Enjoy!”
James and Lachlan overhauled their international networks business, a collection of some 350 channels; changed leadership at their film studio, home to the “X-Men” movies; and poured money into National Geographic. They culled the company’s entertainment ranks of roughly 400 employees, something James described at the time as a “ventilation.” (While some people in Hollywood saw the move as ageist, grumbling was minimal; Fox offered relatively lavish buyout packages.)
The brothers have even shaken up 21st Century Fox’s profile in Washington, replacing their father’s Republican lobbying chief with a Democratic one. One Hollywood friend equated their mindset to moving into an outdated house and looking for wood rot.
Still, some of the most dramatic changes at 21st Century Fox over the last two years, including the ouster of Mr. O’Reilly, have been forced on them.
When they first took over, they stepped gingerly around Fox News. James and his progressive-minded wife, Kathryn, have long been embarrassed by certain elements of Fox News, associates said, while Lachlan’s views of the network have been more in line with his father’s. Both sons were willing to tolerate the freewheeling Fox News culture because of the enormous profit the channel generates. Analysts estimate that the division generated 25 percent of 21st Century Fox’s operating income last year, which was $6.6 billion.
Only last summer, when the former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson filed a sexual harassment suit against Mr. Ailes, did James and Lachlan, and eventually Rupert, force change. And even then the overhaul at Fox News was limited; control was given to longtime Ailes lieutenants, and the company continued to support Mr. O’Reilly in the face of repeated allegations of sexual harassment, even giving him a contract extension.
It was not until The New York Times disclosed financial settlements, which involved multiple women who alleged that Mr. O’Reilly had behaved inappropriately, and advertisers began leaving his show in droves, that the company forced him out. Maintaining a culture based on “trust and respect,” as 21st Century Fox promised when Mr. Ailes left, was easier said than done.
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