Alex Therrien
Live reporter

We're now closing our live coverage of Rupert Murdoch stepping down as chairman of News Corp and Fox.

As we've been reporting, the 92-year-old is handing the reins of both companies to his eldest son, Lachlan, 52, seemingly heralding the end of a 70-year career.

What remains to be seen is how much involvement in the firms the elder Murdoch - one of the world's most influential media tycoons - will continue to have. He will take on the role of chairman "emeritus" of both companies in mid-November, when the transition of power takes place.

The page was written by Francesca Gillett, Michael Sheils McNamee, Madeline Halpert, Gem O'Reilly and Rob Corp, and edited by me.

You can read our full write-up of the news here, and our profile on the controversial legacy of Murdoch here.

Thanks for joining us.

Image source, Getty Images

We'll soon be bringing our live coverage of 92-year-old Rupert Murdoch stepping down as chairman of News Corp and Fox.

But before we do, here's a recap of today's events:

• In a letter to employees, Murdoch said the time had come for him to "take on different roles" and said the company - and he - were in "robust health"
• Murdoch's oldest son, Lachlan, will take over as chairman of News Corp and continue as CEO of Fox
• The move comes after a tumultuous year for Fox News, during which it agreed to pay $787m to settle a defamation lawsuit against Dominion Voting Systems
• The news also comes just a week before a "tell-all book" detailing the leaders and personalities driving Fox News - including the Murdoch family - is set to be published
• Experts say the latest developments in the media empire were to be expected, but questions remain as to whether the move will amount to retirement or just semi-retirement for Murdoch

Murdoch one of the last of the giant media tycoonspublished at 18:48 British Summer Time 21 September 2023

18:48 BST 21 September 2023

Michelle Fleury
BBC correspondent in New York

It may have been inevitable but it is still a big moment. Rupert Murdoch is one of the last of the world’s big media tycoons.

He’s part of a small group that includes the likes of Liberty Media’s John Malone, CNN founder Ted Turner and Viacom’s Sumner Redstone. These larger-than-life personalities, often dominating the financial and gossip pages, helped shape the modern era of media.

And Murdoch is stepping down at a pivotal moment for his business, not only because of false 2020 election claims. The traditional media industry hasn’t yet found its footing in the digital age, aggressively chasing subscribers and online ad dollars.

With his departure, the big media moguls are either gone or on their way out, reflecting the tectonic shifts taking place in the media business.

Pete Saull
Political Correspondent, BBC Westminster

Image source, EPA

For good or for ill, Rupert Murdoch has had a huge impact on British politics.

Prime ministers from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair courted him, believing that winning the backing of his newspapers was key to electoral success.

Many will remember the famous "it’s the Sun wot won it” headline after the Conservatives defeated Labour in the 1992 general election, after opinion polls had suggested a hung Parliament or a narrow Labour victory.

Some would question the accuracy of that headline, but few would dispute that Murdoch wielded huge power.

The phone-hacking scandal ultimately led to the closure of the News of the World and severely dented Murdoch's reputation.

The surge in popularity of social media and decline in newspaper circulation have also caused his influence to wane. But there are very few individuals who can claim to have set the political weather as much as Murdoch did.

Gem O'Reilly and Suneil Asar
Live reporters

Over a 70-year career, Rupert Murdoch built one of the world's most influential media empires.

Watch our video recap of his career below.

Steven McIntosh
Entertainment reporter

Image source, gett

Three of Rupert Murdoch's six children have pursued careers in the media - James, Lachlan and Elisabeth. For Succession fans, parallels are drawn with Kendall, Roman and Shiv.

As fans of the show will know, its driving force is the rivalry between the siblings - something which was interpreted as a reflection on the real-life Murdoch dynasty.

The once heir-apparentJames Murdoch, 50, started his own hip-hop record label, Rawkus Records, in the mid-1990s, before becoming a News Corp exec.

After Lachlan quit Fox in 2005, James was increasingly seen as the heir apparent to his father. He went on to chair BskyB and become CEO and chairman of News International. However, he had to step down from both positions after the phone-hacking scandal at some Murdoch newspapers.

He later joined 21st Century Fox, but a joint leadership arrangement with older brother Lachlan didn’t work out, and he left his father's companies. He later criticised Murdoch outlets' climate coverage.

The lower-profile siblingElisabeth Murdoch, 55, has spent time on and off in the family business. She served as managing director of Sky Networks at BskyB in 1996 but left four years later to found her own independent production company, Shine. It produced programmes including Masterchef and The Biggest Loser.

The company was acquired by News Corp in 2011, but Elisabeth was prevented from taking a seat on the board amid scrutiny over the phone hacking scandal. She left Shine after a merger and now runs a new production company called Sister.

The successorLachlan Murdoch, 52, began learning the family business at a young age by interning at his father's companies.

He became chairman and chief executive of News Ltd in 1997, beginning a rapid ascent in Murdoch Sr's empire. In 2005, he abruptly quit his executive positions at News Corp after a battle with Fox News CEO Roger Ailes over the direction of the cable news network.

Having effectively taken himself out of the track to succession, Lachlan launched his own investment company in Australia, before returning to the family business in 2014 as CEO of Fox Broadcasting and executive chairman of 21st Century Fox.

It was here that the power-sharing experiment with his brother proved unsuccessful, but after the company was sold to Disney in 2019, Lachlan went on to hold senior roles at Fox Corp and News Corp, ultimately making him well placed to take over from his father.

The controversial tycoon who changed the media landscapepublished at 17:24 British Summer Time 21 September 2023

17:24 BST 21 September 2023

Katie Razzall
Culture editor

He built a global media empire of almost unprecedented reach and influence, spanning three continents, making him the most powerful media mogul in the world.

In the UK, he reinvented the British tabloid after buying the News of the World, and later the Sun, and launched Sky Television - a rival to what he perceived as the cosy nature of the broadcast media landscape.

In the US, he bought 20th Century Fox and set up Fox television, whose influence in political life is far-reaching.

But he has made mistakes. In 2005 he bought the social media site Myspace for more than half a billion dollars. It was crushed by Facebook and later sold for just $35m.

Most damaging in the UK was the phone hacking scandal, a firestorm that erupted after it emerged that his News of the World had listened to the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s voicemails.

It was a humiliation for Murdoch personally - and came at huge financial cost. His company is reported to have paid more than £1bn in pay-outs to phone hacking victims.

Back in 2011, Rupert Murdoch made headlines when he was attacked with a foam pie during a hearing in front of the House of Commons.

Murdoch was there to give evidence to MPs about the phone-hacking scandal, when a protester lunged towards him and threw a pie filled with shaving foam.

His wife at the time, Wendi Deng, leapt to her husband's defence and tackled the attacker, while son James Murdoch, who has since left the family business, jumped to his feet in concern. The protester was later jailed for several weeks.

Rupert Murdoch's globe-spanning media empire includes some of the world's best known papers and TV channels.

His British company News UK owns newspapers the Times, the Sunday Times, and the Sun, along with radio stations TalkSport, Times Radio and Virgin Radio.

Talk TV, which was launched last year, is also part of his operation.

His Fox media conglomerate also owned a 39% stake in UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB until 2018 when it was sold to US firm Comcast.

Through Fox Corporation he controlled a wide range of entertainment, news and sports brands - including the right-wing station Fox News.

In the United States, News Corp also controls the Dow Jones brand, including the Wall Street Journal and the Dow Jones news wires, as well as tabloid the New York Post.

Brands under the News Corp umbrella in Australia include newspaper The Australian, Herald Sun, and the Daily Telegraph, and news channel Sky News Australia.

The brand also controls Harper Collins Publishing.

Madeline Halpert
Reporting from New York

Image source, Getty Images

Rupert Murdoch and other Fox executives have weathered a series of storms since the 2020 presidential election in the US - during which Fox broadcast claims of election fraud.

The company has faced several legal and financial struggles in recent years.

In January this year, Rupert Murdoch was forced to call off a proposal to merge his two companies - Fox and News Corp - after shareholders resisted his plan to reunite his media empire.

Then, just months later in April, Fox encountered one of its biggest struggles yet when it had to pay $787.5m (£640.9m) to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems. The voting equipment company had accused Fox anchors of defaming it for endorsing false allegations of election fraud in 2020, including claims its voting machines were rigged against Trump.

In the aftermath of the settlement, the news organisation fired its most popular conservative host, Tucker Carlson, known for making incendiary comments on hot-button political issues and for pushing false allegations of election fraud. Carlson has claimed his firing was a part of the Dominion settlement, an allegation Fox and Dominion have denied.

Erin Delmore
North America business correspondent

While Rupert Murdoch didn't give any indication as to why he’s stepping down now, it’s worth noting that he’s about a week away from taking centre stage in the publishing world.

Michael Wolff’s highly-anticipated book The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty is due out on Tuesday.

Wolff previously published a bestselling trilogy on former President Donald Trump, including Fire and Fury, Siege, and Landslide.

According to a review of the book, Wolff’s tell-all is a revealing portrait of the leaders and personalities driving Fox News as well as members of the Murdoch family.

Wolff’s book isn’t the only one in the works. Media correspondent Brian Stelter’s Network of Lies: The Epic Saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the Battle for American Democracy is out on 14 November.

Rob Corp
Live reporter

Image source, Getty Images

From half-share to global empire

From inheriting a half-share in two Australian newspapers to becoming the head of a globe-spanning media conglomerate, Rupert Murdoch's rise is a story in itself.

His stepping stone to becoming one of the dominant media forces of the last 50 years can arguably be traced back to the late 1960s when he bought the now-defunct Sunday tabloid the News of the World.

He would go on to acquire the top-selling daily title the Sun, as well as the broadsheet Times and Sunday Times, cementing himself as the newspaper proprietor who was both feared and courted by British politicians.

'The Sun wot won it'

His endorsement was actively sought by political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, leading his tabloid to headline after an unexpected election win for the Conservatives in 1992 that "It's the Sun wot won it".

Image source, Getty Images

Influence across the aisle

Moving to the US in 1973 he began acquiring newspaper titles before purchasing 50% of 20th Century Fox film studios in 1985 - which ultimately led to the creation of Fox TV and the conservative-leaning Fox News in 1996.

His influence crossed the political aisle in the US, having dealings with both former Democratic President Barack Obama and Republic Donald Trump

He has been married four times and has six children from his first three wives.

Brian Stelter, a journalist at Vanity Fair and author of a book about the Murdoch family, has told the BBC that the latest developments in their media empire were "inevitable".

He suggests that Rupert Murdoch has been increasingly passive in recent years and seems more like a passenger rather than a captain of a ship.

Stelter says it's clear Lachlan Murdoch has been in line to take over for some time and that he's just as conservative, if not more conservative, than his father - so "in terms of editorial direction, I don't expect that to change at all".

He says so far the indication is that Lachlan Murdoch will continue with the same strategy as his father, such as pushing firms like Google and Facebook to pay for content. But Stelter says the question remains as to how involved Rupert Murdoch will be - and whether this is retirement or just semi-retirement.

An ex-editor of Rupert Murdoch's British tabloid the Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, has called his former boss the "greatest media entrepreneur of this, or any other age".

MacKenzie edited the paper in the 1980s and was closely associated with the Sun's infamous coverage of the Hillsborough football stadium disaster.

Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, MacKenzie also said of Murdoch's departure: "It will lead to change."

Image source, Claudette Barius/HBO

For years, there was speculation over who would succeed Rupert Murdoch as head of his huge media empire.

At the heart of his own family there was a dramatic personal battle for power - something that has been chronicled in the BBC's own documentary, The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty.

The dynastic struggle is believed to have inspired the hugely popular TV series Succession, based on the Roy family - although the writers have always stressed the characters are all fictional.

And according to Vanity Fair, Lachlan Murdoch had even suspected brother James of feeding stories to Succession's scriptwriters.

The magazine published claims , externalabout Murdoch rivalries and revelations and reported that Rupert Murdoch, 92, was "consumed with the question of his succession".

Succession writer Jesse Armstrong told the BBC he has never met any of the Murdochs, but had "occasionally had lunch with powerful media men".

Image source, Reuters

Earlier this year, Murdoch's US TV channel Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit brought against it by voting machine company, Dominion, over its reporting of the 2020 presidential election.

By paying $787.5m (£634m) Fox executives such as Murdoch were spared from having to testify.

Dominion's lawsuit argued that Fox News sullied the electronic voting company's reputation by airing falsehoods about the 2020 vote being stolen from former President Donald Trump.

While settling with the company meant the arguments were never aired in court, legal findings released ahead of the trial provided a glimpse of what Murdoch thought about the election and his views on President Trump's claims that the poll had been stolen.

A court deposition by Murdoch suggests he was doubtful of the president's assertion of electoral fraud, and also said he "would have liked us [Fox News] to be stronger in denouncing it, in hindsight".

More now from Rupert Murdoch's resignation letter to staff.

In it, he warned that "the battle for the freedom of speech and, ultimately, the freedom of thought, has never been more intense".

His father, who owned newspapers in Australia that helped launch Murdoch's media empire, "firmly believed in freedom", he says, adding that his successor Lachlan "is absolutely committed to the cause".

"Self-serving bureaucracies are seeking to silence those who would question their provenance and purpose. Elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class," he says.

"Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth."

Murdoch goes on to says that in his new role he will be an active member of the companies' "communities", and will watch broadcasts with a critical eye and read news reports with interest.

Piers Morgan has praised Rupert Murdoch as a "bold, brilliant, visionary leader whose audacity and tenacity built a magnificently-successful global media empire".

The journalist and broadcaster was editor of Murdoch's now defunct newspaper News Of The World while still in his 20s, before going on to edit the Daily Mirror. He currently has his own programme on TalkTV which is owned by the media mogul's company News UK.

Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, Morgan said it had been a "privilege to work for him on and off for the past 30 years".

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Reuters

Rupert Murdoch's son Lachlan will become the sole chairman of News Corp and continue on as the CEO of Fox.

He had served as the executive chair of Fox corporation and Nova Entertainment.

Lachlan is said to have contributed largely to the spinoff of FOX by 21st Century Fox. He also led the way in FOX becoming a standalone public company.

His role has focused on investing, building and operating in many of the world’s most well-known publishing businesses.

Lachlan is the second of Rupert's children, born in 1971.

His net worth is estimated to be around $3.3bn as of 2023, according to Australian Financial Review.