Two days after her younger brother was named deputy chief executive of News Corp.’s Australian subsidiary, Elisabeth Murdoch was asked if the new title implied he was being groomed for the company’s top job.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “But it does make me feel like I have to hurry up.”
Certainly, no one could accuse Murdoch of taking it easy. While her 24-year-old brother, Lachlan Murdoch, has been climbing the corporate ladder in leaps and bounds, Murdoch, 27, has been carving out her own route to News Corp.’s executive suite.
With the blessing — and loan guarantees of her father, Rupert — she hit the ground running last year with the purchase of two Northern California television stations. Husband Elkin Pianim, her partner in the project, had been scouting opportunities for months, but it was her father who found the stations — castoffs from a massive $500 million deal done by the News Corp.-owned Fox television network.
Although the $35 million price tag was small by Fox standards, it was a huge responsibility for the then 25-year-old Murdoch. She had barely two years of management experience in television, and her husband, a former investment banker, had none.
She was also just weeks away from giving birth to their first child when she and Pianim took ownership of the stations.
“It was hard,” she says. “I was back at work two weeks after she (daughter Cornelia) was born.”
As president and general manager, Murdoch was run ragged trying to manage both stations. The larger facility, KSBW in Salinas, is only half an hour from her home, but the other, KSBY in San Luis Obispo, is a three-hour drive.
She and Pianim drove to San Luis once a week in the first months and quickly began making personnel changes, beginning with a well-liked community service director, who had been at the station more than 13 years. Within a month they had sacked their newly appointed general manager.
In all, of a staff of 75, about 18 were either fired or not re-signed, and by the end of the year almost half the staff had turned over. The sports anchor and a popular news anchor were among those dropped by Murdoch, and the changes were not well-received in the small town.
“So many people were fired, and many of them were well-connected in the community — so word spread quickly,” said Jeff McMahon, staff writer for the local newspaper, New Times.
Local columnist Dave Congalton was more blunt.
“Elisabeth Murdoch arrived, and the body bags came with her,” he says.
Disappointed by constant on-air gaffes, Murdoch issued a directive, which came to be known as the “Three Strikes Memo,” in which she warned of reprisals for production glitches. Staffers claim the note threatened firings if any newscast contained three production errors.
Murdoch disagrees.
“Basically there was a point where we were having continual errors, and we put out a note to people who had asked what the course of disciplinary action was,” she says.
She concedes now, however, the tactic was counterproductive. In an atmosphere of job uncertainty, it caused more finger pointing than attention to on-air improvement.
“Saber-rattling sometimes backfires,” she says. “It certainly does not instill a sense of trust, and obviously I learned a lot from that lesson.”
One thing she learned was that she could not handle the responsibility of being station manager in San Luis while spending most of her time as KSBW in Salinas. After about four months trying to run both stations — a period she describes simply as “incredibly stressful” — she brought in a new manager and worked at slowly rebuilding morale.
The studio was given a facelift, graphics were improved, new anchors were brought in and eventually the broadcast showed improvement.
“You have to understand KSBY has always had a kind of hokey, small-town look to it, and people liked it that way,” says McMahon. “When Liz and Elkin gave it a slicker look it just didn’t sit well with people. On the other hand, they definitely improved news coverage, they became more aggressive and there were far fewer on-air mistakes.
“In the past it has looked so unprofessional that I can imagine it would be very hard for someone with her (Murdoch’s) background to tolerate the status quo.”
Although her personnel moves were questioned, financially the Murdoch/Pianim tenure was undeniably successful. After little more than a year, the stations were sold for $12 million profit — a 30 percent return — about $1 million for every month of ownership. Operating profit at the larger station was up 25 to 30 percent, mainly as a result of reduced programming costs, higher ratings and a 50 percent increase in network compensation.
She has been a hands-on owner — concerned with every aspect of the operation, particularly the newscast, which she calls the window to her soul.
“It would be boring if you weren’t (a hands-on owner),” she says. “The whole joy of this place is putting your own mark on it.”
In the office she is very informal — staff members refer to her simply as Liz.
“I don’t get uptight about that stuff,” she says. “I don’t see why we have to have unnecessary formalities.” She admits, however, to feeling put-off when she hears junior staffers at News Corp. referring to her father as “Rupert.”
With her stations formally in the hands of new owners by the end of January, Murdoch, who is applying to pursue an MBA at Harvard, Stanford and Wharton next year, plans to spend a lot of time with her daughter until classes begin in September.
Pianim, who was raised in Ghana and moved to the U.S. when he began college, will be searching for business opportunities to reinvest some of the proceeds of the sale. Whatever the project is, Murdoch does not want day-to-day management responsibilities — at least not now.
“I really haven’t seen my daughter except for weekends and maybe for and hour or so in the evening when I get home. That doesn’t leave a lot of time, and you do feel guilty.”
Although she feels a strong maternal tug to remain at home with her daughter, it’s not a role she can imagine doing full time.
“I think I might go bonkers,” she says.
Murdoch grew up in Manhattan, moving there at age 6 when her father took control of the New York Post. She was schooled at the private all-girls Brearley School, on the city’s upper East Side, and studied modern European history at Vassar College. She met Pianim one day while filming a promotional piece for a university television show; she smiled and wangled an introduction through a mutual friend.
Although they dated seriously early on, there was no talk of marriage until two years later, while she was working as a researcher for Australia’s “A Current Affair.”
“I gave him a deadline,” says Murdoch, with a laugh. She was about to move to Salt Lake City for a stint as program director at the Fox affiliate there and felt they had to make a decision about their future together.
“I told him, `You have until Christmas to ask me to marry you’ — he asked me on Christmas Eve.”
They work well together, she says, because they are so different. Pianim, who took over as chief financial officer for their television venture, is a numbers cruncher; she is more interested in the on-air product, marketing and promotion. The arrangement has not always been easy, however.
“You are probably less patient with the person you are married to than you would be with a business colleague,” she says.
“I don’t think we would do it again because it is a lot of stress. But at the same time I think we are very good together. It doesn’t necessarily feel good while we are doing it, but the end result is very good.”
Murdoch is plain about her ambition to rise to the top of News Corp., a move she will embark on after finishing a business degree. It will likely come down to either her or one of the brothers eventually to succeed their father as CEO of the company, she says. She will not be too disappointed, though, if she’s not picked for the job — there’s a lot of responsibility to share.
As for her father’s stepping aside, she does not see retirement in his future.
“I think he plans on doing this until the day he drops. I just look forward to the day my brothers and I are ready to be his deputies, to help him. I’d like to be able to take a bit of the weight off his shoulders and be the extra eyes and ears for him.”
Although brother James, 23, has yet to join News Corp. — he recently started a record company in New York City — he could become a key player down the road.
“He may be brighter than all of us,” she says, insisting that he will eventually join the fold.
As a Murdoch, the attraction may prove inescapable.
