Friday, September 19, 2008

The Murdochs are coming! The Murdochs are coming!

According to a recent survey, a large percentage of Australians still fear invasion by Indonesia. (Maybe not so silly, considering its standing army is probably bigger than Australia’s entire population.)

But if new reports are any indication, Indonesia should fear an invasion by the Aussies. In media terms, anyways. Lachlan Murdoch, scion of Rupert and longtime protégé at the tabloid sine qua non New York Post, has been sniffing around media opportunities in the archipelago.

Say what you want about the Murdochs and News Corp. – as Keith Olbermann, irascible MSNBC anchor, often does – but they’re no dummies. Rupert has built himself a tidy global empire, finishing by wresting the Wall Street Journal from the squabbling Bancroft family. And Lachlan, by looking to gain a foothold in a country with a population more than 10 times his own, is demonstrating similar entrepreneurial spirit. Said to be among the potential targets: Lippo's Group's Globe magazine, and the Media Group, which owns 24-hour news channel Metro TV.

Whether young Lachlan will look to his dad’s Fox News as the template for his Indonesian media empire, time will tell. But since he left the U.S. after a clash with his pops, he can’t be all bad. Click here to read about the secret plans of Murdoch 2.0.


Today’s Top Stories:

Lawmakers with too much time on their hands
Indonesian arms race now a slow crawl
Local credit crunch: Never mind

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