End of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp

"Our companies are in robust health, as am I,"

That is a very lofty statement from someone who is 92 and a half years old. He is less than 4 years younger than Queen Elizabeth II was when she died.

While issue of Murdoch's own health is pretty clear: he might be looks alright with no visible ailments, but it is obvious that he will die soon. Human life expectancy is not infinite after all.

However, I personally would say that his companies are as bad as he his. They may be still look good, but their future is as grim as that of Rupert Murdoch himself.

That has nothing to do with Rupert's managing ability or lack of. The companies will fail not because Lachlan and other successors will mismanage them. They will fail because of intrusive technological change than affects media industry.

Decline of Traditional Media

Traditional media were in decline ever since internet became a thing. The inevitable reality of our world is that is it pointless to pay money for a newspaper that writes about things that happened yesterday if you can read online for free about things as they happen in real time. 

Because of that News Corp is doomed as horse driven carriages were when automobile became a thing. The fact that Rupert Murdoch tried to push for a legislation that will make Google and Facebook pay for publishing news, shows that he feels threatened by these new sources of news.

Thus, numbers that show News Corp domination of news market are misleading as it does not take into consideration these informal sources of news that younger generations rely on.

It is the same with Foxtel domination of entertainment market, numbers are also misleading.

Entertainment Market

On the entertainment market it is the same. 

While older generations still mostly rely on newspapers and Foxtel, younger generations prefer internet media and things like Netflix and Stan for their entertainment. Foxtel tried to create their own alternative to Netflix, Foxtel Now, however Stan alone has 10 times more subscribers and Netflix probably even more than that. 

Thus, when it comes to Millennial television, Foxtel clearly losing.

Both with news and entertainment, it is unlikely that younger people will switch to a traditional media as they grow older. So News Copr and Foxtel will die out together with boomer and Gen W generations who stick to the traditional media the got used to.

Internet Streaming

Internet streaming services were set up by younger future minded people. 

Because of that they cater heavily to young people's tastes, values and worldviews. Access to them requires one to be more than comfortable with online way of doing things, which is hard for older generations. Because of that their userbase remained young. 

However, it is ever growing as more and more young people are born and come of age to make use of these services. Because of that internet streamers are not concerned that their content is inaccessible to older people. 

Older people are also often unaware internet streaming even exists. This mutual ignorance prevents each side from understanding each other.

End of Murdoch

Because of all of the above, Murdoch is not an undefeatable emperor of the Evil News Empire. He is more of Ned Kelly on his last stand, who refuses to go without a bang. However, steam of his resistance is dying out.