Rupert Murdoch, the real version of ‘Succession’, retires: from the sensational tabloids to the controversial Fox News, Trump’s favorite

At the origin of the series Succession (HBO Max) there is Rupert Murdoch, because it was his figure, among many others, that inspired screenwriter Jesse Armstrong to create the brilliant fiction that recreates the family and business fights of the Roys, with the patriarch Logan (Brian Cox) to the head.

The power struggle that broke out in the last season of Succession It seems that it has not occurred with the withdrawal of Rupert Murdoch. The president of News Corp and Fox will leave the position he has held for the last 70 years. The 92-year-old media magnate will become the honorary president, while his son Lauchlan will remain at the helm of the empire.

Murdoch, as Logan Roy in Succession, created a media conglomerate that he began to build in the middle of the last century, when his father died and began to expand by purchasing numerous regional newspapers in Australia and New Zealand. Reference of sensationalist journalism, he also took over the tabloids News of the World –closed after a scandal related to illegal wiretapping – and The Sun in the United Kingdom, the greatest exponents of sensationalism as a creator of large audiences, although he later bought the prestigious The Times. In the USA it acquired New York Post y The Wall Street Journal.

On television, he launched Fox News, the scourge of Obama and the entire Democratic Party as a ‘counterweight’ to CNN. The conservative network became Trump’s reference medium and even covered the former president’s accusations of electoral fraud after Biden’s victory. That cost him a lawsuit from the company in charge of the count and the chain had to pay 717 million euros to avoid going to trial.

Series and films about the Murdochs

Beyond Successiona fiction about the business world and the struggle for power in business families, the life of the Murdochs can be reviewed in a documentary, like the one Filmin has in its catalog: The Murdoch dynasty. There is other interesting work, The Rise of the Murdoch Dynastywhich was signed by the BBC but is not available on any platform in Spain.

Also read: The explained ending of ‘Succession’ (HBO Max): an ode to the culture of backstabbing and the rise of the mediocre

The Murdochs also appear as secondary characters in the film. The scandal, starring Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie, about allegations of sexual harassment against Roger Ailes, founder, president and CEO of Fox News. It is available on HBO Max and Prime Video. This same story is told in the series The loudest voice, where Russell Crowe plays Ailes. Sienna Miller and Naomi Watts play the women who put an end to the Fox executive’s impunity.