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.
