Silence inside Holt Street as Rupert calls time
Attention will now turn to some of the challenges that lay ahead of Lachlan Murdoch, as he charts a path forward from linear television and print.
As staff filed into News Corp’s Australian headquarters on Holt Street in Sydney's Surry Hills on Friday morning, many did so wondering what their futures might look like in the post-Rupert era.
They won't get a clear answer, at least for a while.
Overnight, Rupert Murdoch announced in a company-wide memo that he would step down from the boards of News Corp and Fox, leaving his eldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, as the sole chairman of what is arguably the most powerful media empire in the world.
In Australia, where the empire was born and where Lachlan recently relocated his family, executives have remained tight-lipped. The respective heads of each company, News Corp Australia's executive chairman Michael Miller and Sky News boss Paul Whittaker, have each withheld a public response as have senior leadership at each of the company’s various publishing titles. Executives at Foxtel have also withheld a response.
An all-staff meeting on the change, along with any indication of what it might mean for News Corp’s Australian business, is yet to be scheduled, sources familiar with the business said. A News Corp Australia spokesperson declined to comment, directing queries to the parent company’s New York headquarters. News Corp global chief communications officer Jim Kennedy said the companies weren't likely to say more today.
