Old Man, Murdoch: Retirement and the Fall of an Empire

According to a Guardian article (https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/dec/09/rupert-murdoch-fox-disney-deal) about the Disney take-over of multiple Murdoch-owned businesses, Rupert Murdoch may be giving up on his dreams to control the entire media industry.

According to the article, Disney intends to buy multiple Murdoch businesses such as: "the Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox, Fox 21 Television Studios, US cable networks including FX and National Geographic, international assets including the fast-growing Star India business, Fox’s Latin American assets and its 39% stake in UK satellite broadcaster Sky." Initially, this raises the concern of what Murdoch is planning for the future. The article suggests that Murdoch might be planning to give up his dreams of controlling the media industry single-handedly and giving in to the tech moguls of today.

With Netflix making the television industry obsolete, online news and Facebook livestreams taking over newspapers and news broadcasts, Youtube overshadowing programs on television and Spotify taking its place in replacing all music media, times are indeed changing. It is possible that in the post-tech society, Rupert Murdoch is lost against these new tech moguls which seem to be taking over the entire industry with their new forms of media that are more accessible and convenient for users.

The article goes into depth about the merger that is being planned with Disney while also talking about whether Murdoch is planning to liquidate the rest of his assets to focus on his passion for the news with News Corp and Fox News - which would also allow him to keep his influence over US, UK and Australian politics - or whether he wants to step out of the game entirely. The article also mentions his son, James Murdoch possibly taking over as the new CEO of Disney, however that is of little interest when we take a look at the other side of this story.

Rupert Murdoch might be the mogul of yesterday but Disney has been buying out new companies and entire franchises non-stop the past few years. Ranging from Pixar to Marvel studios all the way to Lucasfilm which owns the entire Star Wars franchise, Disney is about to become the largest media owner in history. Considering they buy 21st Century Fox which owns 12.3% of the market share in Hollywood studios, they will have control over nearly all media consumed by children and teenagers alike (along with adult men who are into comic books of course).

What does this mean for the other owners of the media? Will take giants take over the old big businesses and make their own industry? Is all media going to be owned by Disney or could Internet media completely overthrow all forms of traditional media to fully revolutionize the industry?

Now I know this is old news as the purchase already happened. However, I'd like to make this the first part of a series of posts I'll be making about media ownership and what this purchase means for the future of global media.