Each week, Next TV writers Daniel Frankel and David Bloom take a break from the long, slow, merciful fade into oblivion by screaming into the void -- and at each other -- over SMS. Do not gently go into that good night, sisters and brothers. 

Daniel Frankel: So I’m rewatching season 2 of HBO’s just-canceled Winning Time … and after seeing episode 3, “The Chosen One,” I went down a internet research rabbit hole which included not only Larry Bird’s austere rural Indiana youth, but also the origins of Bob Seger’s “No Man's Land,” which is played in a poignant scene in episode 3. While engaging in this little fetishistic exercise, I noticed I’m hardly alone — there was an emotional outpouring in the media-on-media world last week, with lots of middle-aged guys like me who make their living typing into boxes lamenting the fate of this show. Slate’s Aaron Bady was probably the most sober out of any of us, noting the declining second-season ratings and the fact that — as we pro-hoops fanboys may have missed — season two was narratively rushed and clumsy. I get numbers are numbers, and scripted television is enormously expensive to produce. But given the fact that Warner Bros. Discovery pays billions to the NBA in licensing, and it just launched a subscription sports tier for Max which includes the NBA, might it have done a little more to save this show?

David Bloom: It is so adorable seeing a cynical, hard-bitten old journalist like you going Full Stan Mode about a canceled TV show, a good one, no doubt, but also a gone one. If only there were more like you, maybe the show would have survived. Actually, if only there were more journalists period. Speaking of which, I’m wondering what the broadcast journalism business will look like soon enough. Warner Bros. Discovery not only canceled one of its few interesting new shows lately, it’s now said it will start streaming much of CNN’s live feed, plus some originals, on Max. That suggests some new work for journalism types, but perhaps also the first step to a streaming future for CNN that might be much smaller in staffing and ambition, given how things have gone previously with this regime. Similarly, the journalists at ABC News are said to be freaking out about the prospect of King Bob spinning out the linear operations at Disney to someone like Nexstar or private equity. I’m guessing some of the very high-priced on-air talent at ABC, and their support staff, would be among the first to go if/when that happens. Maybe they can all get bit parts in a new series from the Winning Time executives set in a 1990s 24-hour TV newsroom called CNNing Time. Unless Zaz orders the use of AI versions of all his newscasters and then de-ages them for the show. 

Daniel: Like the ball, the audience data doesn’t lie — but everything seems reactionary and a bit ego-driven with this WBD group. I could be proven wrong in three years, when this roll-up of live sports, news, along with Superman, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter reboots and prequels draw audiences regularly exceeding 10 million viewers. As for news, our New York friend Alan Wolk came up with a statistic the other day suggesting that 68% of millennials and Gen-Zs seek out local news via streaming. I live with a couple of young dudes from the Gen-Z cohort. I don’t think they’ve ever watched local news in their lives — unless there was some immediate fantasy football or sports-betting informational need to be solved. In the traditional sense, I'm not even sure they even know what news is. An interesting story developed here in L.A. last week — Lincoln Riley, the USC football coach, suspended a young fast-rising Orange County Register reporter for what seemed like really petty reasons. The Register, L.A. Times and the rest of the “traditional” sports media climbed all over Riley and the administration (they eventually caved), but all the fanboys jumped on the journalists — the kid should have been suspended because he broke clearly stated “rules,” they said. And this was the kicker expressed on Twitter over and over again — “Who cares about the news media, anyway?” What is it exactly that these young TikTok-crazed arsonists want to watch? Don't say another Superman or Lord of the Rings.

David: If you can adapt Lord of the Rings for TikTok, you might be onto something. I think the more interesting thing is the way younger people access news. There’s lots of evidence suggesting that they do that through personalities on sites like TikTok and Twitch who talk about the news, sometimes for hours at a time. You see this most with the Ben Shapiros of the hard right, but it’s on both sides of the partisan divide, and into a lot of other sectors as well. That doesn’t bode well for any of the big, old, mass news organizations for the long term. In the shorter term, they’re just trying to hold onto the aging/dying audiences they have. Michael Wolff, the controversial Fox/Murdoch/Trump chronicler who has a new Murdoch book coming out, said he doesn’t think Fox News exists after Rupert dies. (The Ankler just published an excerpt.) And Rupert just stepped back half a step at Fox, leaving Lachlan in charge, for now. The math isn’t good in the long run. Lachlan is outnumbered by his more liberal siblings on the family trust who conceivably would push for a big change post-Rupert. It’s going to be fascinating to watch. 

Daniel: At 92, who knows what imperatives are driving Rupert to step back, but I suspect that far-right ideology drives this man and that he wouldn’t cede control without feeling secure that Lachlan will finish — or at least sustain — what he started. 

David: I’d consider Rupe more a mainstream media mogul, conservative but hardly far right. He’s no Thiel, Adelson or Koch. Mostly, he’s dedicated to (and very good at) making lots of money and wielding power to ensure he keeps doing that. But he is also a media Dr. Frankenstein in terms of the populist, anti-democratic cultural monster now raging across the land, unleashed and amplified by his most lucrative creation. Lachlan, meanwhile, prefers life in Australia, hardly center stage for one dedicated to herding Fox News into the future. At most, Rupert’s half-step back suggests he wants his other adult children to understand Lachlan should keep sailing full speed straight ahead. All that ignores far bigger trends darkening the future of Fox and News Corp. They’re OLD media, with the exception of Tubi and perhaps the Wall Street Journal. The Disney sale stripped off just about anything with a whiff of where media is heading. What’s left has declining, aging audiences, albeit still quite valuable ones. What’s the future of Fox and News Corp. once Rupe finally really leaves us? How long before the kids sell out? I’d put the over-under on a sale to private equity, or Elon Musk, at two years after Rupert’s memorial service.

Daniel: Rupert Murdoch is a “mainstream media mogul” and is “hardly far right?” Bro, what have you been smoking all summer on the beaches of the lower Northern Atlantic? This is a guy who just paid nearly $800 million to a voting machine maker because his network made numerous bullshit claims that the company rigged a presidential election in favor of the opposition party. This is a guy who gave land, materials and labor to Roger Ailes, a well-established Nixon-era ideologue, and said, “Build this for me.” Rupert isn’t a player. He designed the goddamned game. Sure, capitalism is important to him, but I think you're kidding yourself if you believe that ideology isn’t central to his motivation. 

David: Maybe get your head out of that Bob Seger deep dive for a minute and read the Michael Wolff excerpt I sent you. Like I said, Dr. Frankenstein’s monster has been unleashed, and there’s nothing the doctor can do about it now. It’s left Fox News in a precarious spot with its own, fracturing audience, which once it dominated. And there are plenty of credible reports about Murdoch's distaste for Trump and Trump’s politics, and the golden cage Fox is in (see also, texts and emails uncovered in the Dominion case that feature the harsh opinions from Tucker Carlson and other Fox stars about Trump and the Fox audience insistence that he didn’t lose). Just because you built and started the roller coaster doesn’t mean you’re enjoying the ride now that you’re stuck on it. And one need only spend time around the truly far right (see also, Alex Jones, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and other avatars of that extreme wing of the GOP) to understand that’s not Murdoch’s people, just his marks. 

Daniel: Speaking of Murdoch’s marks, me and the compulsive-sport-betting 17-year-old shortstop just watched a pretty good game on Fox just now between the Seahawks and Panthers (I made sure Reece didn't have a wager on it). Reminded me of an interesting survey we published last week suggesting that half of some NFL fan bases are pirating games. That Next TV story got picked up by Yahoo, and there were more than 400 comments, mainly from readers justifying piracy because they believe access to the NFL has gotten way too expensive. I kind of feel like they have a point … to a degree. Sure, you can see Sunday afternoon games free over-the-air on CBS, NBC and Fox. But we published a study in June suggesting it would set an avid NFL fan back $170 to see all of the NFL’s games each week. The latest study noted that 46% of NFL fans root for a team that's not in their market, so they need to pay at least some subscription money to follow their team. 

David: Fox, by the way, isn’t the only media company clinging to the NFL for audience relevance and revenue this strike-cursed fall, but it’s probably the most dependent given its narrowly configured operations. All the networks depend  on these expensive rights to prop up their linear lineups these days, which makes sense given the NFL’s enduring appeal. But are we reaching the limit on what the NFL can extract from its fans and distributors? Sunday Ticket will cost you around $400 this season (depending on various deals), while NFL Plus, the league’s own streaming service, is another $8 a month for half a year or more. Also, you have to pay for ESPN and Amazon Prime, as well as the broadcast networks, to see most everything. Actually attending a game is, of course, increasingly what you do using your corporate expense account, not your own checkbook, given the cost. When do fans, especially younger fans who don’t have the bankroll or patience to watch four-hour games, turn elsewhere? And I ask this as a longtime fan and former player who this fall already has watched in person two USC games and his nephew in a high school game on Cape Cod, and dozens of pro and college games on TV. Something’s gotta give at some point, besides my spouse’s patience. 

Lachlan Murdoch, named this week to succeed his father Rupert Murdoch as chairman of Fox Corp., received total compensation of $21.8 million in fiscal 2023, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Lachlan Murdoch, executive chairman and CEO at Fox, received roughly the same amount of compensation for 2022. His 2023 pay included a salary of $5 million, incentive plan compensation of $4.4 million, stock awards of $5.8 million and option awards of $1.8 million.

Rupert Murdoch took 2023 compensation of $21.9 million, up from $18.4 million in 2022.

Viet Dihn, who is leaving his post as Fox’s Chief legal and policy officer, received $10.7 million in compensation.

Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp., will step down from each company’s board of directors when annual shareholder meetings happen in mid-November. Murdoch will become chairman emeritus of each board. 

Following the annual general meetings, Lachlan Murdoch will become chair of News Corp. and will continue as executive chair and CEO of Fox Corp. 

Murdoch is 92. 

“On behalf of the Fox and News Corp, boards of directors, leadership teams, and all the shareholders who have benefited from his hard work, I congratulate my father on his remarkable 70-year career,” Lachlan Murdoch said. “We thank him for his vision, his pioneering spirit, his steadfast determination, and the enduring legacy he leaves to the companies he founded and countless people he has impacted. We are grateful that he will serve as chairman emeritus and know he will continue to provide valued counsel to both companies.” 

Murdoch inherited his father’s stake in the Australian newspaper The News in 1952 and became editor, publisher and board member of News Limited a year later. His company founded the Southern Television Corp. and its Channel 9 went on the air in Australia in 1959. 

News Ltd. bought the Daily Mirror and Sunday Mirror in 1960, and launched The Australian in 1964. The company gained control of News of the World and The Sun, both U.K. newspapers, in 1969, and acquired the New York Post, New York Magazine and The Village Voice. 

News Corp. was established in 1980. It purchased The Times and The Sunday Times (U.K.) in 1981 and became majority owner of Satellite Television in 1983. 

Murdoch took ownership of 20th Century Fox in 1985 and both Fox Broadcasting and Fox Television Stations were hatched in 1986. Sky Television was launched in the U.K. in 1988, Sky News came in 1989 and publisher HarperCollins was created in 1990. 

Fox News Channel was launched in 1996. Murdoch acquired Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal in 2007. 

In 2019, Fox Corp. was launched as a standalone company following the sale of 21st Century Fox’s studio and cable-network assets to The Walt Disney Co. It includes Fox News Media, Fox Sports, Fox Entertainment, Fox Television Stations and Tubi Media Group. 

Fox Corp.’s license to operate WTXF Philadelphia is being challenged by The Media and Democracy Project, a group whose members include Preston Padden, a former high-profile Fox executive.

The group charges that Fox’s broadcast license should not be renewed because the company’s leadership manipulated its audience by knowingly broadcasting false news about the 2020 election that contributed to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6, 2021.

Among the issues the FCC would consider in any review of character qualifications related to news distortion include the seriousness of the misconduct, the nature of any participation by company managers and owners in the misconduct, any efforts to remedy the wrong, and the company's past record regarding compliance with FCC rules and policies.

Fox agreed to pay $787 million to settle a lawsuit that alleged that false reporting by Fox News Channel defamed Dominion Voting Systems.

The Media and Democracy Project’s petition includes a declaration from Padden, a senior VP at Fox Broadcasting Co. from 1990 to 1997, which describes personal communications he had with Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch that indicate he knew what Fox News was reporting was not true.

MAD is calling on the FCC to initiate an evidentiary hearing into Fox’s conduct. It claims the FCC “has the duty to hold Fox accountable and send a strong message that intentional, knowing news distortion will not be tolerated on America’s airwaves.”

Nearly all petitions to deny TV station license renewals fail and the Media and Democracy Project does not cite ways in which Fox violated the law or FCC regulations.

“The Media and Democracy Project petition to deny the license renewal of WTXF-TV is frivolous, completely without merit and asks the FCC to upend the First Amendment and longstanding FCC precedent,” Fox said in a statement. “WTXF-TV / FOX 29 News Philadelphia is one of the finest local news stations in the country, broadcasting over 60 hours of local news and locally produced programming every week.”

In his declaration, Padden said WTXF and other Fox stations air Fox News Sunday, produced by Fox News Channel, and the show repeated some of Fox News’s false narratives about the election.

“In my opinion, as a result of Fox’s knowingly false narrative, large numbers of that radicalized population ransacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, causing injury, property damage and attacking the very foundation of our democracy. In my opinion, Fox contributed to that tragedy,” Padden said. 

Padden stated that Rupert Murdoch is responsible for what airs on Fox News and Fox stations. 

“During my 7 years at Fox, ultimate decision-making authority for the operation of every part of the company — every division, every business unit, every subsidiary — rested with Rupert Murdoch,“ Padden said. “It was his ‘candy store.’ I get the impression that more recently he has begun to share power with his son, Lachlan Murdoch. But I can state without fear of contradiction that Rupert and Lachlan retain ultimate decision-making authority for every part of the company, including Fox News Channel and Fox Television Stations.” 

Padden said that in 2020 and 2021 he emailed with Murdoch, expressing concerns over the content on Fox. He said that without his knowledge some or all of those emails were produced by Fox as part of discovery in the Dominion case.

The emails show Murdoch knew Fox’s reporting was false but he allowed it, Padden said.

“For example on November 6, 2020, Mr. Murdoch wrote me: “Seems Trump listening to terrible advice from Guiliani versus Trump family wanting to wave white flag? Not sure of this but sounds likely,’ ” Padden said.

“Beyond doubt, Mr. Murdoch knew that Trump had lost the election, nonetheless, Fox continued to promote news stories and guests who claimed, without any basis, that the election was rigged,“ he said. “In my opinion, these actions on the part of Mr. Murdoch, his son and top Fox management significantly contributed to the upheaval that occurred at the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021.”

Fox Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch acknowledged that Fox News hosts rendered on-air support for former President Donald Trump's spurious claim that the 2020 national election was bogus, even though they understood this assertion wasn't supported by any evidence. 

"Not Fox, no. Not Fox," Murdoch said, while testifying in January in a deposition tied to Dominion Voting System's $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox Corp. “Some of our commentators were endorsing it. They endorsed."

Murdoch's answer was in direct response to a question about Fox News personalities Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo. 

“I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight," Murdoch added. 

The New York Times has a full copy of Murdoch's deposition here.

The Fox chairman's response was perhaps the most damning yet in the suit, in which Dominion is trying to prove that Fox privately knew the rigged election claims -- and associated accusations that Dominion aided and abetted the alleged election cheating -- were bogus, yet rendered them public support, anyway. 

Further, asked by a Dominion attorney if Murdoch could have told Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott or network hosts to stop putting rigged-election proponents, including Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani, on the air, Murdoch responded: “I could have. But I didn’t.”

In recent weeks, text messages sent by Fox personalities have emerged from Dominion's lawsuit, portraying Fox News' key stakeholders as cynical about the former president's claims. 

“Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane,” Tucker Carlson is said to have texted. 

Laura Ingraham reportedly said: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

But at the same time, these popular TV hosts were deeply concerned about the channel's ratings in the aftermath of Trump's election loss. 

Trump became incensed on election night when Fox News called the State of Arizona's vote in favor of winning President Joseph Biden ahead of most TV and digital news competitors. The former President turned against Fox News, publicly endorsing upstart far right competitor Newsmax. 

Dominion contends that the desperation to bring back lost viewership caused Fox News hosts, against their wiser, er, journalistic instincts, to get behind the former president's BS narrative. This, even despite internal warnings. 

For example, in his own deposition, Viet Dinh, Fox's chief legal officer, said he warned top Fox Corp. executives, including CEO Lachlan Murdoch, that “Hannity is getting awfully close to the line with his commentary and guests tonight.”

For its part, Fox has defended its coverage, saying it was simply reporting on the news and newsmakers of the moment. 

Reads a Fox statement provided to CNBC Monday: “Their summary judgment motion took an extreme, unsupported view of defamation law that would prevent journalists from basic reporting and their efforts to publicly smear Fox for covering and commenting on allegations by a sitting President of the United States should be recognized for what it is: a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”

If the risk of a costly settlement with Dominion weren't enough, Fox News is also dealing with the exposure of its brand as something beyond a mere cable news channel. 

An earlier deposition leak revealed Murdoch as not wanting to further alienate Trump following Fox News's fateful Arizona call, lest a nasty public feud with the former president not only hurt Fox, but also damage the Republican Party in its effort to win a Senate runoff election in Georgia. 

"Everything is at stake," Murdoch reportedly told Fox News underlings. 

Meanwhile, as widely reported on Monday, Dominion lawyers say that Murdoch provided Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, with early information on Biden campaign ads that would soon appear on Fox News. He also is said to have given Kushner information about Biden's debate strategy ahead of the now President's face-off with Trump that was moderated by former Fox News anchor Chris Wallace. 

As for Fox Corp. stock? Perhaps because they've seen Murdoch and Fox News survive this kind of ostensibly damning thing before, investors don't seem worried. Fox Corp. share prices held largely flat Monday. 

Fox Corp. said chair Rupert Murdoch has dropped his plan to combine Fox with News Corp.

Fox said its board of directors received a letter from Murdoch and his son, Fox executive chair and CEO Lachlan Murdoch, withdrawing their proposal.

The Murdochs “have determined that a combination is not optimal for the shareholders of Fox and News Corp. at this time,” the letter said.

Fox had been part of News Corp. until 2013, when the Fox broadcast network and other television and studio assets were spun off into 21st Century Fox, while the company's publishing businesses remained with News Corp. 21st Century Fox was sold to The Walt Disney Co. in 2019, with some assets including Fox Broadcasting, Fox News Media and Fox Sports remaining to form Fox Corp.

Fox said that the special committee of the board that had been formed to evaluate the proposal has been dissolved.

 Wall Street had been skeptical about Murdoch’s combo plan.

“We believe avoiding a recombination is a clear positive to Fox shares,” said Kutgun Maral of RBC Capital Markets. “We’ve previously highlighted our concerns over a potential deal , arguing that the modest benefits like collaboration across news or cost synergies would be outweighed by operational and strategic challenges arising from a more complex and diverse asset portfolio.”

But Maral warned that if Murdoch’s strategic goal was to scale up, there might be other merger and acquisition activity on the horizon.

“If the path to scale isn't through News Corp, then perhaps the Board will shift its focus to other targets across media or media-adjacent sectors (e.g., sports betting),” Maral said. “It’s tough to put the M&A genie back in the bottle, and we expect an even greater investor focus going forward on different alternatives for the company to scale up and/or separate its sports & entertainment assets.”

Fox stock closed at $30.63 a share, down 0.2% on Tuesday. News Corp. closed at $19.53, down 10%. ■

So Rupe and Lach might get the band back together, according to wholly not-surprising reports from Murdochland that Fox and News Corp., pulled asunder nearly a decade ago, may once again become one.  

The news is rather amusing, coming just weeks after Rupert Murdoch finalized his personal de-merging with former model/Mrs. Mick Jerry Hall after a whirlwind courtship and six-year marriage. 

With that little distraction behind him in time for the New Fall Season, Logan Roy, er, Rupert Murdoch is back in marrying mode, though of a corporate rather than personal sort. At this rate, the nastiest nonagenarian on the block might even make nice with his adult children, who stopped working for him.

And it certainly seems like the entire media universe is in a marrying mood.

A re-merger is working splendidly for the still-undersized Paramount Global since Shari Redstone finally quelled multiple boardroom rebellions and reasserted control. Amazon is figuring out what to do with MGM, its new toy, while Brian Roberts sure would like to make Comcast much bigger. Lions Gate keeps trying to do … something.

And of course, we have the just-hitched Warner Bros. Discovery, which laid off still more workers last week in its never-ending search for “corporate synergies” (perhaps not every marriage is meant for happiness, right, Rupert?).

Given the context, a Fox/News reunification is both amusing and unsurprising, especially when one recalls the reasoning behind the original disassembly. To put it mildly, that reasoning has not aged well. 

You may recall, back in the late aughts and early teens, investors wanted Rupe to ditch all those slow-growing, less profitable parts of his then-very-big media empire. They weren’t interested in any media assets with a Gutenberg-era whiff, including newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and loss-making bully pulpit New York Post, book publisher Harper Collins and a bunch of Australian publications. 

Thus begat the new News Corp., designed to kludge along with slowly declining revenues until someone turned off the lights in the last printing press bay. 

That left Fox investors with all the faster-growing, more lucrative assets in broadcasting, cable news and sports, movies, home entertainment, and games. 

Cool ... except five years later, Murdoch sold much of Fox to Disney for an epic $71 billion.

What was left -- Fox Broadcasting, Fox News, Fox Sports, AVOD contender Tubi, the vestigial subscription streaming service Fox Nation -- has seemed more like a hobby to preoccupy a puttering old gaffer than an actual media empire. Certainly significant parts of What’s Left face grim prospects in the long term, given the flight of viewers to streaming services not owned by Fox. 

Like just about every other public company, News Corp. and Fox have seen their stock prices plummet over the past year. Fox has drooped nearly 32% over the year. News Corp., never the racehorse, is down nearly 40%. Their combined market capitalization is a modest $25.8 billion, which doesn’t suggest that combining will make much difference to the market. 

Oh, sure, Fox News continues to sweep its Sauron-like gaze across the land, extracting oodles of billions from the aggrieved bumpkins who delight in its culture wars ... when they’re not grumbling that Tucker Carlson and company don’t go as far as the real Republicans over at OAN, Infowars, etc. 

That hugely profitable “News” hustle generates a reported 80% of Fox’s overall profits, and feeds the name-brand talents who also staff most of Fox Nation’s lifestyle shows. 

True, making stuff up can also occasionally be expensive. Fox News and some of its “entertainment” personalities are facing a $1.65 billion defamation lawsuit from a voting machine company for their hijinks during and after the 2020 election. And late founder Roger Ailes left a lengthy trail of sexual misconduct settlements in his wake after shuffling out of the beast he built. 

Fox’s sports and broadcasting units, meanwhile, have invested heavily in sports TV rights, grabbing pricey chunks of the NFL and Big Ten deals among much else. Such increasingly expensive rights are fast becoming the real sports betting industry. Media companies are gambling that the programming outlets will retain just enough audience to pay back what they’re spending before most viewers cut the cord irrevocably. 

And that’s the real issue with the Murdochs’ latest financial gerrymandering idea. 

A re-merger would generate the usual corporate synergies, mostly by laying off accounting, HR, marketing, communications and similar back-office duplicate gigs. That’s been going … not so great for Warner Bros. Discovery.

And getting a bit bigger would improve ad sales and audience targeting with more scale and engagement across cable, streaming, digital and other assets. That’s a hot trend these days as media companies focus on selling demographic slices across multiple properties rather than whoever turns up for a single show at 9 PM on Thursday. 

But let’s be real. The only forward-facing assets Murdoch has left after his Disney deal are Tubi and Fox Nation. Tubi is one of the biggest ad-supported streaming services, and increasingly has integrated with other Fox assets such as The Masked Singer. But it otherwise features a lot of the same old stuff also found on most of its major competitors, hardly a recipe for engagement or brand loyalty. 

With Fox Nation, we still don’t know how many people pay for the service, but its subscriber base is probably still no more than a few million subscribers, fed by a Fox News fan base that is both usefully ardent and dismayingly old. Compare that to the competition and it’s not even AMC Networks level in scale and demographic reach.

Meanwhile, all those assets Murdoch sold to Disney are a substantive part of the Mouse House’s prodigious progress in streaming. Where, for instance, would Disney-controlled Hulu be without all the great FX shows playing there ?(BTW, please watch Reservation Dogs and The Bear.) What would the Disney bundle look like with only lame ESPN Plus to justify an even higher price for Disney Plus?

More generally, Disney’s many entertainment units, now plumped up by ex-Fox operations, are commissioning even more scripted content than traditionally prolific Netflix, Ampere Analysis says. 

That’s great for Disney as it locks down a must-have slot among the streaming services. Bob Chapek’s crew can thank not just Bob Iger’s many previous deals, but Rupert Murdoch’s desire to liquidate most of his supposedly fast-growing, next-generation empire. 

At 91, it’s unlikely Rupert Murdoch will be able reassemble anything like what he shipped off to Disney. Far more likely, reattaching News Corp. to Fox will be the corporate equivalent of moving all the deck chairs to a single cruise ship as it plows ahead into iceberg-filled waters. 

Here in the dying of the day, the old man is trying one last, lost financial machination so his company can continue to matter. In a cord-cutting era, increasingly few will notice. 

Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.  

Fox founder Rupert Murdoch is looking to put the band back together, combining his TV company Fox Corp. with his newspaper company, News Corp., which owns the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

Fox said its board of directors received a letter from Murdoch, now the 91-year-old chairman of Fox Corp., and the Murdoch Family Trust, about the possibility of a combination, and has formed a special committee of independent directors to begin exploring it.

"The Special Committee, consistent with its fiduciary duties and in consultation with its independent financial and legal advisors, will thoroughly evaluate a potential combination with News Corp. The Special Committee has not made any determination at this time, and there can be no certainty that the Company will engage in such a transaction," Fox said. 

Murdoch's son, Lachlan, is executive chairman and CEO of Fox Corp.

Murdoch's assets were all part of News Corp. until 2013, when the company split into two parts with 21st Century Fox owning its TV and movie assets and News Corp. owning its publishing business.

In 2019, Murdoch sold most of 21st Century Fox to the Walt Disney Co., for $71.3 billion, with the Fox TV network, TV stations, Fox News and Fox Sports becoming Fox Corp. ■

The Murdochs who run Fox Corp. received lower total compensation for the year ended June 30, according to a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission Friday.

Chairman Rupert Murdoch’s total compensation was $31.1 million, down from $34 million the previous year. 

The biggest change in compensation for Murdoch was the change in value in his pension and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings, which was $13.7 million a year ago and $9.9 million for 2021. His salary and stock awards were down, while non-equity incentive plan compensation rose.

Murdoch’s son Lachlan, the company’s executive chairman and CEO, received $27.7 million, down from $29.2 million in fiscal 2020. The change in pension value and non-qualified deferred compensation earnings was the biggest difference for Lachlan Murdoch as well. His salary was down, as were his stock awards, while non-equity incentive plan competition rose.

John Nallen, Fox’s chief operating officer, saw his total compensation dip to $12.5 million from $13.1 million a year ago. 

Chief legal and policy officer Viet Dihn’s compensation rose slightly to $12.4 million from $12.1 million and chief financial officer Steven Tomsic’s pay rose to $7.5 million from $6.9 million.

Former top News Corp. executive Preston Padden said that "no reasonable person" would believe Fox News, which he said has morphed from a "truthful center-right news network to a channel that has contributed to dissension in the country and the election "big lie."

Padden is the former president, network distribution, for Fox Broadcasting and Chairman and CEO of  American Sky Broadcasting (which merged into Dish). He is currently principal of Boulder Thinking, LLC., a consulting firm.

That came in an op ed July 5 in The Daily Beast, which is owned by another former News Corp. exec, Barry Diller.

Padden said that News Corp. founder Rupert Murdoch is "brilliant, courageous, optimistic, and a gentleman," but said his news operation has gone off the rails and that he has been unable to persuade Murdoch of that.

Also Read: Fired Fox News Reporter Ed Henry Sues CNN, NPR

"Over the past nine months I have tried, with increasing bluntness, to get Rupert to understand the real damage that Fox News is doing to America," he wrote. "I failed."

Padden has history with what he characterized as the "truthful, center-right" Fox News. "I played a cameo role in the birth of Fox News by accompanying Roger Ailes to meet with then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani to seek his help in persuading Time-Warner CEO Gerry Levin to carry Fox News on the all-important Time-Warner Cable systems in New York City," he wrote, saying Levin did not want to provide "oxygen" for a CNN competitor (a concern ultimately borne out by the ultimate ratings power of Fox News). But Murdoch ponied up enough to secure carriage.

But that was then, said Padden, and now the channel has caused "millions of Americans—most of them Republicans (as my wife and I were for 50 years)—to believe things that simply are not true," including about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and the election results. "[M]illions of Americans believe these falsehoods because they have been drilled into their minds, night after night, by Fox News," he said.

Also Read: Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott Renews Employment Contract

Padden said he does not believe most of the "falsehoods" on Fox News reflect Murdoch's views, pointing out that he encouraged Padden to wear a mask during the pandemic and get vaccinated. He also said he believes Murdoch thinks former President Trump is "an egomaniac who lost the election by turning off voters, especially suburban women, with his behavior."

Fox had not returned a request for comment at press time (July 5 is a federal holiday).

Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch increasingly look less like political bedfellows and more like media adversaries. 

Axios reports that the outgoing President is looking to launch a streaming platform that would compete directly with Fox News, the cable news powerhouse run by the Australian media mogul’s Fox Group. 

"He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it," said an Axios source described as having “detailed knowledge of Trump's intentions.”

The Axios report said Trump has come to the conclusion that starting a digital channel would be quicker and cheaper than launching a cable channel and competing with Fox News in the pay TV realm. Notably, subscription streaming site Fox Nation has an 85% conversion rate for turning free trial signups into users paying $5.99 a month.

Reports of Trump’s media ambitions began to heat up on the morning of Nov. 3, election day, when Murdoch used his company’s third-quarter earnings call to address the possibility of Trump entering the conservative media business, should he lose the election. 

"We love competition, Murdoch said. “We have always thrived with competition. ... Fox News has been the number one network, including broadcast networks, ... from Labor Day through to election day.”

On election night, a reportedly furious Trump had aids reach out to Murdoch, after Fox News called the Arizona race in favor of President Elect Joseph Biden, ahead of almost every other news organization save for Associated Press, and with hundreds of thousands of votes left to count. 

Murdoch reportedly resisted Trump’s plea.

Trump, of course, has not conceded his loss to the President Elect, who ended up with commanding advantages in both the popular and electoral college. There are numerous reports, however, that the President is beginning to come to terms with the reality of his loss.

Since election Tuesday, Fox News has swung wildly to discrediting the Trump Administration’s evidence-bereft claims of voter fraud and other election impropriety during its daytime news reports, to vigorously underpinning Trump's unsupported assertions during primetime shows hosted by Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. 

Trump, meanwhile, tweeted Thursday morning that Fox News’ daytime ratings are now “sad” because the network had forsaken its “Golden Goose.” 

Compensation for the top executives at Fox for 2020 fell, according to a proxy filing with the SEC.

Chairman Rupert Murdoch received $34 million, down 20% from $42.2 million in fiscal 2019. His pay includes salary of $4.2 million, stock awards of $5.7 million, option awards of $1.8 million  and incentive compensation of $8.5 million. The change in value of Murdoch’s pension and deferred earnings was $13.7 million.

CEO Lachlan Murdoch’s compensation was $ 29.2 million, down 31% from $42.1 million in fiscal 2019. His pay included $2.5 million in salary, $8.9 million in stock awards, $2.8 million in option awards and incentive plan compensation of $7.5 million. The change in value of his pension and deferred compensation was $5.7 million.

COO John Nallen’s compensation dropped to $13 million from $20.9 million. 

At the onset of the pandemic, Fox's top execs volunteered to give up 100% of their salaries from May 1 to Sept. 30. In total they gave up $2.3 million. 

After nearly seven decades in the media business, beginning with a string of small local Australian newspapers in the 1950s that he built into the television, film and publishing behemoth that became News Corp. and 21st Century Fox, Rupert Murdoch again managed to shock the world with his decision last year to sell the bulk of his empire to The Walt Disney Co.

While the elder Murdoch has made a career out of going against the grain, mainly in buying assets at what others thought were exorbitant prices, this time was different. This time, Murdoch and Fox were sellers, and many pundits took their action as a sign that it may be time to throw in the media towel.

By now, Murdoch and Fox should be used to being underestimated. Whether it be the $1.58 billion the fledgling Fox broadcast network spent in 1993 to win National Football League television rights — an unheard of sum at the time, but almost quaint today — the 1996 decision to launch an all-news channel with a conservative bent (Fox News Channel) or the $5.7 billion Murdoch paid in 2007 for The Wall Street Journal (a 67% premium), there has been a common theme to his company’s actions: They knew something others didn’t.

That maverick sensibility has driven Rupert Murdoch, now 21st Century Fox’s executive co-chairman, since the beginning. It’s a trait he has passed on to sons Lachlan, also executive co-chairman, and James, 21st Century Fox’s CEO. Collectively, the three Fox leaders are the 2018 Multichannel News Executives of the Year.

Driving Up the Price

In typical Murdoch fashion, the most recent deal didn’t go down without some controversy. Disney, which had agreed to buy roughly two-thirds of 21st Century Fox in December 2017 for $52 billion, ended up paying $71.3 billion for the assets after a month-long bidding war with Comcast. After the deal is closed — expected within the first quarter of 2019 — the Murdochs will be among the largest individual shareholders in Disney and will control New Fox, consisting of 28 owned-and-operated television stations, the Fox broadcast network, cable news stalwarts Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network and national sports channels FS1, FS2 and Big Ten Network.

In one fell swoop, the Murdochs have transformed one of the world’s biggest cable and broadcast content companies into a leaner, meaner and more streamlined entity mainly focused on live news and sports.

Disney has doubled down on content under the premise that in the new streaming video paradigm, volume will win the day. Fox, though, has taken the opposite tack, focusing on live fare that will hopefully drive viewership, ratings and ad dollars its way.

The Murdochs were not available for this report. but there has been plenty written and speculated about the Disney deal and the New Fox entity that will emerge. For the most part, New Fox will be run by current 21st Century Fox co-executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch, who will be chairman and CEO of the new business. Lachlan came back into the family business in 2014 after a nine-year hiatus running an Australian investment fund, Illyria Pty Ltd.

While Lachlan will get an assist from 87-year-old father Rupert, who will be co-chairman of New Fox, James Murdoch, who had been CEO of Fox’s Sky satellite TV business in the U.K., and served as CEO of Fox for the past three years, won’t be a part of the new entity, instead opting to go off on his own, at least for a while.

Speculation has been rampant about where James Murdoch will end up. Early guesses that it would be in a senior leadership role at Disney or as chairman of electric car and aerospace company Tesla (he’s a board member) were wrong. For his part, Lachlan has said James was integral in running Fox and in making Sky plc into the leading European satellite platform — it was sold in October to Comcast after another bidding war — but that the Disney sale process was “cathartic” and that his brother decided it was time for a change.

James put it pretty succinctly himself at the Recode conference in May, months before the sale was even decided. “I think it’s time to do something new,” he said.

Comcast dropped out of the bidding for the Fox U.S. assets, but it stayed in the fray for another prized Fox property: U.K. satellite giant Sky. Fox had been trying to consolidate Sky for years (it owned 39%), but was rebuffed by U.K. regulators that feared full control would put too much power in the Murdochs’ hands. When Comcast lobbed in its $31 billion bid for Sky in February, it touched off a second bidding contest that the cable operator ultimately won with a nearly $40 billion commitment. At that price, Comcast also agreed to purchase Fox’s Sky stake for about $15 billion, further filling up the Murdoch’s coffers.

While some pundits had earlier believed the Sky stake was an asset the Murdochs would never give up, it again became a question of value. Lachlan Murdoch said the family holds no grudge against Comcast over Sky. “We don’t have skin in the game anymore,” he said at The New York Times DealBook conference on Nov. 1. “I think [Comcast chairman and CEO] Brian [Roberts] will be a great steward of Sky and they will do very well.”

To understand the impact of the Disney deal, one only has to look at Fox just four years ago when, sensing a shift in the content business, it made an unsolicited offer to buy Time Warner Inc. for $80 billion. That offer was rebuffed, but it was partially based on Fox’s belief that Time Warner properties, especially premium channel HBO, weren’t being properly utilized on the internet.

Less than a year after Fox made its offer, Time Warner launched its standalone HBO streaming service HBO Now and, a year after that, agreed to a $108.7 billion sale to AT&T.

Fox said back in 2014 that, after losing out on Time Warner, it was through with acquisitions and would instead focus on growing the business organically. Just two years later, while the AT&T-Time Warner regulatory approval dance was going on, the idea of selling assets rose to the forefront after Verizon Communications knocked on Fox’s door about a potential deal, Lachlan Murdoch said at the DealBook conference.

Though the family had been considering its moves in the new TV and entertainment landscape, Lachlan Murdoch said the prospect of being owned by a phone company was not so attractive.

“We didn’t think Time Warner would be a better-run media company because it was owned by a phone company,” he said at the DealBook conference. “We didn’t see the strategic fit.”

Lachlan Murdoch said the ultimate decision to sell was not made emotionally or lightly.

“The journey to sell such a large part of the business was one that took some time, took some time to really think about,” he said at DealBook. “To think about where the industry has gone, what the challenges were that we saw on the horizon, particularly in the entertainment business, but also about where these assets could sit to make them more viable and stronger than with us.”

A few months after the initial Verizon overture, Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger called with a proposal, which Murdoch said “immediately made sense. My brother and I went to my father’s office and had a long conversation about it.”

When Disney announced on Dec. 14, 2017, that it had agreed to purchase the Fox assets — cable channels FX, FXX and National Geographic; the 20th Century Fox film and production studios; 22 regional sports networks; and Fox’s 30% interest in online video pioneer Hulu — it had expected to sew up the deal in a few months. But six months later, after weeks of speculation, Comcast lobbed in an all-cash bid for the assets, touching off a bidding war that made Fox and the Murdochs considerably richer.

Lachlan Murdoch hinted that even after signing the first Disney agreement, Fox knew the battle wasn’t quite over.

“Comcast was there in the beginning, they came shortly after we heard from Disney,” he said at the DealBook conference. “We couldn’t get our heads around the regulatory risk. I thought that our initial negotiation with Disney was very good, but that we could get a higher price if we could get a bidding war going. We felt there was more value.”

That bidding war lasted for about five weeks and ultimately kicked up the price for the Fox assets by nearly $20 billion. In addition, as part of the regulatory approval of the deal, Disney has agreed to sell off the 22 regional sports networks — valued by some at around $20 billion — within 90 days of closing its larger Fox deal.

Able to Buy More Assets

Now flush with cash, New Fox is expected to be on the hunt for more assets to beef up its existing lineup. So far the company has ponied up $3.3 billion over five years for rights to NFL Thursday Night Football, and another $1 billion over five years for WWE programming beginning in 2019. And there will be more.

“We will buy other things,” Lachlan Murdoch said at the DealBook conference. That could include its former regional sports networks, currently being auctioned by Disney; additional television stations; more sports assets or practically anything else. Lachlan Murdoch said the guiding principle to any additional acquisitions will be if they add to Fox’s already strong position in the industry.

“We are must-have channels for our distributors,” Lachlan Murdoch said at the DealBook conference. “What we don’t want to do is use that leverage in businesses that are not must-have.”

New Fox also appears to be bucking the trend for media companies to chase the Netflix streaming model, focusing more on direct-to-consumer offerings than on traditional distribution methods. Disney is a prime example: it launched a sports-themed DTC offering in April (ESPN+) and plans to launch an entertainment streaming offering, Disney+, next year that will include the recently acquired Fox content.

While Fox also has streaming plans — Fox News launched on-demand OTT service Fox Nation on Nov. 27 — it also realizes that an entertainment streaming service would require bulk the company simply doesn’t have.

At the DealBook conference last month, Lachlan Murdoch said Netflix really has two businesses, distribution and content generation, which both require tremendous scale to be successful.

“What we were seeing, and one of the reasons we sold to Disney, [was] for us to have scale in a direct streaming service, whether it is an FX streaming service or you could bundle some of our channels in an on-demand service, you can get to 2 [million] or 3 million subscribers, like CBS All Access, but then you get capped,” he said. “You need to have the scale of 20, 22, 30, 50 million subscribers to have enough significant scale to make that a real business.”

Although the Disney deal isn’t expected to close until next year, New Fox already has assembled much of its management team. Aside from Lachlan, who will become co-chairman and CEO of New Fox after the deal is closed (Rupert Murdoch will be co-chairman), the company has named 21st Century Fox chief financial officer John Nallen as chief operating officer, while Fox Sports chief operating officer Eric Shanks will become CEO of that unit. Fox News and Fox Business CEO Suzanne Scott and Fox Television Stations CEO Jack Abernethy will continue in those roles in the new company.

The company also poached longtime AMC Networks executive Charlie Collier to become CEO of entertainment at New Fox. Collier, who brought such scripted hits as Mad Men, The Walking Dead and Breaking Bad to AMC, on the surface seems an odd choice given the company’s expected focus on live news and sports, but Lachlan Murdoch said the different genres can reside comfortably and in a complementary manner within the new structure.

Building Around Live Programming

“We see a strength and strategic narrative in New Fox around live programming,” Lachlan Murdoch said. “Having said that, if you look, the amount of entertainment programming is declining at an incredible rate. What we can do is invest in the NFL, invest in baseball, the WWE, and use those to promote our entertainment programming as well. The way I look at is you have a tentpole with the best live news programming in the country, a tentpole with the best broadcast sports in the country, and how do you lift up the entertainment to that?”

A prime example of that strategy is the Tim Allen sitcom Last Man Standing, which Fox took after ABC cancelled the show last year. Moving the show to Friday nights allowed Fox to heavily promote the programming on Thursday nights — when it airs Thursday Night Football — into Friday. Ratings, Lachlan Murdoch said, are 80% better on Fox than they were on ABC.

News and sports has been a powerful draw for Fox and will continue to be. Lachlan Murdoch noted that during Major League Baseball’s World Series and a heavy news cycle in October, Fox networks had 50% of the live primetime U.S. television audience. He added that in late September and early October, the one-two punch of Thursday Night Football and the Senate confirmation hearings of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh meant that 74% of live viewers in the country were watching live content on a Fox platform.

The Murdochs aren’t the only cheerleaders for New Fox. The Disney deal helped drive 21st Century Fox stock to new highs, with shares up by more than 40% for the year. Some analysts believe there is even more room for growth.

Morgan Stanley media analyst Ben Swinburne estimates that with a leaner, meaner New Fox, the Murdochs will be able to grow affiliate fees for the remaining cable networks by 7% to 8% and retrans fees by about 18% annually.

“Secular headwinds in traditional TV are well known, and we believe Fox’s focus on exclusive sports and the ratings success at Fox News support its ability to drive higher affiliate revenue growth as a smaller portfolio of U.S. networks,” Swinburne wrote in a recent note to clients.

Overall, Swinburne predicts New Fox can generate about 10% adjusted cash flow growth annually, after a flattish fiscal 2019 due to increased sports investments, through fiscal 2023.

Sports will be key to that success. While the news division has driven strong growth over the years — Swinburne estimates that Fox News has grown its share of C3 household ratings from 3.5% in 2010 to 5.3% in 2018 — Fox’s 2013 decision to convert its Speed and Fuel TV networks to FS1 and FS2 helped drive a 40% increase in affiliate revenue between 2014 and 2018. Over the next five years Swinburne sees the sports channels growing affiliate revenue between 7% and 8% annually.

Room to Grow Fees, Retrans Cash

MoffettNathanson media analyst Michael Nathanson, although bearish on linear TV prospects in general, also noted in a recent research report that Fox has ample runway for affiliate fee and retrans gains.

While operating profits in fiscal 2018 were down significantly at the television unit — $362 million, compared to $894 million in the prior year — and will continued to be pressured in fiscal 2019 as increased sports costs are factored in, Nathanson said it would be a mistake to use that as a benchmark for the future.

That massive investment in sports “equates to an unrivaled negotiating hand that will lead to accelerated revenue growth over the next five years,” Nathanson wrote.

At current valuations, most analysts peg New Fox at between $9 and $13 per share, based on the $38-pershare price Disney is paying for the other Fox assets. But most see that valuation — roughly nine times estimated 2018 earnings — as missing the point.

In his report, Nathanson wrote that there is a danger that too much focus on near term numbers “clouds the view of the compelling story at New Fox,” adding that all signs point to strong growth ahead.

For Fox and the Murdochs, it’s just another case of being underestimated. We’ve all seen how that usually pans out.

BTIG Media analyst Rich Greenfield said Thursday that 21st Century Fox executive chairman Rupert Murdoch is open to a competing cash bid from Comcast for assets it had previously pledged to the Walt Disney Co., adding that the Fox chief merely wants to maximize the value of his assets.

In December, Fox agreed to sell its cable networks FX, FXX and National Geographic, its 20th Century Fox movie and TV production studio, 21 regional sports networks, its 39% interest in British satellite company Sky and its 30% interest in online video company Hulu to Disney in a deal now valued at about $68 billion. Comcast, which already has made a formal offer for Sky for $31 billion, in May said it was prepared to make an all-cash bid for the Fox assets that would be a significant premium to the Disney offer. 

Related: Comcast Sparks an Old-School Bidding War (subscription required) 

Speaking to Cheddar TV, Greenfield said that Murdoch and his shareholders are aligned in their interests, and that reports that the Fox chairman preferred Disney stock to cash because of the tax implications are “factually incorrect.”

Citing several unnamed sources, Greenfield said he believes Murdoch is more open to a Comcast offer now.

Murdoch, he added, simply wants the best deal, meaning the most value, whether that is cash, or cash and stock.

“This is a real opening for Comcast to come in with a very significant premium bid to where Disney is now,” Greenfield said.

Related: Comcast-Fox: Go Big or Go Home 

Most analysts, Greenfield included, expect Disney to fight hard for the assets, should Comcast make a formal bid. In an earlier blog post, the BTIG analyst mentioned that losing out on Fox would be almost too much for Disney chairman and CEO Bob Iger to bear. But he added Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts also is likely to dig in his heels.

“[W]e have a really hard time seeing Iger ending his career in defeat to Comcast and then simply retiring after the loss (damages his legacy),” Greenfield wrote in the blog post. “On the other hand, we cannot imagine Brian Roberts as an owner who is looking out 30+ years losing the last major chess piece on the game board that he covets, especially to Disney. That is not the storybook ending Roberts wants either.” 

Murdoch family scion and 21 Century Fox CEO James Murdoch will likely not join the Walt Disney Co. in the event their deal is completed, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, and instead will head his own company, possibly in the financial arena.

The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said James Murdoch will most likely start a venture capital fund to invest in start-ups in the digital and international media business if Fox's deal with Disney comes to fruition.

The report ends speculation that James Murdoch was being considered as a possible replacement for Disney chairman and CEO Robert Iger. Iger signed a two-year extension to his employment contract after Disney announced its $66.1 billion agreement to purchase certain Fox assets. In announcing the deal Iger said James Murdoch would assist with the integration of the two companies and after that the two would  continue discussions as to whether there was a role for Murdoch in the combined entity. 

James Murdoch is considered to be a tech savvy and astute businessman, and many would have considered him the logical choice for an executive role at Disney. But according to the Journal, lately James Murdoch has been telling associates that there would be no role for him at the combined company.

There is no guarantee that the Disney deal will go through. While the transaction has been approved by the Fox and Disney board of directors, it still needs to pass muster from shareholders and federal regulators. And Comcast, which had bid on the Fox assets before but was bested by Disney, is said to be lining up banks to makes its own competing all-cash offer.

If the Disney deal wins out, Fox will concentrate on its broadcast, sports and news assets and be run by James’ brother Lachlan Murdoch, who returned to the family business in 2014 after nearly a decade running his own Australian investment company. 

And Disney made moves to solve its succession problems in March, reshuffling management and elevating former chief strategy officer Kevin Mayer as chairman of a newly formed direct-to-consumer and international segment, and adding products responsibility to parks chief Robert Chapek’s duties. 

Comcast has raised eyebrows with its unsolicited $31 billion bid for U.K. satellite giant Sky, a move that both threw sand in the face of 21st Century Fox executive chairman Rupert Murdoch — who has been trying to consolidate the asset for years — and could solidify the U.S. MSO’s stature as king of all media.

Sky is the largest pay TV operator in Europe, with 23 million customers in the U.K., Germany and Italy. It owns original and licensed content and sports, including the coveted domestic rights to English Premier League soccer games. (Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the league’s U.S. rightsholder.)

Sky fits almost every criterion for a Comcast takeover — it’s a leader in its field, it is underappreciated, and perhaps more importantly it has ownership that is under pressure.

Fox, which owns 39% of Sky, has tried to consolidate the company for years. It first tried in 2011, but pulled its offer after a hacking scandal at its British tabloid newspapers made it unlikely a deal would be approved. Fox returned with a sweeter offer in December 2016, valued at £10.75 per share, but has run afoul of British regulators concerned with placing too much power in one company’s hands. Comcast’s bid, at £12.50 per share, represents a 16% premium to Fox’s offer.

Key to Disney Deal
Sky is an integral part of Fox’s sale of certain assets to The Walt Disney Co. — its content and sports assets jibe well with Disney’s own content holdings, many which are already distributed on the platform. Sky also has a compelling OTT product — Sky Now — which fits with Disney’s direct-to-consumer strategy, and Disney chief Bob Iger has called the satellite service a “crown jewel” among the Fox assets.

Fox had hoped to finish the Sky consolidation before the Disney deal closed and to transfer full ownership to the content giant once the deal was completed.

But now that is in limbo. According to BTIG media analyst Rich Greenfield, Fox has four choices: 1) increase its Sky offer and start a bidding war with Comcast; 2) start a conversation with Comcast for all of the Fox assets, while Comcast bids for the remaining 61% of Sky; 3) get Disney to work out a compromise with Comcast, like offering up its stake in Hulu, the Fox production studios (minus the Marvel content) and cable channel FX to back off; or 4) refuse to increase its bid, leaving Disney with the option of either selling its stake in Sky or being a minority partner with Comcast.

Options one and three seem most likely, Greenfield said.

Fox has said publicly that it stands by its December 2016 offer for Sky and hopes it will pass regulatory muster, while noting that Comcast hasn’t actually made a formal bid. Comcast, in announcing the deal publicly, said its bid was the first stage in the process and it hopes to work with Sky’s independent directors to hammer out a proposal.

The prospect of a mogul war between Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and Murdoch seemed not to sit well with some of the cable firm’s investors, who drove the stock down about 7% after the Feb. 27 announcement. But they seemed to settle down — the stock has started to slowly crawl back in subsequent trading — when it became apparent the deal makes more sense than they might have initially thought.

Gaining Global Reach
Sky would give Comcast tremendous scale, and scale is key to Comcast’s desire for Sky, Pivotal Research Group CEO and senior media & communications analyst Jeff Wlodarczak said. With Sky’s 23 million customers, its set-top box technology and its content, Comcast could create a pan-European virtual MVPD and then further leverage its position as the No.1 distributor in the U.S. and Europe to launch a global service.

Fox News Channel Tuesday said Megyn Kelly’s last appearance on the network as host of The Kelly File will take place on Friday Jan. 6.

Kelly, who hours earlier announced she will leave Fox News for NBC News, has hosted the popular The Kelly File primetime program since 2013. At NBC, Kelly said she will host a daily, daytime show for NBC News as well as contribute to breaking news stories and political coverage, although no start date has been revealed. 

Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman for 21st Century Fox  -- which owns Fox News -- said of Kelly’s departure in a statement: “We thank Megyn Kelly for her 12 years of contributions to Fox News. We hope she enjoys tremendous success in her career and wish her and her family all the best.”   

21st Century Fox reported higher net income for its fiscal fourth quarter.

Net income rose to $567 million, or 30 cents a share, from $87 million, or 6 cents a share, a year ago, when the company had costs associated with the sale of Sky and Endemol Shine Group. Segment operating income was $1.45 billion, compared with $1.54 billion last year.

Revenue rose 7% to $6.65 billion.

"We delivered full-year revenue and earnings growth on the strength of gains in affiliate and advertising revenues despite considerable foreign exchange headwinds and difficult film comparisons," said executive chairmen Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch.

21st Century Fox's cable network programming segment reported flat operating income in the quarter despite a 10% increase in revenue. Revenue was up 10%, but expenses rose 15% as sports programming costs went up and political coverage costs increased at Fox News Channel.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Despite several reports that he has been shown the exit, 21st Century Fox maintained that Fox News chief Roger Ailes is still working for the company and that an external review into claims that the long-time executive sexually harassed several women under his employ is ongoing.

"Roger is at work," Fox said in an e-mail statement late Tuesday."The review is ongoing. And the only agreement that is in place is his existing employment agreement.  "

The last part of the statement was in reference to reports that Ailes is set to receive a $40 million severance package on his departure.

Ailes has been under fire ever since former Fox & Friends anchor Gretchen Carlson alleged that Ailes had sexually harassed her on several occasions, firing her recently after she again refused his advances. Since then several women, former and current Fox employees, have come forward to attorneys investigating the allegations, saying that Ailes too had sexually harassed them. Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who had been strangely silent as other on-air personalities defended Ailes (including Bill O'Reilly, Maria Bartiromo and Greta Van Susteren) reportedly told those same attorneys that Ailes had made sexual advances toward her 10 years ago.

According to a New York Magazine report by Ailes' unofficial biographer Gabriel Sherman, 21st Century Fox CEO James Murdoch had been pressing for Ailes' immediate ouster, while his brother, executive chairman Lachlan and his father executive chairman Rupert were in favor of waiting until after the Republican National Convention this week to pull the trigger.   

Despite a strong performance from its cable network group, 21st Century Fox reported lower profits in its fiscal first quarter, with its movie business down and broadcast continuing to struggle.

Net income fell to $675 million, or 34 cents a share, in the quarter ended Sept. 30, from $1.037 billion, or 47 cents a share, in the year-ago period, which included asset sales by its BSkyB unit.

Revenue was down 6% to $6.08 billion because of lower film revenue, foreign exchange rates and the absence of revenue from Shine, which was spun off, the company said.

“Our cable networks business generated strong growth in the first fiscal quarter, delivering double-digit earnings gains both domestically and internationally on sustained increases in overall affiliate fees, higher advertising revenues and lower expenses,” executive chairman Rupert Murdoch said.

Operating income for 21st Century Fox’s cable network programming segment was up 26% to $1.31 billion. Revenue was up 7% on affiliate growth and higher ad revenue as expenses declined. Domestic operating income rose 19%, driven by FS1, FX Networks and Fox News Channel. Domestic affiliate revenue rose 11% because of growth at FS1. Domestic advertising revenue grew 4%, thanks to the sports channels and FNC, the company said.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Top 21st Century Fox executives saw their total compensation shrink in fiscal 2015, with chairman Rupert Murdoch dipping 4.5% and his son James weathering a 19.3% haircut, while top lieutenant, chief operating officer Chase Carey’s pay dipping 17.1%.

Rupert Murdoch’s total compensation was $27.9 million, down 4.5% from the $29.2 million he earned in fiscal 2014. James Murdoch, who received a big vote of confidence from his dad earlier in the year when he handed over the CEO reins to him in July, received $15.1 million in total comp, down from $18.7 in fiscal 2014. The difference for both men was in stock awards – Rupert Murdoch received $5.1 million in stock awards in fiscal 2015 compared to $6.3 million in the prior year. James received $5.4 million in stock awards in fiscal 2015, down from $6.6 million in fiscal 2014.

For Carey, who became executive vice chairman in July, fewer stock awards ($9 million vs. $11.1 million in fiscal 2014) helped drive down his total compensation to $23.2 million from $27.98 million in the prior year.

Senior executive vice president and chief financial officer John Nallen also took a hit, with his pay dipping 14.6% from $9.6 million to $8.2 million, mainly because of a lower stock award ($2.7 million vs. $3.1 million in the prior year). The only top executive to get a raise was senior executive vice president and general counsel Gerson Zweifach, who received a 48.3% increase to $8.6 million from $5.8 million in the prior year, primarily due to a larger stock award ($2.3 million vs. $276,352 in fiscal 2014).

In what was one of the worst kept secrets in a medium not known for keeping secrets, 21st Century Fox chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch will officially hand over the CEO reins to his son James on July 1, with his other progeny Lachlan Murdoch assuming the role of co-executive chairman.

News of the shift first surfaced last week. In a statement Tuesday 21st Century Fox said that current chief operating officer Chase Carey will become executive vice chairman and serve in that role through June 30, 2016.

“It has always been our priority to ensure stable, long term leadership for the Company, and these appointments achieve that goal,” Rupert Murdoch said in a statement. “Lachlan and James are each talented and accomplished executives and together, we, as shareholders and partners, will strive to take our company to new levels of growth and opportunity at a time of dynamic change in our industry.”

“I can’t thank Chase Carey enough for his friendship, counsel and leadership over the past decades,” Murdoch continued. “He will be actively engaged in supporting Lachlan and James as they step in to their new roles.”

Both James and Lachlan have been groomed for top spots at the company for years and are expected to work together in partnership running the company. The elder Murdoch, who at 84-years old is still in good health and a  common presence around the office, is also expected to continue to be heavily involved in decision making at the company.

Chase Carey said: “I am grateful to Rupert for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime and truly believe there isn’t a Company out there that’s more exciting, with more growth potential, than 21st Century Fox. I look forward to continuing to work with Rupert to support Lachlan and James in their new positions.”

Lachlan Murdoch and James Murdoch, in a joint statement, said: “We are both humbled by the opportunity to lead, with our father and the talented team of executives at 21st Century Fox, this extraordinary company.

We are grateful to Chase for being the leader and partner that he has been, and we are both delighted that his wisdom and sure handedness will continue to serve 21st Century Fox. We are also grateful to the Board for providing us the opportunity to lead this great company.”

“Most importantly, we each look forward to working with the entire team of creators, executives, artists and all of our colleagues that make up our global businesses, to steer the Company into the future, and to drive continued value for our shareholders.”

Rod Eddington, Lead Director, 21st Century Fox, said: “The Board has long been focused on succession and we’re fortunate to have two very talented executives in Lachlan and James to take this Company into the future. Working in tandem with Rupert, we’re confident their partnership and stewardship will give this business real momentum for many years to come. We are also deeply grateful to Chase Carey for his many years of exceptional leadership and his agreement to continue his contributions through his new position.”

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox said it was notified by the U.S. Justice Dept. that it has completed its investigation into cell phone hacking and is declining to prosecute the company or News Corp.

Before 21st Century and News Corp. were split into separate corporations, it was embroiled in a scandal because staffers illegally listened to cell phone messages of figures in the news, including crime victims and public officials.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

Twenty-First Century Fox chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch’s total compensation rose slightly in fiscal 2014, a year after the media conglomerate split into two separate companies.

According to a proxy statement filed Monday, Murdoch received $29.2 million in total compensation in fiscal 2014, a 1% rise over the $28.9 million he received in fiscal 2013.

Murdoch’s News Corp. completed the split which cleaved its holdings into two separate companies – 21st Century Fox, which holds its television assets such as the Fox Broadcasting network and its cable holdings; and News Corp., which includes its publishing assets – on June 28, 2013.

Murdoch’s base salary actually declined for the year to $7.1 million from $8.1 million and his non-equity incentive plan compensation dipped from $12.5 million in fiscal 2013 to $10.2 million in fiscal 2014. He more than made up the difference with $6.3 million in stock awards (up from $5.2 million in the prior year) and $5.4 million in non-qualified deferred compensation earnings (up from $2.8 million in the prior year)

Chief operating officer Chase Carey’s total compensation rose 3.5% in the period,, to about 28 million, up from $27.05 million in fiscal 2013. Co-COO James Murdoch – Rupert’s son – had the biggest increase (9.7%) to $18.7 million from $17.04 million in fiscal 2013.