The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty

Last updated

The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty
Genre Documentary
Directed byJamie Roberts
Narrated by Kate Fleetwood
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes3 (list of episodes)
Production
ProducerOwen Phillips
Production company72 Films
Original release
Network BBC Two

The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty is a three-part documentary series broadcast on BBC Two in 2020. Parallels have been drawn between it and the American series Succession . [1] It is about the business magnate Rupert Murdoch and his political influence, the News International phone hacking scandal and his children's battles to succeed him.

Contents

Participants

The documentary has a cast that includes the British politicians Nigel Farage, Michael Heseltine, John Prescott and Tom Watson, the journalists Piers Morgan, Andrew Neil, Peter Oborne, Alan Rusbridger and David Yelland, the strategists Steve Bannon and Alastair Campbell, as well as Hugh Grant, Alan Sugar and former president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) Max Mosley. [2] [3] [4]

Episodes

No. in
series
TitleDirected byOriginal air dateUK viewers
(millions)
1"Kingmaker"Jamie Roberts14 July 2020 (2020-07-14)N/A
2"The Rebel Alliance"Jamie Roberts21 July 2020 (2020-07-21)N/A
3"The Comeback"Jamie Roberts28 July 2020 (2020-07-28)N/A

Reception

In The Guardian , Tim Dowling opined that "While this political drama is no less gripping for being so familiar, it also feels strangely remote. On the one hand, it is hard to believe these events happened as long as a decade ago; on the other, it is difficult to recall the mood of a time when phone hacking was all we had to worry about". [5]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rupert Murdoch</span> Australian-American business magnate (born 1931)

Keith Rupert Murdoch is an Australian-American business magnate, investor, and media proprietor. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including in the UK, in Australia, in the US, book publisher HarperCollins, and the television broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News. He was also the owner of Sky, 21st Century Fox, and the now-defunct News of the World. With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world according to Forbes magazine.

<i>News of the World</i> 1843–2011 British tabloid newspaper

The News of the World was a weekly national "red top" tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling English-language newspaper, and at closure still had one of the highest English-language circulations. It was originally established as a broadsheet by John Browne Bell, who identified crime, sensation and vice as the themes that would sell most copies. The Bells sold to Henry Lascelles Carr in 1891; in 1969, it was bought from the Carrs by Rupert Murdoch's media firm News Limited. Reorganised into News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation, the newspaper was transformed into a tabloid in 1984 and became the Sunday sister paper of The Sun.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News UK</span> British newspaper publisher

News Corp UK & Ireland Limited is a British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media conglomerate News Corp. It is the current publisher of The Times, The Sunday Times, and The Sun newspapers; its former publications include the Today, News of the World, and The London Paper newspapers. It was established in February 1981 under the name News International plc. In June 2002, the company name was changed to News International Limited, and on 31 May 2011, to NI Group Limited, and on 26 June 2013 to News UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Al Murray</span> English comedian (born 1968)

Alastair James Hay Murray is an English comedian, actor, musician and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nigel Farage</span> British broadcaster and politician (born 1964)

Nigel Paul Farage is a British broadcaster and former politician who was Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Brexit Party from 2019 to 2021. Farage is currently the Honorary President of Reform UK and a presenter for GB News. He served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 until the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Whittingdale</span> British Conservative politician

Sir John Flasby Lawrance Whittingdale is a British politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Maldon since 1992. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as Culture Secretary from 2015 to 2016. Whittingdale was most recently Minister of State for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries and Minister of State for Data and Digital Infrastructure from May to December 2023, during the maternity leave of Julia Lopez.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Murdoch</span> British media executive

James Rupert Jacob Murdoch is a British-American businessman. He is the younger son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and the former chief executive officer (CEO) of 21st Century Fox from 2015 to 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wendi Deng Murdoch</span> Chinese-American businesswoman

Wendi Deng Murdoch is a Chinese-born American entrepreneur, investor, film producer, and collector of Chinese contemporary art.

Rebekah Mary Brooks is a British media executive and former journalist and newspaper editor. She has been chief executive officer of News UK since 2015. She was previously CEO of News International from 2009 to 2011 and was the youngest editor of a British national newspaper at News of the World, from 2000 to 2003, and the first female editor of The Sun, from 2003 to 2009. Brooks married actor Ross Kemp in 2002. They divorced in 2009 and she married former racehorse trainer and author Charlie Brooks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesse Armstrong</span> British screenwriter (born 1970)

Jesse David Armstrong is a British screenwriter and producer. He is best known for co-creating the British comedy shows Peep Show (2003–2015) and Fresh Meat (2011–2016) alongside his writing partner Sam Bain, and for creating the American comedy-drama series Succession (2018–2023).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James O'Brien (broadcaster)</span> British radio presenter, podcaster, author

James Edward O'Brien is a British radio presenter, podcaster, author, and former tabloid journalist and television presenter. Since 2004, he has been a presenter for talk station LBC, on weekdays between 10 am and 1 pm, hosting a phone-in discussion of current affairs, views and real-life experiences. Between October 2017 and November 2018, he hosted a weekly interview series with JOE titled Unfiltered with James O'Brien. He has occasionally presented BBC's Newsnight.

Leslie Frank Hinton is a British-American journalist, writer and business executive whose career with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation spanned more than fifty years. Hinton worked in newspapers, magazines and television as a reporter, editor and executive in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States and became an American citizen in 1986. He was appointed CEO of Dow Jones & Company in December 2007, after its acquisition by News Corp. Hinton has variously been described as Murdoch's "hitman"; one of his "most trusted lieutenants"; and an "astute political operator". He left the company in 2011. His memoir, The Bootle Boy, was published in the UK in May 2018, and in the US under the title An Untidy Life in October of the same year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nick Davies</span> Award-winning British journalist and writer (born 1953)

Nicholas Davies is a British investigative journalist, writer, and documentary maker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News International phone hacking scandal</span> UK Media scandal

The News International phone hacking scandal was a controversy involving the now-defunct News of the World and other British newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch. Employees of the newspaper engaged in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of stories.

The News of the World phone hacking scandal investigations followed the revelations in 2005 of voicemail interception on behalf of News of the World. Despite wider evidence of wrongdoing, the News of the World royal phone hacking scandal appeared resolved with the 2007 conviction of the News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, and the resignation of editor Andy Coulson. However, a series of civil legal cases and investigations by newspapers, parliament and the police ultimately saw evidence of "industrial scale" phone hacking, leading to the closure of the News of the World on 10 July 2011. However, the affair did not end there, developing into the News Corporation ethics scandal as wrongdoing beyond the News of the World and beyond phone hacking came to light.

In mid-2011, out of a series of investigations following up the News of the World royal phone hacking scandal of 2005–2007, a series of related scandals developed surrounding other News Corporation properties—where initially the scandal appeared contained to a single journalist at the News of the World, investigations eventually revealed a much wider pattern of wrongdoing. This led to the closure of the News of the World on 10 July 2011, an apology by Rupert Murdoch in an advertisement in most British national newspapers, and the withdrawing of News Corporation's bid to take over the majority of BSkyB shares it did not own.

The News Corporation takeover bid for BSkyB was a proposed takeover of British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) by News Corporation, the media conglomerate of Rupert Murdoch. The bid was launched in June 2010 but was withdrawn in July 2011 following the News International phone hacking scandal. News Corporation already owned 39.1% of BSkyB and held onto its stake following the collapse of the takeover bid. The takeover was an essential part of News Corporation's business strategy, not least as it would have made possible integration with other entities such as Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia. The Guardian went so far as to say that, "Without a full takeover of BSkyB, News Corp's global satellite strategy would look an unco-ordinated mess."

Phone hacking by news organizations became the subject of scandals that raised concerns about illegal acquisition of confidential information by news media organizations in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia between 1995 and 2012. The scandal had been simmering since 2002 but broke wide open in July 2011 with the disclosure that a murdered teenage girl's mobile phone had been hacked by a newspaper looking for a story. The scandals involved multiple organizations, and include the News of the World royal phone hacking scandal, the News International phone hacking scandal, the 2011 News Corporation scandals, and the Metropolitan Police role in the News International phone hacking scandal.

<i>Hack Attack</i> Book by Nick Davies

Hack Attack: How the Truth Caught Up with Rupert Murdoch is a 2014 book about the News International phone hacking scandal by the British investigative journalist Nick Davies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reform UK</span> Political party in the United Kingdom

Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded with support from Nigel Farage in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating hard Euroscepticism and a no-deal Brexit and was a significant political force in 2019. After Brexit, it was renamed to Reform UK in January 2021, and became primarily an anti-lockdown party during the COVID-19 pandemic. Subsequently, in December 2022, it began campaigning on broader right-wing populist themes during the British cost-of-living crisis. As the Brexit Party, it gained 29 seats and the largest share of the national vote in the 2019 European Parliament election.

References

  1. Singh, Anita (14 July 2020). "The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty, review: enjoyably gossipy documentary indebted to Succession". The Telegraph. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  2. "The Rise Of The Murdoch Dynasty". BBC Media Centre. 14 July 2020. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  3. Sherwin, Adam (7 July 2020). "Rise of The Murdoch Dynasty: BBC series reveals real-life Succession battle over Rupert Murdoch's media empire". inews. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  4. McGurk, Stuart (14 July 2020). "The BBC's The Rise Of The Murdoch Dynasty says more about Nigel Farage than Rupert Murdoch". British GQ. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  5. Dowling, Tim (21 July 2020). "The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty review – Succession with phone hacking and foam pies". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 July 2020.