Son of Murdoch hits out at critics

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Oct 20, 2002

THE lovely Lachlan Murdoch (that's son of Rupert to the uninitiated) is apparently raging mad.

Speaking last week at a media dinner in the cultural haven of Australia, the 31-year-old accused the "media elite" of behaving snobbishly towards his dad's News Corporation empire.

The young pup railed against the "purist" who apparently believe that profit is a dirty word and felt that making money somehow corrupted their "craft".

Media Watch is slightly confused. We thought that News Corp recently unveiled mammoth loss of (pounds) 4.1 billion. Then we might also question the "craft" bit.

Och well. I suppose none out of two ain't that bad, Lachlan.

Clearly Son of Murdoch is not the only one with their finger firmly on the slightly erratic pulse of the media world.

On Friday morning the Today programme on Radio 4 led several of its bulletins with the astonishing news that US software giant Microsoft had finally agreed to open its code to its competitors as part of a settlement with the US Department of Justice.

A slightly irate Microsoft PR person finally cracked and is said to have phoned the Beeb to complain. What about freedom of the press we hear you cry?

But don't worry the nice PR person wasn't attempting to stifle the fourth estate. He was just letting the Today programme know that their intrepid (and obviously very tired) hacks had scooped an old 2001 story off the wires and run it as new.

Has dear departing Today editor Rod Liddle given up on the show already?

But fear not Rod you're not the only one without about as much business sense as an Anderson accountant.

Last week Granada and Carlton communications, the soon-to-be-wed giants of the world of commercial broadcasting world, had to quietly ignore the revelation that the administration of ITV Digital (that revolutionary way of not buying a digital set-top box and not watching TV) had managed to raise a meagre (pounds) 27m from the sale of assets.

Given that high-tech platform collapsed earlier this year with debts of (pounds) 1.25bn, this figure did not represent an entirely successful winding down of a failed business.

Although a wee bit more cash wilI probably be raised from the sale of the remaining assets, disappointed creditors are unlikely to see much more of a return.

The merger of ITV, featuring none other that Granada and Carlton? Bring it on.

Media Watch's puzzler of the week. Why did 2.8m people sit and watch the confessions of Ulrika Jonsson on Channel 4 Wednesday?

Answers on a postcard and sent to a random address in Sweden please.

Congratulations are in order for former Hootsmon journalist Natasha Mann.

Natasha has just won The Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize, awarded annually "to the entrant best able, like the late Shiva Naipaul to describe a visit to a foreign place or people." Beating off 100 competitors for the Spectator-organised gong, her prize money was (pounds) 3000. That should fund at least another trip to Pakistan.