The Chaser Report - The Murdoch Family (Dis)Trust

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

The boring Foxtel remake of Succession has ended with the stunningly bland finale everyone expected. And yet Charles and Dom were on the edge of their seats for every minute. ---Buy the Wankernomics book: https://wankernomics.com/bookListen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, what have I always said? Family is everything. Family harmony, the love of a patriarch and one of his children is really important. And that's why it's so affirming that the Murdoch family is finally settled. They're extremely succession-like business problems.

They're caught in Reno. It's all been sorted out. The deal is done. Hooray. Yes, it is so nice to hear when families just make it work. They too. Blood is thicker than water. Yes.

You know, a very lucrative deal where the three people who wanted to make Fox News not conservative anymore get paid $1.1 billion US dollars each to not care about that anymore. That's just everyone wins. Including society. Hang on. That's the deal. What's the deal? Yeah.

Everyone's happy now. What? I'll explain more after these ads. Now, Dom, Dom, Dom. Like, I've only read the headlines and it says Lachlan wins. Yeah. Fox News are using billion dollar settlement. Yep.

Lachlan wins. How is that a win if Lachlan has to pay his brothers and sisters $1.1 billion each? Well, look, it comes down to... It comes down to Rupert Murdoch, apparently, and this is from the New York Times, challenging his son's manhood and basically saying, look, you know, back yourself, son. When I was young, younger, who knows, he bought out his sisters. Rupert brought out the other siblings who'd inherited whatever it was, the original Adelaide Advertiser.

He must set up the $2 he needed to buy out all of his sisters back in those days. Yes. And then took the company to New Heights. And he said to Loughlin, you know, just buy them out. By, what is it, Prudence, Elizabeth and James, the other three out. Right, so does that mean Loughlin has gone into debt to achieve this victory? I'm not sure where he got the money from. Maybe he borrowed it from the Saudis.

I don't know where the money, or the Qatar is. Maybe, you know where I reckon he borrowed it from? Where? Daddy. Possibly. The bank of mum and dad comes through again. Maybe he's got a lot of Trump meme coins. I don't know, but it was quite an interesting thing.

So the way that it worked was, there was a trust with the four. kids. So Prudence, Elizabeth, James and Lachlan, they had the lion's share, they had control. The two younger kids, I think Chloe and Grace, that Rupert had with Wendy Dung, they didn't have voting rights. They couldn't control it. So the whole fear was, and the fear for both the world and for Rupert was that after he died, the three more progressive ones would get rid of Lachlan, the conservative one.

Yes. And Fox News would go woke. And you know what happens after you go woke? You go broke. It's broke straight away afterwards. Because it rhymes. Loughlin apparently, for years, has resisted this and wanted to offer them 50% of the value of the shares.

And they said no. Like, you can sort of understand Loughlin's sales pitch there. Yeah, really? Which would have been, like, it's going to be worth half as much anyway when I'm running it. Oh, right. So, you know, like 50% is actually fair value. Well, I mean, in a sense, having got the full value of them now,

I mean, David, they've, avoided being part of, you know, one tell or one news. Yes, because this is the thing. Like, if Loughlin has indeed borrowed the money, even if it's from his dad, surely that means that he's got to make the company good enough. Well, they've got to find the money from somewhere. Yeah, good enough to pay back the credit. Like, the whole point about buying out other people is then you lumped with a whole lot of debt

that you've then got to pay off using the value of your company. So, yeah, Lachlan does have to back himself. And do we bet, does anyone back Lockland? Does anyone think that he's going to, like, because surely the most likely scenario is this is not the last chapter. The last chapter is Lockland goes bankrupt and all his siblings, like all his, he'll have to go to his siblings. Yeah, and go, hey, you know that $1.1 billion I gave each of you.

Could I, I think it's really important to note that. Have a sisterly loan. It's important to note that before you worry about that, Charles, this is another $1.1 billion. They're already billionaires. They've already got heaps of money. Oh, right. It's not as though all the money they had.

The time's very clear on this. This is just more money. They wanted it out. They wanted to have nothing to do with the business anymore. Yes. And now they've got that. So the other siblings are completely out. They've got what they want.

Nothing to do with Fox News. But yeah, look, if down the track, Lachlan drives the company off a cliff, yeah. Who would he go to? Cap in hand to get the, to get the maybe, you know, Maybe big sisters and baby bro want to help them out.

Look, I'm just thinking personally here. Yeah. Do you think I should provoke a dispute with my sister and then she can win? You're talking about Professor Verity Firth, AM. Yeah. She can, quote, unquote, win the dispute. Right. And then have to pay me a fortune in her victory.

Do you see what I mean? Yeah. Do you see, like, do you think that Lockwood, is so dumb that they've gone, okay, what you're wanting Loughlin is a victory. So we'll give you a victory. All you've got to do is pass $1.1 billion. And you can have Fox News. And he goes, oh, wow, yeah, that's a victory.

Maybe even the dead's in on it. Maybe the dead's actually siding with the other three. Oh, you think. And they're just all lumping it onto Loughlin. Oh, so to form of bullying. Yes. They're basically going, you know, they're sort of Joe bluthing him. Yes.

Yeah, right. Because the thing is, I have been disappointed by this settlement because it's not nearly as interesting as succession was. No. Like, we had the sort of fireworks a few months ago when they went to course. I did like Operation No, it was Operation Family Harmony, which is the name of the, the Rupert and Loughlin plan to basically screw over the other three. Yes, yes.

So I kind of feel like there needs to be a few more subplots and betrayals. Well, but don't forget Charles. This is, there's plenty more that can happen down the track. Like there was a period in succession where all the other siblings were out. Remember they were trying to. Oh, yeah, okay. What was that thing? That started called the 100 or something.

They started this other really pointless side business. Yes. So this is kind of potentially in that period. And then, look, Rupert's now 94 years old. In 30 or 40 years when he finally dies, or maybe 50. Yeah. That's the next chapter, isn't it? Because you know that all this stuff wouldn't have mattered if Rupert,

Murdoch, like the whole dispute was based around the fact that it would only have kicked in if Rupert hadn't, if Rupert had died before 2030. Right, right. So the whole problem was they were going, oh, fuck, Dad's probably going to die in the next. So what happens in 2030? Well, I think the whole point was that once Rupert reaches 100, there's other rules sort of reset with the trust and things like that. Really? Are there different family trust rules when you get to 100?

Well, certainly in this trust. There was some sort of expiry date, but they were going, no, I think Dad's going to expire before the expiry date. I wouldn't make that bad. No, especially with all that sort of Xi Jinping and Putin talk about immortality. All you need is a supply of organs. Actually, that could have been a way to resolve the dispute. James and Prudence and Elizabeth could all have given organs.

Each donate a kidney. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so look, that would have been. Or a heart or a brain. I don't know if anyone's kidding up for Lachlan's brain. I made it's really important to note that Loughlin has a completely separate business in Australia which has been quite successful

Nova. Nova. And it's also really important to note that that turns across media ownership laws that's a different company from which is the CEO. Yeah, God no, yeah. I mean, yeah, there's no question

that News Limited and Nova are completely different organisations owned by the same person. Yeah, yeah. Completely different, yeah. Well, particularly now, I mean, Presumably, Loughlin has now bought all their shares. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I do admire his bravery, though. I do think, whether he's gone into debt or not, putting all your eggs in newspapers and pay TV in 2025 is a pretty big call. Mind you, don't you think Fox News has surprising longevity? Like, there's been several times where you go, surely this is the end of the road. Or the Roger Ailes, payout, all that stuff. And, well, after Trump's defeat, it seems as though they had nothing more to do, yeah.

And then they've sort of reinvented themselves. They're now the sort of, they're sort of the left liberal media of America, aren't they? Because there's been a whole lot of... Oh, they're the lefties now. Yeah, there's newsmax and all the other far more extreme. AMM or something like that. And the Nazi network and... Yeah, American Nazi network, that's right.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, broadcasting 2470 or Labens Realm. That's right. Yeah, yeah. More news Less often So look Congratulations to them

But I do think There's lessons for all of us in this About how to negotiate family disputes I mean you can really learn from the masters Yes I mean I just think family We all need family trusts And we need to try and break the family trusts

Thus Thus and gendering family distrust I just think And having a massive battle between the siblings See normally this happens after the parents die Parents don't normally get to see the squabbling over the estate, the unseemly squabbling over the estate, that happens after a death,

whereas we're getting, Rupert's gotten to see the whole thing. And the funny thing is, like, I'm not saying poor little rich kids, right, but, you know, like, there's some scenes in which Rupert really has said to the other three kids, I kind of want you out of my life's work.

Well, he absolutely has. And I'm prepared to pay billions of dollars to just, wipe the slate clean and just going, okay, see ya. Well, this is the biggest difference with Succession. Is it, with Succession, there was actually a Succession drama. It's been, how many years have been, I mean, really since phone hacking. I mean, James had to sit there with Rupert, you know, the most humble day of his life, supposedly,

and carry the can for all that stuff. Yeah. So he got burnt far more than Loughlin ever did in public. And then he got shafted and Lachlan got the gig. So, no, there's no succession drama. So it would be a very boring series of. a succession because yes. It would be like a Foxtel remake of

succession. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Where there's only one option. It's pursued for a very long time. And there's no Tom Wams No. Which is unfortunate. So yeah, look, I mean this is, it's a red-letter day in media. Does this, Charles, in your expert opinion, does this guarantee the

future of Fox News, of the Wall Street Journal, all these Murdoch entities? I think the one certainty you can absolutely guarantee is that Lachlan Murdoch will fuck it up after Rupert leaves. You have comprehensively. You think the day, if I was, if I worked at the Daily Telegraph now,

should I be looking for another job? I would give it, no, no, I reckon it'll be a slow burn, but it'll take, you know, it'll take five or ten years to really comprehensively lose that much money. It's very hard. Like, the whole world is structured in a way where essentially, even if you're deeply incompetent, like say Elon Musk. Yeah.

And you're rich. You still make more money the next year than you do. the previous year. So it's very hard to go backwards, but I have no doubt that Loughlin is one of those once-in-a-generation innovators who can find a way to really, really comprehensively. He'd fuck things up like he has done before.

But there is a solution he can pursue. And I mean, this is free advice for Loughlin, although God knows he could afford to pay us to produce it for him. And did briefly, even this podcast started its life as part of Nova. Yeah, that's right. Let's gloss over that one. Which is he needs to pursue a merger. And much as, much as in succession, you know, they had all that,

I can't remember the name of the company now, but the sort of Scandinavian startup. Yes. It's going to buy out all the old... So who would they merge with? Waystar Royca. It's obvious, isn't it? The Trump's.

True social. Yes. All the meme coins. All the property investments in, in kleptocracies and, you know, and oil baronries in the Middle East. That's the mob you want to get in with. And the way that they can do this, Charles, the opportunity is there.

in three years time when Donald Trump either runs for another term as president or hands over to who knows, which other Trump. Don Jr., maybe he gets Ivanka back, whoever it is, whichever a child. Baron. Yeah, probably baron. Is he old enough? You've got to be third. It's the Constitution.

Forget it. It doesn't matter. Yeah, he can do it at 25. He needs Fox News to say that it's okay to control the comms. Yes. I mean, if you learn nothing from Vladimir Putin is that you need friendly media organizations. Yes. And everyone else goes out the window.

Yes. So the Trump-Fox merger is what we need for Loughlin to truly cement power, isn't it? Yeah, well, I mean, I think that that's a great idea. I think that's a great idea. I think that's the one way we'll get rid of Trump is to put Lockland in charge of comms. You think Loughlin? Yeah. But people have written Donald Trump off so many times.

And I mean, look at his kids. When his kids take over the family firm, what happens then? But yeah, okay, well, maybe Lockland would even bring Donald Trump down But we've said that before And but also this is a Sorry, let me just pack track I can't believe I'm there's such a huge mistake

That entire comment was premised on Something that's impossible What? Ripet Murdoch leaving the scene Yeah, no, yeah, that's right, yeah Yes, yeah Because all my comments are contingent on Rupert Murdoch dying

Yeah, yeah, on they're actually being a succession Yeah, no And, yeah, no, I think, um, ah, luckily it'll be fine. Yeah, it'll be fun forever. There's a lot of organs out there. We're part of the Iconicless network. Would your sister give you an organ? I don't think so.

It'd be more likely. No, no, it would, it would, I would think that that's what I'm getting. And then it'd be like, oh no, wait a minute, I'm giving her an organ. I was just going to say, I think for the good of humanity, we know who should give him organs. And it's not, it's not the person who isn't to know.