replace james, she doesn t get his job. every indication is, the relationship between liz and her father breaks down. at that point, murdoch had intended to segue elisabeth onto the board of news corp. she declined to go on the board, right? yeah, why did she decline? i don t know. i d rather not go into that. okay. the pain in his voice is clear and surprising to me. and then, in the summer of 2012, liz is invited to give what s known as the mactaggart lecture, the most important annual speech in media circles in the uk. writing a mactaggart has been quite a welcome distraction from
about it, in the moment, it was breathtaking. he helped found the news division 20 years ago, rupert murdoch made the announcement to staff personally. in a statement he praised ailes, saying roger ailes had made a remarkable contribution. roger ailes is gone, and that creates a huge power vacuum in the center of the company. james sees that there s a real opportunity in this moment for fox to chart a new path, to cater to younger audiences, to be a little less right winning. but lachlan s view and rupert s view was why would we change this? we ve never had bigger ratings. we ve never had more profit. it was a fork in the road and james lost out.
to prove himself to his father. it s been a great start so far and the company has good velocity james had devoted his entire life to the company. so it s clear he doesn t want to walk away without trying one last time to make it work. and there s another thing we learned, james has no question in his mind that lachlan will burn out. lachlan will get bored, restless, he ll want to return to australia. so if james is ceo, he can run the company as he sees fit. lachlan will stay out of his way and eventually james will take over. of our clients come to us with complicated situations that occur in their lives. for them it s the biggest milestone, the biggest accomplishment, the sale of a business, or an important event for their family. for them, it s the first and only time.
restraint, threatens to quit, gets on an airplane and flies to indonesia. it was a very tenuous moment. so his father and brother came up with a compromise to try to lure him back. lachlan and james would be seen as co-equals, running different parts of the company. have a bit of breaking business news now in our parent company, james murdoch will work with his brother, lachlan who will become executive chairman. this is a rupert and lachlan go out of their way to present this story to the outside world. these were the brothers, they re best friends, it s family. we ve got joint custody of this thing, we are co-parenting, and we re doing great together. so why would james agree to this? as much as james might feel betrayed by his father, feel like he s not treated fairly by his father, he continues to try
he s going to come know here. and do you see that possibly happening in the next couple of years? yes. and then almost 10 years after he has left the family business, lachlan murdoch returns from australia. and what does that mean? i mean does that mean that maybe lachlan is going to supplant james? does it mean that lachlan is in fact going to be the heir again? so many years ago, lachlan was declared first among equals, and to have him back, it s a real shake up in terms of the succession race. rupert murdoch is now 83 years old. his two sons are now firmly back on his coat tails. everybody s trying to read the tea leaves. who does rupert like more?