Who controls the news?

An introduction to the billionaire media moguls behind the content we consume.

At Cheek, we often talk about the tight grip conservative men have around the neck of the mainstream media. But how bad are things really? Let’s take a look (but, really bad).

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Media concentration is rife. This is not new. Billionaires globally have been slowly buying up news and entertainment assets in a bid to bolster their own social and political influence - and to great success. The Murdoch family is a case study of the power that can be exerted when your media empire becomes your own personal megaphone. Who cares about editorial integrity (or morality, even) when there is money to be made???

It hasn’t always been this way. Yes, mainstream media has typically been controlled by the rich and powerful, but ownership was more diverse, and outputs were better shielded from top-down influence.

But today, open any paper, switch on the TV, or scroll through your social media feed, and it’s likely you’ll be presented with content that is brought to you by a small handful of elites - some more diabolical/ depraved/ dubious than others. So who are they, and just how deep have they sunk their claws into our media ecosystems? Let’s take a look:

The Murdoch Empire

Let’s start off with the one we all know and hate. Most Australians are well versed in the News Corp succession story, with conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s firstborn son, Lachlan, recently solidified as heir apparent following a bitter legal dispute with his younger siblings. The real life juicy family drama fuelled many a headline and brought a heavy sense of déjà vu for fans of the Murdoch-inspired Succession TV series. Of course, Lachlan already held executive power over his father’s empire, helming the board of both News Corp and Fox Corp.

News Corp is the most powerful media conglomerate in Australia, and perhaps, the western world. Locally, the company’s best-known assets include The Australian, news.com.au, the Herald Sun, the Daily Telegraph, Taste.com.au, the Courier Mail, and Sky News. What you may not know is that it is also the majority owner of realestate.com.au and publishes Vogue Australia under license from Condé Nast.

You’d also be likely to recognise much of News Corp’s US and UK portfolio too - from the Wall Street Journal and the Dow Jones, to Harper Collins publishing, to The Times and The Sun.

Meanwhile, Murdoch’s Fox Corp, as you may have guessed, are the good people behind the Trump-loving Fox News cables, Fox Sports, and Fox Entertainment (which ownsTMZ), as well as ad-supported streaming platform Tubi, which was launched into Australia this year.

You might think that’s a sickening amount of influence to be granted to a single familiar of self-serving billionaires - and you’d be right. But it’s not the end of it! As if managing the Murdoch empire weren’t enough, Lachlan also has a side hustle of his own called Illyria through which he owns Nova Entertainment, the company that runs Australia’s Nova and Smooth radio networks and their associated podcasts. He’s a busy boy!

Nine Entertainment

Next up, we have what is arguably the largest media company in Australia - at least for now. Nine Entertainment, as the name suggests, is the corporation that brings you TV’s Nine Network, and all of its associated spinoffs and streaming services (9Gem, 9Go, 9Now, Stan, Stan Sport, nine.com.au, and so on). It’s also the publisher of youth news platform Pedestrian TV, and has the stable of papers formerly owned by the Fairfax family, which includes the Australian Financial Review, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Brisbane Times, and Good Food. Plus, you’ve got its radio business, which includes talkback stations 2GB (the home of Ben Fordham) in Sydney and 3AW in Melbourne.

Bruce Gordon is Nine’s largest individual shareholder, with a stake of more than 25%. He also happens to be the owner of the WIN Corporation - i.e., the regional WIN Television networks.

Seven West Media

Rounding out Australia’s big three media players is Seven West Media, majority owned by billionaire Kerry Stokes via his investment company Seven Group Holdings, which, for your interest, also has major shares in a number of heavy equipment, gas, and oil companies. Along with Seven Network’s TV and streaming assets, Seven West Media owns the sole WA masthead, The West Australian, along with PerthNow, and a national digital offering under The Nightly.

If that weren’t enough, a proposed merger with Southern Cross Austereo (SCA) could soon put SWM in a league of its own, bringing in the audio company’s Triple M and Hit networks, as well as a huge podcasting slate under Listnr. If the deal goes through in February, as planned, it would also see 85-year-old Stokes step down from his post as SWM chair after more than a decade, and pass the baton onto current SCA chairman Heith Mackay-Cruise.

Paramount Skydance

Moving overseas, David Ellison’s Skydance is another prominent player that, thanks to a recent merger with Paramount, now owns a vast suite of assets that you’re likely to come across in your day-to-day media consumption. The most relevant of those for an Australian audience, is Network Ten, which Paramount Global has owned since 2019. While the channel has generally skewed younger and more progressive than Nine and Seven, many hold concerns that the conservative views and strategic imperatives of its new billionaire owner will inevitably trickle down into local content. Already, Ellison has made clear his plans to overhaul Paramount Skydance-owned media in the United States, acquiring the media company of “anti-woke” commentator Bari Weiss in order to install her as editor-in-chief of the traditionally left-leaning outlet, CBS News - bypassing usual editorial structures to report directly to Ellison himself.

Other well-known brands in the newly combined Paramount Skydance stable include MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Paramount+, Paramount Pictures, CBS Studios, and PlutoTV.

An important note to bear in mind, when we’re looking at media influence here, is that fact that David Ellison comes from a family of supervillain billionaires - his father, Larry Ellison, is the co-founder and executive chairman of cloud software company Oracle. He’s also the world’s second-wealthiest person (behind Elon Musk), with a personal net worth of nearly US$400 billion, and a dear friend and ally of Israeli PM (and wanted war criminal) Benjamin Netanyahu. Remember this for later!!

Access Industries

Access Industries is the investment company of Soviet-British billionaire Len Blavatnik, who you might recognise from coverage surrounding the sale of Foxtel to his sports streaming juggernaut, DAZN. That deal, finalised in April, means Foxtel’s pay TV business, as well as streaming services Binge and Kayo Sports, are no longer part of the News Corp Australia stable. Now, under DAZN, they sit alongside a vast array of Blavatik’s major media and entertainment holdings, including indie film house A24, Warner Music Group (which represents the likes of Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, and Teddy Swims), and Spotify competitor Deezer. Together with Warner Bros. Discovery, Access Industries also shares a 26% stake in Israeli broadcaster Reshet 13.

Amazon

If you’ve moved through the world with out coming across Amazon’s mega rich founder Jeff Bezos - worth approximately US$229.8 billion - then I truly envy you. Not only did Bezos create the world’s largest ecommerce business in Amazon (with revenues of US$638 billion in 2024 alone), but he’s since expanded his portfolio to ensure he has his fingers in as many proverbial pies as possible. That list includes streaming service PrimeVideo, audiobook app Audible, live-streaming platform Twitch, reading community app GoodReads, the world’s largest cloud company Amazon Web Services (AWS), US broadsheet The Washington Post, and television production company MGM Studios, as well as IMDb, Alexa, Kindle, Amazon Music, Amazon Studios, Wondery, and so much more.

The Walt Disney Company

Everyone has a Disney film that’s close to their heart, but it’s been decades since the media conglomerate expanded beyond the fairytales and animations that made it famous. In fact, The Walt Disney Company’s long-standing chief Bob Iger first joined the company in 1995 when it acquired the ABC (the American Broadcasting Company). He’s remained the CEO title since 2005, aside from a brief blip in 2021 when he “retired”, before returning a year later with a control that will see him at the helm of the company until at least the end of 2026. You may recall his handy work from incidents such as the highly contentious (and temporary) icing of Jimmy Kimmel Live following comments from the host that ruffled feathers in the MAGA camp. Other familiar assets that belong to the Disney family include sports media company ESPN, National Geographic, 20th Century Studios (formerly 20th Century Fox), Lucasfilm, Marvel Studios, Hulu, and FX.

Meta

Now, we’ve come to the digital and social media behemoths, starting with Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta. Meta has a stranglehold on the social media and messaging space, owning Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. If you’re online, they’re pretty hard to escape. You’re likely already well-aware of the company’s harms, which include funnelling billions into AI, rolling back fact-checking and e-safety assurances, and bending the knee to Trump. Meta, along with Alphabet, has also caught the ire of legacy media operations for its domination of the advertising market (the revenues of which are the core revenue source of all commercial media). The digital duopoly, together with Amazon, are set to take 55% of the US$1.7 trillion expected to be spent on advertising globally this year.

Alphabet

Alphabet, chaired by Sundar Pichai, is the holding company behind Google and YouTube, another two platforms that the average person would use multiple times daily. Like Meta, these companies are pros at evading regulation and accountability, and will reign havoc on the planet in the coming years with their AI programmes. There’s also all of the Google tech - Google Home, Google Pixel smartphones, and as I recently found out, FitBit and Android as well!

X (formerly Twitter)

The world’s wealthiest man needs no introduction, but for the sake of the record, a mention must also go to X owner Elon Musk. Musk’s disregard for the “woke” and penchant for disinformation has turned the formerly bustling Twitter public square into a cesspit, and wiped an estimated US$35 billion from the platform’s value since his takeover. Elon’s other ventures include automotive and renewable energy giant Tesla, space technology company SpaceX, and Neuralink, a dystopian neurotechnology company that is developing brain-computer interfaces.

TikTok

We’re all familiar with western government’s fears that TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, has nefarious intentions for the app’s data and influence. In the US, that culminated in an order for the company to divest 80% of the platform, or pack up shop, effectively forcing them into striking a deal with a consortium of Trump-aligned US owners. Unfortunately for us, it means the state of global media ownership is about to get a whole lot more grim. This is where Larry Ellison’s Oracle comes back into the picture, with private equity firm Silver Lake and UAE state-owned AI investment firm MGX also thought to be among the video app’s new shareholders. Trump has also name dropped tech billionaire Michael Dell (as in Dell computers), and of course, Mr Rupert Murdoch! What a bunch.