Rupert Murdoch grants first interview -- to Fox -- about incoming exec Chase Carey
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Murdoch chose the Fox Business Network (which reaches ‘nearly’ 60 million subscribers, but the ratings are kept private — so draw your own conclusions) as the platform to speak for the first time about his designated right-hand man, Deputy Chairman Chase Carey, who rejoins the company July 1 after a stint as chief executive of satellite broadcaster DirecTV.
Host Neil Cavuto asks the question everyone at News Corp., if not the broader media landscape, already knows the answer to: ‘Many say [he’s] your heir apparent. Is he?’
‘No, I don’t think we’re making commitments on that at all,’ Murdoch said.
Perhaps that’s because Murdoch doesn’t need to say more on the topic. He has made no secret of the fact that he one day he hopes one of his children, James Murdoch, who runs the company’s European and Asian operations, or Elisabeth Murdoch, an independent producer who recently rejected a board seat, will succeed him as chief executive.
Murdoch also weighed in, ever so elusively, on the Los Angeles Times story about pending and substantial layoffs at News Corp.’s digital group, Fox Interactive media. He tells Cavuto, ‘We’re putting new management in there. They’ve been there for three weeks. They’re making a close examination of it, and they’ll no doubt set some directions, strengthen other very strong parts of it.’
As for the reports of job cuts coming?
‘It’s too early to talk about that,’ Murdoch says.
— Dawn C. Chmielewski