Rupert Murdoch, 'the Man Who Owns the News'...and a Lot of Hollywood

from KCRW in Santa Monica I'm Claude brodesser akner And this is the business [Music] so that you got what it takes I mean you really got to rap and be all and prare yourself for the breaks check it out this week on the business inside the world of media Mogul rert Murdoch the man who owns the news and a lot of Hollywood he wants you to watch Fox movies and TV shows even if he wouldn't touch the stuff himself but first it's the Hollywood news Caravan stick around it's the business from [Music] KCRW on today's show we talk about media Mogul rert Murdoch though in recent weeks we've been closely following the fate of fellow Mogul suar redstone his holding company National amusements which owns Viacom and CBS owes its creditors $800 million and that bill has come due but on a CBS earnings call last week Redstone was a bullant announcing that quote good progress was being made in figuring out how to repay his creditors new service Reuters insists that the reason for redstone's good cheer is not an overdose of his favorite Brazilian super Juice but rather a sell-off of his movie theaters and lots of them all of national Amusement us screens except those in New England are expected to go up for sale along with theaters in Latin America and possibly those in the UK hey could be yours for $600 million now suar just has to check the As and his Bentley for the remaining 200 million and he's all set would that you could say the same for Sirus satellite radio the company run by suers old Viacom president Mel carmesin last week Sirius narrowly avoided bankruptcy when Liberty Media John Malone lent it half a billion dollars the company now says it can proceed with star player which will allow people to listen to Serious internet audio streams on their iPhones which we have to say is a bit like using a Swiss army knife to change a flat tire I mean I guess you can do it but why would you want to Meanwhile as you listen to this broadcast on good oldfashioned American public radio Swedish public radio is carrying a live feed of the trial of modernday pirates I'm not even sure what that accent is four men who run the website The Pirate Bay are charged with quote making films or music protected by intellectual copyright laws accessible to the public the Swedish court alleges that for the last 6 years The Pirate Bay has aided and embedded some 22 million criminals who stole music film and computer game files using torrent technology offered through their site needless to say Hollywood has been following the trial intently but even though they're listening to Swedish public radio we're told they hav haven't yet subscribed maybe they're short on Corona elsewhere we move from illegal copying to Legal dubbing with news of a tragic death no we're not referring to the loss of Mickey rook's Chihuahua Loki but rather the passing of oresti leonello Italy's voice of Woody Allen you see relatively few Italian theaters show foreign films in their original language so Italians usually only know the voices of Hollywood stars through dubbers leonello who was 82 often answered his phone throughout his life by saying yo so no V Day Woody Allen I am the voice of Woody Allen finally we don't often bring you news of film development deals but this one's just too good to let slide reportedly Elton John yes the Rocket Man himself will produce pride and Predator which varieties Mike Fleming says and here I quote veers from the traditional period costume drama when an alien crash lands and begins to butcher the mannered protagonists who suddenly have more than marriage and inheritance to worry about end quote and that's the Hollywood news Caravan coming up next a look at the fair and balanced rert [Music] Murdoch while the days of the old school Hollywood Mogul are long gone there are still a couple of powerful men around who fit the mold Larger than Life with Egos and bank accounts to match unlike the almighty Studio Chiefs of your the modern corporate media Tycoon is constrained somewhat by stockholder accountability and the corporate structure they work within and yet their influence goes far beyond the mere ability to Greenlight a picture or make or break a starlet's career today we'll talk about one of those guys Keith rert Murdoch was born in Melbourne Australia in 1931 W the son of a powerful newspaper man himself rert as he's now known would become the man who owns the news as a new biography has dubbed him in the United States alone his aptly named news corporation owns the New York Post the Fox News Channel and since 2007 both Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal the billionaire eight times over also controls a princely chunk of Hollywood namely Fox surprisingly though he purchased Fox from oil magnet Marvin dve in 1985 quote there are few people who have ever come to Hollywood less enamored with the place less temperamentally suited to it it rubs against his every grain its excesses its sexuality its anti-work ethic its lack dress code Michael wolf is the author of the man who owns the news inside the secret world of rert Murdoch Michael wolf welcome back to the business thank you very much so um who is rert Murdoch really you spent a lot of time with this guy what's he like he's like an old city editor an old newspaper man there really is not at the end of the day all that much Beyond this guy sitting at a desk looking for what's the most interesting thing he can find in a day and when I say interesting from his point of view it's what's the most trouble he can cause what's the most um um uh what's the uh what's the most interesting story he can find he's a newspaper man pure and simple describe him I mean what what what is he like what's he like to spend time with well he's he's an um first of all he's a 78y old man and he does not seem like for instance a 76y old man um he's um he's kind of old and crotchety um slightly caginally somewhat mean-spirited um occasionally well more than occasionally quite funny but he's usually funny when he's talking about somebody else's uh uh weaknesses um he's in incredibly focused on exactly what is in front of him so for instance and and and I spent an enormous amount of time with him you know over nine months certainly 50 60 70 hours worth of time um and I was there as a as a biographer but um he's not able to talk about what motivates him um he he's he's he's an absolute zero level of introspection or self-awareness he doesn't talk about the past um he doesn't particularly talk about the future um because when you're 78 that's I suppose a little daunting what he talks about is what is literally in front of him um on his mind then and and and I suspect he wakes up every morning with um um with something new on his on his mind and that may be sounding more negative than I mean it although I mean everything about Murdoch in in an equivocal sense because there is something also quite energetic about him quite um it's it's even beyond the focus it's um it's it's a guy living in this moment and being in just enormously excited by it and and you're pulled into this one of the things about sitting with him is that you find yourself running um a a news corporation along with with uh Murdoch you find yourself saying uh saying rert oh do you really want to do that U maybe you should be doing this and then he'll say oh yeah oh oh okay okay okay um you're helping fly the plane yeah you know one and I I found that for instance one of the things that that that would animate him um is gossip and I I I I almost helplessly would begin to bring him him um uh uh Gossip every time I I came in matter of fact sometimes I didn't have any gossip and I would I would have to make up the gossip and that really didn't make any difference um um what whatever it was that you like a mouse like a cat bringing him a dead mouse No Matter What uh exactly and um um and and he loved it and was excited by it and um and often acted upon it so I would I would make up this gossip and then it it would be all over New York because if you tell uh rert Murdoch something it it it flies everywhere with great Authority um so how does rubert see himself in Hollywood because it's such a glamorous town and this is a guy who orders Gatorade at lunch instead of a 1957 this is easy he I mean rert hates Hollywood um and he may be own the largest movie studio but I truly think he has never sat through a movie certainly he doesn't like the movies even in a broader sense he has no interest in pop culture whatsoever I'm a little a Gass explain that first of all why why do you say that that's a very provocative thing to say well I mean I mean I mean literally doesn't go to the movies doesn't watch the movies in fact even when he screens movies at the at the News Corp headquarters on 6th Avenue in in New York he will start the movie will start and he'll sit there restlessly for a very short period of time and then he will go um uh go upstairs to the um uh to The Newsroom of the New York Post which is the place where he is um most comfortable um he owns um um a television network but I swear I don't think he has ever sat through a prime time schedule so um this is and and he is a he's a 50s guy there's nothing modern about him nothing hip about him um um he he is a man who comes out of The Newsroom so that's it it's newspapers it's what newspapers do um it's not even news per se it's newspapers and well let's talk about that why is so much of this book about the newspaper business when so many people think of him as a Hollywood Mogul it's it's partly because it's very hard to see the breadth of of of rert Murdoch's career from one country if if you were in Australia where he owns 70% of the newspapers you would think of him as a newspaper guy if you were in um uh in the United Kingdom uh where where he controls um The Lion Share of the newspaper Market you would think of him as as a newspaper guy um if you're in New York City uh where where the post is omnipresent you would think of him as a newspaper guy and now of of course with the with the Wall Street Journal um this is where his heart is now I think that someplace along the way he um he realized that if he were going to contined to be in the newspaper business he had to find another way to support these newspapers or many of these these newspapers the New York Post for instance has has has probably lost continuously since um he acquired it in 1977 something on the order of an average of $60 million a year um so Murdoch has lost an incredible amount of money on newspapers and one of the ways he has financed that um is with the movies which he um rather despises and with um uh with a television network that he's not much interested in he's starring in Citizen Cane basically he's he's willing to lose money on newspapers and every and all of this media in Hollywood is really just to keep that that habit going in your opinion well I think it's partly to keep that habit going and it's partly because he does have a of a very um interesting probably the most interesting mind when it comes to understanding the media business per se um he's really good at this so he bought a television you know the Fox television network basically has risen on on his understanding that if you bought a television network then you had to buy stations and you had to align them with the sports team that you had licenses to so they they they traded out sports team rights and and stations that they owned for 10 years and they finally put together um the most profitable television network um but that that's a far cry from being interested in a prime time schedule which he is not also and and it is and and I should as add this because it's it's very important and Elemental he's interested in newspapers but um um a second only to that or just about at the same level he's interested in money um a guy really loves money um so um I think the media business um somehow put those two interests together newspapers and money if you're just joining us I'm speaking with Michael wolf author of The Man who owns the news inside the secret world of rert Murdoch with his purchase of fox in 1985 and Myspace in 2005 Murdoch also owns much of Hollywood so is is part of his success in Hollywood that he as an executive should stay the hell out of a business he doesn't seem to have any interest in I think it's probably a a a complicated an answer there first thing he has spent time in the in the movie business um and uh and and actually tried to be um a movie Kingpin um he moved to Hollywood um uh bought the requisite house um and saw himself as as a kind of Lou waserman and um um and what what happened there is that is um among among other things you know he would go out with uh uh with with stars and he would yell at them um and um and he would accuse them of wasting his money etc etc that um uh anyway he was hardly a studio draw and um probably better to keep him away from the talent was the thinking uh absolutely and um so I think what happened however and why he has been so successful actually has nothing to do with movies and it has mostly to do with television they managed to put together this this this television network and it was and became really the most profitable television network and they converted the movie business you know and it's probably because of Murdoch that the power center in the movie business moves moved from movies to television so um so in in a way the the answer is yes he stayed out of he stayed out of Dodge and got other people to do it and that was good but um but his his presence was um um uh large um and and they managed to run the studio and have continued to run uh to run Fox um as a rert Murdoch News Corp operation it does not have an independent life so how does he turn Hollywood on its access away from film towards television in terms of profitability because he's not interested in what Hollywood people are traditionally interested in he's not interested in glamour he's not interested in Stars he's not even interested in in the movies he's interested in making money now you you know that is not a um uh some something that that people in Hollywood are are are usually first and foremost interested in um he also knew something about the television business um he knew something about how to get money out of the television business um and um um and he's a just a very good backroom um nuts and bolts media guy so they figured out really how to build a very profitable television network but building that the a very profitable television network was was in in many ways uh remote from what usually goes on in in in Hollywood which is to say making hits and building prime time schedules and and in making blockbuster movies so he was more interested in how the sausage tastes than how it he's more interested he's yeah well and and he's more interested in the money I mean the the the man's focus on the money it is always about the money and it's always about his money my money or how are you spending my money have you lost my money but with that in mind who is it uh who tells rert Murdoch hey you can't yell at these Stars you can't treat the talent that way you're you're I know you don't care but uh if it's all the same to you we'd like to stay in business here how how do they make him heal well first thing I'm not sure that um that he was putting anybody out of business um you know he was probably probably one of the one of the first people in Hollywood to say you know this is um uh these people are getting paid too much money um and we have to we have to create a new economic basis here but having said that um all around him everybody at at at Fox uh certainly during during the mid90s was was in in in a in a um a constant state of of aggravation over what to do with um uh with uh roer um and um he you know he was not of the studio he um he was not of the business he he he kept telling people how much he hated people in the business it was a highly Pleasant unv environment highly unpleasant highly unpleasant thank you yes after a short break more with Michael wolf author of the man who owns the news inside the secret world of rert Murdoch you're listening to the business from kcr w [Music] this is the business and I'm Claude bresser akner rert Murdoch is a man who loves newspapers and couldn't really give a wallaby about Hollywood except that it makes him pots of money according to a new biography the de facto owner of 20th Century Fox and fox broadcasting doesn't even watch movies or TV shows so unlike fellow medium Mogul suar Redstone who personally threw Tom Cruz off the Paramount lot Murdoch lets his pointman in the business do his bidding Peter chernin president of news corporation and chairman and CEO of Fox I'm speaking with Michael wolf author of the man who owns the news inside the secret world of Rupert Murdoch so what happens is that there's a guy sort of a a middle level entertainment executive by the name of Peter chernin and um Peter chernin is often described as not even the perfect number two but kind of the perfect number three there's something kind of invisible about him and he ends up kind of walking behind uh roer being the ultimate yes man um uh being the ultimate kind of kind of faceless guy but that turns out not exactly to be true and slowly slowly Peter chernin basically takes over basically basically Murdoch gets comfortable enough that somebody else is going to do this somebody else is going to do it as he would do it somebody's going to act in his stad um and and he can go do the things that he wants new newspapers um so to hear you tell it sounds like it's not that rert Murdoch uh was brought to heal it's that he lost interest in Hollywood and and was sufficiently convinced that somebody in his stad could run it so he could go play with newspapers or do whatever it is that he he enjoys most absolutely rert Murdoch always has I mean does have a little add if believe me if if rert Murdoch were a um uh you know were a 14 or 15year old at this point in time he would be diagnosed um so chin basically takes over running the studio U Murdoch leaves um uh Los Angeles moves moves to New York um and cheron um finds himself um around about the uh uh year 200021 um as as effectively running the Lion Share of of news corporation now this is the first time that this has ever happened in the 60 years of news corporation where there is someone in the company arguably as significant as Murdoch himself because chernin becomes a a very Central player on Wall Street um uh investors like him he's a he's a a modern manager type he's not like Murdoch who's a deal a minute guy um and um it becomes and this is sort of the almost the central drama of of news corporation and and of Murdoch's life in that cheron wants to be the air parent he wants to take over when um uh rert Murdoch departs this veil of tears and rert Murdoch wants one of his children to take over and um um chernin doesn't like Murdoch's kids he has pushed at least one of the era parents out he refers to um Murdoch's children as the cretans um it it's it's it's it's a rather interesting not quite pitched battle because um because Murdoch needs cherin um cherin's contract is up for Renewal right now it expires this this this summer and there is this real issue about whether about what's going to happen because Murdoch would actually like him to go but the investors in news corporation and news corporation has suffered particularly in a particular dramatic way during the um uh the financial crisis um the investors if uh chin goes will uh significantly penalize the company so you you spent about 50 hours with rert Murdoch how many of those hours had anything to do with Hollywood how how often is he you know does he have his fingers in the town uh zero of those hours had anything to do with with with Hollywood except to the extent that we would talk about about Peter chern and and how many how much how much time does he deal with with turnning in a given day in terms of Hollywood itself in terms of in terms of of the movie or television business rert Robert Murdoch is not spending much time now having said that though I will add that since he married his present wife who um uh whose name is Wendy D and who's um almost 40 years younger than than than he is and and who was a woman deeply involved in getting to know um anybody anybody who's worth getting to know and that has included uh lots of people in Hollywood she's the person who um hangs out with stars and with Mo other Moguls and anyone who she thinks is interesting and powerful and and by the way I don't I don't mean to to make her sound like I just made her sound I think she's just a person who's who's having an enormously good time in in life and taking advantage of the things that perhaps we would all take advantage of if if um we suddenly had access to um to about $8 billion but one of the effects of this is suddenly she's pulled rert into this circle of people um these are people who who rert has never been able to stand for one thing they're all liberal let's remember um so he spends uh quite a bit of time now with people who are constantly telling him how horrible Fox News is um he one of the interesting relationships I I I found is that he's gotten rather close to David geffin and he will speak to David gin actually a couple of times a week so we only have a few we only have a few seconds here what is your prognostication on this I mean is is is there going to be an enormous power vacuum at news corporation there will be an enormous power vacuum at news corporation and he will fill it as he's always said he would fill it with his children and my prediction would be that actually it will be his um uh his daughter Elizabeth who now runs the largest independent um television production company in the world is that she will take over the entertainment assets of uh running the entertainment assets of news corporation if in fact you expect his daughter to take over and her training seems to be oddly enough in television rather than in newspapers what does that mean for the future of news corporation well actually you you have to look at at uh at he has he has three children all who have been in this business or are poised to come back into this this business um the the number three person in the company right now and the person who is slated to at some point in the future take over for him is his youngest son James who now runs um um the European and Asian operations of of of news corporation his son lachan however who was himself once slated to take over the company is um no longer with the company but has has um has before run the Australian oper op ation and and Murdoch is desperate for him to come back in the company and Murdoch hopes that he will uh he will come back in take over the Australian operation again his daughter Elizabeth who in turn was once supposed to take over the company um and until she left to found her own television um production group um is um is an incredibly um um uh topnotch um entertainment executive and um um and he would like nothing better for her than than for her to come into the company for all of his children to be in the company and I think probably battling um each other for um for ultimate Primacy well we got to leave it there Our Guest was Michael wolf he's the author of the man who owns the news inside the secret world of rert Murdoch it's in books it's in bookstores now uh Michael thanks for being with us on the business thank you and that's the business Matt Holzman produced and edited today's program with production assistance from Ray Gua our associate producer is Darby Maloney you can listen to this or any past program online any time at kcrw.com slthe bus and now you can comment and engage with other listeners there as well you can listen to our podcast share it with a friend or embedd it on your blog with a click of a button from our new media player at kcrw.com and you can always subscribe to the podcast through iTunes our email address is the business kcrw.org the business is produced and distributed by KCRW Santa Monica I'm Claude brodesser akner we'll see you next week on the business [Music]