Murdoch: Another wife, another twist in the succession plan

At first glance it won’t. First and most importantly, at 66 Smith won’t add to the brood of six children he produced from the first three marriages.

Luckily for Murdoch, shareholders don’t get a vote in his affairs of the heart.

And if his previous marriage to Jerry Hall can be regarded as a precedent, Smith would land some multimillion-dollar properties around the globe and tens of millions of dollars in the event she ends up being his fifth divorce.

But with the ageing of the now 92-year-old Murdoch, there must be an increased likelihood that Smith will ultimately become his widow. (Murdoch told the media that “I know this would be my last – it had better be”.)

If he is right, this may result in Smith receiving a more generous settlement than her predecessor, but will likely mean she is still bound by any prenuptial agreement that presumably wouldn’t give her access to the Murdoch family trust – the chest that contains the family’s corporate riches.

Murdoch has previously signed a marriage contract four times to lifetime partnerships.

The first with flight attendant Patricia Booker who produced his first child, Prudence, the next was Anna Torv, who bore him three children, Elisabeth, Lachlan and James, and then Wendi Deng who with Murdoch gave birth to two girls, and finally to Hall.

The relationship between the eldest son Lachlan and Deng was particularly toxic in the later part of her marriage to Murdoch, which is said to have been the result of tension around succession after her two children became part of Murdoch’s inheritance plan.

Ultimately, Deng’s children have an economic interest in the family trust that holds Murdoch’s fortune. However, unlike his older children, they have no voting rights.

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The long and twisted story of how control of Murdoch’s company has progressed has understandably captured the imagination of the public for decades – and has become the torrid story on which the Succession miniseries was loosely based.

As unseemly as the family’s entrails have been, Murdoch is currently managing a more acute public relations scandal.

His Fox faces a $US1.6 billion ($2.4 billion) legal claim from Dominion Voting Systems over allegations regarding the news network’s role in pushing Donald Trump’s false narrative that it conspired to rig the election.

Fox News has also found itself thoroughly, and publicly, embarrassed. Internal messages have been released in the course of the court case that lay bare how it attempted to ignore the actual news in its coverage of the 2020 election, and the contempt many people within the organisation have for the network’s viewers.

This public relations flogging is set to intensify when the matter begins its public hearing in April.

Presumably Smith will be on hand for comfort.

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