This was published 3 months ago
Print newspapers have 15 years left, at best, says Rupert Murdoch
By Calum Jaspan
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has declared print newspapers have as little as 15 years left, in a long-awaited interview on Sky News Australia, which went off-air for an hour ahead of the broadcast because of technical difficulties.
“Fifteen years, with a lot of luck,” Murdoch, chairman emeritus of News Corp and founder of The Australian, said in a documentary commemorating the 60th anniversary of the newspaper.
The comment came in response to a question asked by Sky Australia boss Paul Whittaker on how long printed newspapers had before they were no longer viable.
Sky chief Paul Whittaker interviewed News Corp chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch in a one-hour special.Credit: Sky News Australia
Airing at 8pm on Monday, the documentary, which was heavily marketed by Sky News, was lucky to go to air after a “hardware failure” took the network offline for an hour earlier in the evening during the documentary’s host Chris Kenny’s nightly show.
“Third-party provider MediaHub, which manages the playout services for Sky News, suffered a hardware failure that impacted the Sky News channel. The technical issue was investigated and resolved in just over an hour,” a Sky News Australia spokesperson said.
“We apologise to our viewers for the inconvenience, with catch-up episodes to be made available to all subscribers.”
The issue caused some nervousness at Sky’s Macquarie Park headquarters ahead of the documentary, a source with knowledge of the evening’s events said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The retrospective took viewers through the history of The Australian, including Murdoch’s heavy involvement in its early years, his critical notes to staff, as well as celebrating its editors, columnists and reporters over the six decades.
The media baron also used the documentary to praise several politicians, most notably former prime minister John Howard, who he called Australia’s most transformative leader, and former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who famously helped Murdoch further his business interests in the United Kingdom.
Murdoch also took a swipe at notable critic Malcolm Turnbull, who is leading the campaign for a royal commission into Murdoch’s Australian media empire.
“Malcolm’s nuts, and he’s paranoid,” Murdoch said. “He didn’t like the fact that we supported Tony Abbott versus him. That’s all.”
Across the hour-long documentary, Murdoch also said he did not believe America will ultimately defend Taiwan from a Chinese attack, and admitted to being a climate change sceptic.
“I’m not a climate denier. I might be a sceptic of some of the things that are said. But you’re going to have blackout,” he said on the push to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. “The cost of living will go up all over the world.”
Murdoch also labelled artificial intelligence “a force for good” in his comments, which were recorded before News Corp signed a five-year $US250 million ($368.7 million) content deal with OpenAI.
“AI distributes [content] brilliantly. But if they want access to it, they’re going to have to pay, or they’ll put us out of business.”
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