Rupert Murdoch owns a media empire that includes Sky News in Australia, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News. But he's 93 years old and is trying to put in place an orderly transition for when he passes away.
The Fox News part of the empire is now in the hands of Rupert's son Lachlan. Bill D'Agostino of Media Research Center says the younger Murdoch has different political views than his father.
“I wouldn't say that Lachlan is a Lefty by any stretch, but he's definitely the kind of soft neoliberal sort of mind, which I would say, if you're hoping for Fox to become more conservative than they have been trending in the last five years or so, Lachlan is not really your guy.
The good news, he says, is that both Murdoch's are capitalists at heart and will probably not want to fool around too much with the No. 1-rated cable news network for more than 22 years.
"I think it is primarily profit driven. I think that sort of the stereotype of like, well look, it's all about ratings with these people is a lot more true with somebody like Lachlan Murdoch."
If Fox shifts, where do Conservatives go?
But what would happen if Fox News were to move left? D'Agostino says there are other conservative networks waiting in the wings, but the landscape would probably look like phone companies did after the breakup of Ma Bell in 1982.
"Well there'd be a big upheaval in right wing media and conservative media because Fox is still very much the chief aggregator of a lot of conservative news.
