1. Rupert Murdoch, 92, is stepping down as chairman of News Corp and Fox
2. The media mogul’s eldest son Lachlan, 52, will become chairman of both companies
3. “Our companies are in robust health, as am I,” Murdoch said in a note to employees
4. He built one of the world’s most influential media empires over a 70-year career
5. After inheriting a share of local newspapers in the Australian city of Adelaide in the 1950s, Murdoch ended up owning papers from the Wall Street Journal to The Sun
6. Fox News earlier this year paid nearly $800m to settle a defamation case with Dominion Voting Systems over false claims around the 2020 election

For years, there was speculation over who would succeed Rupert Murdoch as head of his huge media empire.

At the heart of his own family there was a dramatic personal battle for power – something that has been chronicled in the BBC’s own documentary, The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty.

The dynastic struggle is believed to have inspired the hugely popular TV series Succession, based on the Roy family – although the writers have always stressed the characters are all fictional.

And according to Vanity Fair, Lachlan Murdoch had even suspected brother James of feeding stories to Succession’s scriptwriters.

The magazine published claims about Murdoch rivalries and revelations and reported that Rupert Murdoch, 92, was “consumed with the question of his succession”.

Succession writer Jesse Armstrong told the BBC he has never met any of the Murdochs, but had “occasionally had lunch with powerful media men”.