The Murdoch brothers: how their roles will change

James Murdoch

For the past 20 years Rupert Murdoch’s youngest son has worked for the family business. If the Disney deal receives official approval, 45-year-old James is expected to depart the family firm – either to join the company behind Walt Disney Studios or to strike out on his own – marking a split in the dynasty. In the 1990s his father’s News Corporation conglomerate, which has since split in two, bought James’s start-up hip hop label Rawkus Records. But he first earned his spurs at the media group by successfully running the Asian TV business Star between 2000 and 2003. By the age of 30 he was head of Sky (then known as BSkyB) in the UK, where his star continued to rise.

His career was dealt a serious blow in 2012 when he was forced to stand down as chairman of News International – then publisher of the Sun and the Times – and BSkyB in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World. The furore forced Rupert to abandon his first attempt to take full control of Sky, while the media regulator Ofcom published a scathing assessment of James Murdoch’s conduct at News International during the scandal, finding that it repeatedly fell short of the standards expected.

A move to the US to work at 21st Century Fox pulled him out of the critical glare of the British media and provided a chance to rehabilitate his tarnished reputation. Two years later Rupert named James and his elder brother Lachlan to effectively take over running the media conglomerate in a power-sharing move. As chief executive of 21st Century Fox, James rekindled the unfinished business of the Sky takeover but the spectre of phone hacking has once again mired the deal in regulatory quicksand, with critics voicing concern over the power that the Murdochs have over UK news media.

James now faces professional family separation, although it is viewed as an amicable one, if the Disney deal goes through.

“It is a fundamental parting of ways between James and his father, the result over a period of time of the development of many differences between them that have become accentuated,” says Claire Enders, of Enders Analysis.

“Fundamentally, Rupert believes that his son has not made a great fist of running the entertainment assets. The issues of the past look to have cost James’s ambitions in the present again.”

Lachlan Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch’s eldest son had long been seen as the potential heir apparent to his father. But in 2005, at the age of 33, he dramatically resigned from running News Corp’s television stations and moved to Australia to pursue his own business interests. The abrupt departure was reportedly down to tensions with the late Roger Ailes, the then Fox News head who was one of the most powerful executives in the Murdoch empire. Lachlan’s exit appeared to end his chances of one day succeeding his father, who had once said that of all his children it was Lachlan who was his most likely successor: “He was the one who was always most interested … when he was a 13-year-old kid, he worked as an apprentice with the printers in the pressroom, cleaning all the oil and the grease off the press.”

His time outside the family fold included investing in Nova Entertainment, a radio group. Lachlan’s road back to his father’s side came in 2014 when he was named alongside Rupert as co-chairman of 21st Century Fox and News Corp, the separately listed and Murdoch-controlled news and publishing company which owns the Times, the Sun, the Wall Street Journal and the book publisher HarperCollins. His younger brother James was made chief executive of 21st Century Fox, in a power-sharing move.

As Rupert moves to sell off most of the family’s entertainment jewels from beneath James, including the 20th Century Fox film studio, Sky and the Fox TV studio business, which produces shows including The Simpsons, Modern Family and Family Guy, it is Lachlan who is once again positioned as heir apparent. If the deal passes regulatory scrutiny he will be left running the remaining businesses – including Fox News, its biggest profit driver, Fox Sports channel and Fox Business. These could well be combined with News Corp, allowing Rupert Murdoch to return his family to his first love: news.

“Lachlan is someone who wants to support his father’s ambitions in news,” says Enders, of Enders Analysis. “James feels uncomfortable with those ambitions and sees how they cut across his own goals. This deal simplifies the future and is an extraordinary change in [family] dynamic.”

• Follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk, or sign up to the daily Business Today email here.