>> mm-hmm. >> it is inherently unstable. >> liz sees an opening and is now trying to get herself back in the mix. >> lachlan, james. james, lachlan, maybe elisabeth. whatever. >> there was a lot of effort to make it look like everything was kumbaya. but the parlor game of who's gonna be the king continues to play out. >> good morning, mr. murdoch. you're gonna retire soon finally, huh, and have a good life? >> no way. >> rupert murdoch, the media mogul, hospitalized. this raises questions about succession. >> and, we really realized that this story was about a father and his children, and this question of what is gonna happen

to this empire. >> early on, rupert develops a machiavellian approach to the newspaper business. it's about putting your rivals under. >> and mr maxwell certainly has lost. >> and, rupert discovered if you start turning the dial down market, ratings go up. >> sex and murder and blood, and mayhem. >> he bought up 40% of the circulation of newspapers in england. >> this is his moment to expand. >> post here! get your post here. new york post... >> murdoch put his stamp on the city of new york. here i am. you'd better pay some attention. i'm going to have one hell of an impact. >> as usual, we were drinking one night, the producers, the reporters and me. we always gathered. >> the first concrete block was removed by east german workers. >> and we hear the berlin wall is coming down.

what? we've got to go. what? a current affair's got to go to the wall? oh yeah. so we made a few calls. and we commandeered the gulfstream jet. and about eight or nine of us got on that jet at midnight and flew to berlin. a current affair was rupert's baby, to the point where i believe rupert wrote a check out of his own checking account every single week for the show. >> this show is rampant anarchy. >> rupert liked it because it was cheeky. >> charles and camilla's naughty thong fantasy. >> it was edgy. >> these gorgeous playmates frolic with privileged guests. >> a current affair. >> it was a tabloid show. he said there is a place for a show like this, and people will gravitate to it. so we end up in berlin.

>> as you can hear, there's a lot of joy. there's a lot of celebration. >> i'm up there anchoring next to the wall. here's rather on my left. >> these are the sights and sounds of the continuing celebration. >> brokaw on my right. >> what you see behind me is a celebration of this new policy. >> they look at me and say, what the hell are you doing here? i said, "we're here to cover the wall, and not like you." this is what we did. >> it's not very hard to imagine standing here at checkpoint charlie. >> gordon elliott, our indefatigable australian, sees everybody with these little shovels and things picking away at the wall. he goes to a berlin firehouse, takes the huge pick axe, starts banging on the wall, knocking

down the wall. this west berliner sees it, he says, "oh, can i have that for a while?" gordon gives him the big pick axe. this guy starts -- and that guy with gordon's pick axe ends up on the cover of newsweek. >> one thing about rupert murdoch that people must understand, he has a great vision for what is lacking in the landscape. not only in print. >> four, three, two. >> but in television. >> how did television news become so boring? >> then they get president b. hussein obama in there. >> very politically correct. >> to build a mosque? >> it's shocking that that -- >> not only will there not be anyone like him in the future, you can't erase it. it's here to stay.

>> we realized very early on in our reporting that there were two stories here that we were really writing. and one story was the story of rupert murdoch, media mogul, and the other story was the story of rupert murdoch, the father. >> those two identities are deeply intertwined. and that has huge bearing, because one is going to determine the future of the other. >> when they got to new york, the murdochs moved right onto fifth avenue. they're in this rarefied upper east side world.

>> the most privileged existence you can imagine. you know, celebrities coming through the house for dinner parties. it's a sort of enchanted existence. >> from a very early age, we began to understand that we were part of the media business. >> they grew up watching their father become really the most powerful media mogul in the world. >> i remember liz and james and i would come up to breakfast, and all the papers would come out, the new york post, the daily news, the new york times. my dad would be handing out stories for us to read them. >> so their childhood was like an extended apprenticeship. >> we knew that dad loved the time he had with us and he wanted us to be part of his world. and i think that as a child, you had to be part of that world in some ways if you were going to

be engaged with him. >> he was not raising children. he was raising future media moguls. >> this is the origin story of three children whose entire lives would be shaped by the pursuit of one thing. >> rupert has laid out that he wants one of his children to succeed him. but he doesn't say when and he doesn't say who and he doesn't say how. that is going to have to be fought out between them. >> this one question, who would be the one to succeed him, only intensifies as they watch his empire grow and grow and grow. >> new york has this reputation at this time of being a place that no tourist would ever wanna visit. no business would wanna set up there. >> the city was a disaster, but for a tabloid newspaper publisher, it was filled with opportunity.

>> i was in city hall where all the reporters were, and dick oliver at the daily news said, "hey george, your paper's been bought by rupert murdoch." i said, "who's rupert murdoch?" >> one of america's oldest daily newspapers, the new york post, is going to be sold into foreign hands. the australian press baron, mr. rupert murdoch. >> before murdoch took over the new york post, the post was a liberal newspaper. it had been around forever. alexander hamilton started the newspaper. >> this is a copy of the new york post. the lead story, a water main break on 6th avenue. >> it was really dull. >> dorothy schiff, who was the owner, was losing money on the new york post, and you know, there was a real concern that

the paper would go under. >> i remember we were beginning to go into the red, and i saw no way out. >> murdoch knew he had to give her some assurances. >> and rupert had told me when i sold him the paper that he was not gonna change the editorial policy, but he took a big turn to the right after that. >> rupert murdoch will say whatever he has to say to get his way, and so, the new york post went from being a liberal bastion to being the only conservative newspaper in new york. >> if there is a revolution in the newspaper business in new york, this is the barricades of that revolution. this is the city room of rupert murdoch's new york post. >> things start to accelerate, and the new york post of rupert murdoch becomes a whole new animal.

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open your nose for relief you can feel right away, helping you take in air more easily, wherever you are. >> easy, easy, easy. >> it has been called the second toughest job in the country -- mayor of new york city. >> new york city and rupert murdoch turned their attention to the most hotly contested mayoral election in new york city in decades. the main candidates are mario cuomo, a young italian american lawyer from queens. >> you got to give those people work. you've got to give their children education.

you've got to give them housing. you've got to give them a chance to make it. >> very tough, very popular. and then there's another candidate. >> morning, everybody. hi. hi. hi, hi, nice lady. say hello? >> hi. >> thank you. i'm ed koch, and i'm running for mayor. i just want to say hello. hi, everybody. >> ed koch was a little bit of an underdog, a little bit of an unknown. >> he was a nobody. he was another outsider. >> just me. >> i don't think anybody took it all that seriously. >> well, what can i do? >> that is, until rupert embraced him. ed koch's politics were not sort of classic liberal democrat. >> there should have been a curfew in the right areas. the national guard in my judgment should have been alerted and brought in. >> he emerged as the law and order candidate. so he fit rupert's profile.

>> and more important, if he endorses ed koch and ed koch goes on to become mayor, koch will owe him. and what rupert also understands is that he can do much more than endorse a political candidate. he can turn his paper into effectively a political weapon. >> one day, i wake up, and there's this editorial on the front page of the post. i'd never seen an endorsement like that. >> every single day. the front pages of the new york post had praiseworthy pieces about ed koch, and negative pieces about his opponent. >> murdoch is so pro-koch that 50 reporters at the paper signed a petition.

>> saying, you know, the coverage of this mayoral race was outrageous. >> this is not fair and balanced journalism. >> it didn't matter. i mean, he had his editors and he had his reporters and they did what he wanted them to do. >> i don't need any lecturing from them about newspaper ethics. >> i wouldn't be in a position to say i was mayor of new york city if rupert hadn't endorsed me. he gave me credibility. >> for murdoch, now the template is set. he's taken his bombastic, screaming approach to journalism to deliver into office the mayor of one of the largest cities in the world. but rupert murdoch didn't come to the united states to determine the course of municipal elections. and as we'll see soon enough, he's got his eyes on much bigger game.

>> multimillionaire rupert murdoch is at the center of a journalistic empire that includes close to 100 newspapers and magazines in australia, and he clearly is in the united states to stay. >> rupert murdoch is emerging already by the 1980s as the biggest newspaper baron the world has ever known. he's part of the rise of the '80s culture in new york. buildings were shooting up kind of all across the city. wall street boomed. and murdoch sees this, this growing obsession, this growing interest in money and celebrity. and the new york post really begins to kind of chronicle it. >> everybody wants to read the dirt that's in the new york

post. because, you know, it's always something happening. and page six is the most powerful gossip column in the world. the breaking news was about celebrities. >> what's happening in the room where celebrity x is doing cocaine with stripper y? >> can you believe this starlet? she's cheating on her husband. >> and it wasn't just about who was sleeping with who. the expression corridors of power was used. it was who was doing what at what company. >> page six became an enormous source of murdoch's power. >> page six was the ultimate enforcer. you could undermine those who had been inconvenient or opposed you, and you could help build up to fame just because it made good copy of a young real estate

tycoon on the make. >> donald trump was probably featured in the new york post every single day. >> trump would leak information about his female companions, leak claims about his real estate ventures or gambling interests. >> we got tips from people who were trying to hurt people or trying to help themselves, including the number one source at page six. the vindictive son of a [bleep] roy cohn. >> super builder, donald trump has said, "if you need somebody to get vicious, hire roy cohn." >> roy m. cohn, esquire. he was out on the party circuit. he saw and knew a lot of things. >> he had dirt on a lot of people. he wanted to spread dirt on a lot of people. >> there were times when i actually saw him dictating copy

for gossip columns, which i found really fascinating. >> roy cohn and murdoch became friendly. and in fact, cohn represented murdoch at some point. >> there isn't anything i would not do, because i believe there's only one answer in an adversary profession like law, and that is winning. >> cohn was easily, of all the people i've profiled or done interviews with, was the single worst human being i've ever encountered. cohn would boast about you never apologize. you never go on defense. you always go on offense. >> deny everything, admit nothing, launch counter attack. attack, attack, attack. >> attack, attack, attack, attack. >> don't accept it, don't compromise. kill them. >> do you have a very special

wish? >> and hyperbole is not a lie. what trump said to me when i interviewed him, he said, "cohn is my mentor." >> what rupert knew was if you get in with the likes of roy cohn, you're getting in with the rising conservative power brokers of the united states. to a job that feels like home. with home instead, you too can become a caregiver to older adults. apply today. think he's posting about all that ancient roman coinage? no, he's seizing the moment with merrill. moving his money into his investment account in real time and that's... how you collect coins. your money never stops working for you with merrill, a bank of america company. new astepro allergy.

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i've been asked by some of my friends in the press why we picked hudson county for this kind of kickoff of the campaign. >> murdoch wanted to be close to whoever was going to be empowered. and in fact, roy cohn was the man who introduced rupert murdoch to ronald reagan. >> because hudson county is the home of democrats in such great numbers. >> boo! >> no, and i hope a lot are here. >> rupert murdoch in the '80s, as conservatism is coming into bloom, he is against the welfare state. and he's a law and order guy. and new york at this time is an important state for reagan. he's trying to build what we now

consider blue state support. he wants to win new york. and murdoch thinks -- he thinks about, what do i have to do to get my advantage? and basically, the new york post became a propaganda arm for the reagan candidacy. >> they had probably more influence with voters than the new york times, the dominant newspaper in new york city, because it was the blue collar paper. it was the paper of the working class. we really believed that we could make inroads among those voters. >> ronald wilson reagan, the projected winner of the 1980 presidential election. >> thank you all. >> the endorsement of the new

york post around reagan was crucial. reagan carried new york state in the 1980 election. >> rupert murdoch celebrates delivering new york to reagan. and this is where the murdoch way really comes into play. >> roy cohn on behalf of murdoch, and murdoch himself, they extend invitations to the reagan team. "why don't you come visit one of the papers? how about an interview for one of our star correspondents?" and the short of it is that the reagan staff either drops the ball or doesn't care, and they rebuff him. at the time, murdoch is furious. so roy cohn in fact writes a couple of letters to the very inner sanctum of the reagan administration.

and he writes, "i had one interest when i first brought rupert murdoch and governor reagan together. and that was that at least one major publisher in this country would become and remain pro-reagan." the anger is dripping off the page. and a deputy assistant to reagan himself writes back to say, "i'm sure you're aware of our continued high regard for mr. murdoch personally, and our appreciation of the importance of what he is doing." it's an incredible show of fealty. with every relationship with a politician, there is a quid pro quo. and rupert expects some sort of support in exchange for his support. >> and murdoch gets what he

wants from reagan, which is basically an unwritten promise for help in the future. >> as are all newspapers we're competing with television. >> you really do see network television as your main competitor? >> absolutely. >> the ultimate power in the united states now is in tsks >> television is dominated by three networks -- abc, cbs, and nbc. >> nbc 3, johnny. >> he is going to invent a fourth television network. >> today, confirmation of the largest single broadcast station transaction in history. >> as murdoch sets out to do this audacious thing to create a fourth national network, he's betting it all. >> publisher rupert murdoch agreed to buy the tv stations owned by metro media for more than $2 billion.

>> $2 billion and the sale of seven metro media stations. >> located in new york, washington, los angeles, dallas, houston, chicago and boston. >> the medium is the message, and the message tonight is takeover. >> and then he buys one of the grand dames of the studio world. >> for a price of $575 million, rupert murdoch has become sole owner of 20th century fox. >> 20th century fox, that is. >> 20th century fox. >> you now own many newspapers. you own a possible television network. throughout history, we've heard about the possibility of one publisher taking over too much power. >> there are some roadblocks for this risky new venture. and to clear them, murdoch is going to need some help from the reagan administration. first, he needs waivers.

under u.s. law, it's illegal to own both a major newspaper and tv station in the same market. a waiver of this sort is incredibly rare. >> i'm calling to congratulate you and the rest -- >> but the reagan administration delivers. second, he's not a citizen. >> federal regulations, of course, prohibit noncitizens from owning more than 20% of a television station. >> you have decided to become an american citizen. >> absolutely. >> citizenship, that takes months. murdoch gets it in weeks. the reagan administration is giving murdoch everything he needs to start a fourth national network. it's a huge financial risk. and rupert is going to need to squeeze every penny he can out of his existing newspapers to pull it off. but there's one thing that

stands in his way -- the print unions in the uk. so murdoch decides he's going to go into battle against the unions. and that battle pretty quickly turns into an all-out war. >> murdoch has taken a ♪one, two, get loose now! it takes two to make a-♪ get double rewards points this fall. book now at bestwestern.com. i strip on public transit. i strip with the guys. i strip all by myself. breathe right strips open your nose for relief you can feel right away, helping you take in air more easily, day or night. ♪ (customer) save yourself?! money with farmers.

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>> murdoch has taken a gargantuan risk trying to start a fourth television network. he is going to need a ton of cash. >> everything will be better as a result of this, and it will be remembered as a very important watershed moment. >> rupert murdoch wanted to introduce technology to his empire. he wanted to produce his newspapers with computers. he's interested in saving money. at the time, print unions had huge control over the production of newspapers. they could walk off the job, and they were resistant to change. he knew that the only way to grow was to break that grip. and he had decided enough was enough. so rupert murdoch came up with this plan. he had set up this alternative printing site in wapping, in east london.

he bought a load of computers and more technology for the production of his newspapers. and secretly, under cover of darkness, put it in wapping. >> and then a pirate workforce had been recruited and were trained up to run the machines there. and then murdoch claimed at the time that he was going to develop a new newspaper called the london post. >> the london post. >> the london post. >> and rupert murdoch's plans for a new paper, the post, also rely heavily on a move away from fleet street. >> the london post would be produced at wapping. and then murdoch announced that this new newspaper would need new terms of employment. >> murdoch delivers this really strict and nonnegotiable set of demands. and he says that they're going to apply not only to this london post, but to all of his newspapers. murdoch knows that the unions could never accept these terms.

he wants them to reject the terms, and they take the bait. the workers vote to go on strike. >> under the uk laws at the time, you could lose your job for going on strike. and now in one fell swoop, murdoch fires nearly 6,000 workers. >> we all went down to wapping to the site. and then all of a sudden, all these lorries started pouring out of the print factory. >> the trucks coming out of the wapping plant are filled with murdoch's newspapers. >> the printing press will be printing it in about five minutes. and news of the world is the same as ever. >> but it does seem that you had been planning for a coup such as

this. you'd been building a parallel workforce, hadn't you? >> for about three or four months. that is quite true. >> he's actually managed to produce a newspaper without any of his workers. it was just totally shocking to us. >> there can be one word to describe what happened, and that is conspiracy. there never was a london post. >> the london post was actually a ruse. >> it was a shadow newspaper to disguise what was actually going on, which was getting rid of an entire workforce. >> murdoch's always denied this. but there's one thing we do know -- rupert murdoch never published a single issue of the london post. >> one thing which would have given murdoch some security about this plan was his

relationship with margaret thatcher. the two were very close. his newspapers had backed her. and she in turn backed him. she saw the power of the unions, and thought the unions were holding britain back, as did murdoch. their interests were very, very tightly aligned. she supported this move at wapping. and the police basically protected the murdoch operation. >> we'd have up to a thousand people marching up the road. the reaction of the police could be exceptionally hostile. broken arms, broken legs,

stitched heads. and this went on for 13 months. >> 13 months after their firing, beaten down after months on the picket line, murdoch and the print workers strike a deal. and he agrees to give them a one-time payment. >> most of the people who were sacked by rupert murdoch never worked in the industry again. >> the future is terrific. our profits are up, circulations are up. and there's no reason why we won't get even better. >> he'd actually saved over the course of the year in salaries the equivalent of $150 million.

>> much of the extra money being generated by wapping is coming here, more than 6,000 miles and a world away from the east end of london. rupert is perfectly comfortable killing off the unions in the uk. the reason is the fox network, and he's got much bigger ambitions for his empire. he's got a new frontier lined up in front of him -- hollywood. ♪ with hand-crafted steakburgers and chicken sandwiches. there's a perfect plate for everyone. great value for all your favorites only from ihop. download the app and earn free food with every order. i'll pick this one up. i earn 3% cash back on dining including takeout with chase freedom unlimited. so, it's not a problem at all. you guys aren't gonna give me the fake bill fight?

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>> in 1986, rupert murdoch buys this 8,000-square-foot spanish style mansion in beverly hills for $7 million. this sort of beautiful, old, classic hollywood home with these uninterrupted, sweeping views of the valley, because any self-respecting major media mogul is going to want a footprint in hollywood. >> the home was full of pictures of his family.

i think he was a good dad, not always present dad, but i think beloved by his kids. if a kid walked in his office one of his kids, it didn't matter which one, he would immediately stop everything and hug them. i don't think he deliberately set them up against each other. but that doesn't mean they didn't feel that he was doing that. >> from the time that we were very small, this is one of the other lessons that dad taught me. it has been very clear that you have to control your own destiny. >> you're on candid camera. >> elizabeth is in a slightly different lane than her brothers, just by virtue of the fact that she's the girl. >> in the early years, elizabeth was not taken particularly seriously by her father, who was a man of his era and a little bit of a sexist.

>> at the same time, people have always said to me that rupert sees elizabeth as the child most like him. >> when people would say to him that he favors the oldest son, lachlan, murdoch would say, "oh, i love all my children." >> tell us the best thing about your day. >> let's see. well, he always likes to go camping with us. >> does he spend a lot of time with you? >> yes. >> rupert and lachlan both share a love of newspapers. they both share a love of australia. >> when they were teenagers, you know, rupert would send them out for work experience. lachlan loved it. he loved going to the new york post building and watching the presses roll. >> lachlan really takes to it. he's in his element. this is the world he wants to be in.

james not so much. >> this is my son james. >> james, how would you describe your dad? >> well, i think the papers and the shows about him and stuff make him look like too mean and dark and sinister. and really, he's a really nice person, a fun person. >> sometimes, right? >> yeah. >> when you behave. >> so rupert sends james to have an internship at the daily mirror in the photography department. james is only 15. >> and there's a famous occasion in which is in a news conference in sydney. >> as james has told this story himself, he had spent several nights in a row on the overnight photo desk. he was exhausted. so he sat down on the couch. >> and he falls asleep in the middle of this news conference. >> and sure enough, rupert murdoch's main rival, the sydney morning herald, they run a

photo. and they do this story in their pages about this slumbering young murdoch. the message to james is, you are a murdoch. you're now in a world where it's kill or be killed. >> on october 9th, 1986, fox broadcasting launches. >> fox network has been putting on the ritz all week long in hollywood. >> it started with one show in late night hosted by joan rivers. everybody and their mother in hollywood said it will not work. he will fail. but nobody was thinking as big as rupert murdoch.

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tonight, the future of networks, and rise of alternative viewing. >> no one had started a television network since the 50s. >> here, the head of programming for fox broadcasting. >> i was 28 years old. >> clearly, in alternative to the network, we don't think of ourselves is abc, cbs, or nbc. we don't need to reach everyone. >> it was clear, rupert made the surprise already within news corp. he was going to invest, until it worked. if all of us dropped at along the way, that was okay. there was no guide on what to do. it was clear, very fast, that

the unconventional shows worked. 21 jump street. in loving color. married with children. >> who do spend a night with? a, your wife, or be? >> the simpsons. >> really, it was a slightly lower brow, more populist approach to entertainment. look murdoch, really, pushed that agenda. he likes to headlined, the screamer, the things that grab your attention. >> he has shows like current affair. basically, it is a tabloid newspaper front page, slapped on to the air. >> the last day of a hollywood legend. who didn't care who we took

with him to the grave. >> there was a rock, truth telling, to this show. this was the place where every man could go for their news. >> there was ambushed stories, gotcha stories. one day, mikhail gorbachev is going to be in new york, donald trump wanted to see gorbachev. >> mr. trump is coming now. >> so, reporter, gordon elliott, hired a gorbachev lookalike, put him in a limousine with a few young ladies. trump runs out of trump tower to meet gorbachev. >> how are you, how are you. i love your tie. >> trump looks in the limousine, sees the two women. gordon turns around and says, i think he worked it out. we would do funny stuff like that. people loved it. >> the critics didn't love the

shows. murdoch was fine with that. he was not programming for those people. he was programming for everybody else. >> in the united states, there are certain to make television programs that pander to the worst morbid interest. i think it is complete nonsense, and anybody who's done a study of my career, knows it's nonsense. >> rupert murdoch, undeniably, is a remarkable businessman. he has been somebody who has, repeatedly, not just played the chessboard brilliantly, but been able to, really, understand where the game is going to be played next. >> murdoch knew, in order to have a bona fide network that could compete, and surpass the

traditional networks, he had to know that it was undeniable. in america, the nfl is that kind of undeniable content. >> he says, let me steal away games on sunday from cbs, which had it for umpteen years. >> rupert comes out of nowhere, with an outrageously large bid. 1.6 billion dollars. at the time, this is seen as reckless, and wild. it's 100 million a year, more, than cbs is willing to pay, and took them off guard. >> we put out such a big bid, that we went into the table, and they never bargained to match us. >> it's an extremely high stakes funder. >> now, from studios in

hollywood, california, it is time for fox nfl sunday's. >> in terms of empire building, securing rights to the nfl was one of the biggest decisions murdoch made. >> it made fox a legitimate network. there was a brilliant stroke, really, and allowed rupert to do something not far larger. >> thank you for your tenants in such short notice. >> we're looking at is adansi a 24 hour cable news network, fox news. >> we expect to define, balanced journalism. >> fox news, fair -- >> rupert murdoch sees an

audience that has been hungry for something just like them. >> it reflected murdoch and roger ailes political views. >> fox becomes a rocketship. >> as the empire grows, there is a lot of natural speculation about the succession. all three murdoch children, coming into their own as executives. that is when the question begins about who will it be? >> i have driven in italy quite a bit. but i did say to one guy when i was doing a movie, i said, "it's very interesting, people don't really stop at stop lights that much." and he goes, "no, no, no. the stop light is just a suggestion." >> there's nowhere on earth quite like tuscany. the land is idyllic, the art is divine and the food is out of this world.