Britain’s most respected media analyst, Claire Enders, has backed Rupert Murdoch’s proposal to merge Fox Corporation and News Corporation, labelling the potential deal “tremendous” and said it signalled that he had emerged from hibernation.

Enders, the founder of Enders Analysis who has worked in and analysed the media and telecommunications’ sectors for the past four decades, met News Corporation chief executive Robert Thomson and News UK chief executive Rebekah Brooks on Monday to discuss the deal.

“Rupert Murdoch has come out of hibernation,” Enders said. “COVID was a period of hibernation, and his then wife [Jerry Hall] exercised a degree of control over his movements, which became the cause of the divorce. He is 10 times more directly engaged with the business than he was during the COVID years. Talking to Robert Thomson, there’s no question that this is all Rupert Murdoch, and that he’s very actively engaged in this process. The transaction is definitely going to be happening.”

News Corporation, which owns newspapers globally such as the Wall Street Journal, The Australian, the UK’s The Times and The Sun, as well as a 61.2 per cent stake in REA Group, confirmed last Friday that it had formed a special committee of independent directors to explore “a potential combination” with Fox Corporation. The Murdoch family controls almost 40 per cent of the voting stock in both companies.

The two companies were formally split in 2013, following the fallout from the UK phone hacking scandal, where journalists of the Murdoch-owned weekly tabloid News of the World were accused of writing articles using information from the hacked mobile phones of celebrities and also murdered teenager Milly Dowler. A string of civil lawsuits followed and Murdoch shut the 168-year-old newspaper.

“When the split occurred it was to protect the mothership - it was to protect the most significant assets of all which were the American assets,” Enders said. “That is still the case. Fox News is by far the most significant asset of the whole pile of assets that they own.”

Her company, Enders Analysis, estimates that the split triggered a 10-fold increase in the fortune of the Murdochs, particularly after the 2019 transaction when Fox Corporation sold off most of its entertainment assets, including the 20th Century Fox movie and television studio, to the Walt Disney Company in a $US71.3 billion deal ($113 billion). The exit was perfectly timed by the Murdoch family at the top of the market.

Fox Corporation continues to own television assets such as Fox Broadcasting, Fox News, Fox Sports, and has investments in sports betting companies as well as advertising-based free streaming service Tubi.

‘Anybody who loves newspapers the way he [Rupert Murdoch] does, wants to keep them safe.’

Claire Enders, founder, Enders Analysis