Longtime Fox News Chair Rupert Murdoch is stepping aside for an emeritus position as the aging media mogul moves toward retirement. Murdoch built a significant media empire in the United States and Australia as Fox News looks for a future in the new media landscape.
Murdoch made the announcement that he would be transitioning to the “role of Chairman Emeritus” at both Fox and News Corp. He wrote that “the time is right for me to take on different roles.”
“For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change,” he wrote.
“I am truly proud of what we have achieved collectively through the decades, and I owe much to my colleagues, whose contributions to our success have sometimes been unseen outside the company but are deeply appreciated by me,” Murdoch said.
Breaking: Rupert Murdoch will step down as chair of Fox and News Corp after building a media empire over seven decades https://t.co/67Qcr3tf2J
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 21, 2023
The mogul, aged 92, said that he was optimistic about the future and that he “will be involved every day in the contest of ideas.”
Murdoch’s News Corp also owned other major publications such as the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. His conservative politics often clashed with other news sources, although Fox maintains that its non-opinion news services have no slant.
Furthermore, Fox News has faced a ratings slump since parting ways with popular former host Tucker Carlson. Carlson’s departure earlier this year resulted in a significant decline in the network’s viewership, especially around the important 8 p.m. timeslot formerly held by Carlson.
Carlson has reemerged on the media scene through his popular Tucker on X program, hosted on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. The host has interviewed a number of high-profile guests, including former President Donald Trump and recently-acquitted Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R).
The ratings decline may coincide with criticism from a number of conservatives that the network is not fully aligned with the former president. Trump himself has stated that he believed Fox was biased against him and declined the chance to appear in the first official Republican presidential debate hosted by the news network.
