The trouble with rickety global media players (owned by Murdoch Inc) is that botch and blunder know no borders. So the detritus from phone-hacking came back from Wapping to Manhattan and forced a massive corporate revamp. But still not massive enough.
Now see how the pall of sexual harassment allegations that forced Roger Ailes from the top of Fox News moves on to doom Bill O’Reilly, Fox’s greatest star. For it isn’t just the secret payoffs to complaining women, nor the new stream of seamy accusations (with attendant ad boycotts) that have done for him. Corporate governance has finally done its job.
James and Lachlan, heirs of Rupert, know that Fox can’t swim in a foetid pond of favouritism any longer; that it can’t afford to treat its moneymakers as though they were some special breed of “talent”. This is 21st Century Fox, not a Rupert construct from 50 years back.
Worse – as noted here a couple of weeks ago – what swills around in New York also washes up on the London doorstep of Ofcom as it sweats to decide whether the Murdochs are “fit and proper” people to own all of Sky.
The forced departure of Bill, over protests and wriggling from dad (85), shows that the sons have finally begun to call the tune. Fox is on the way to becoming like any other multinational giant: on either side of the Atlantic, no sweaty hand, however money-coining, can be allowed to roam unchecked. Enough said: but is that enough done to reassure Ofcom?
