Rupert Murdoch is losing his iron grip on News Corp. as evidenced by the revolt at the Nov. 13 annual meeting, where investors almost put an end the company's two-tier voting system that puts the media baron's family firmly in control.
A shareholder proposal to eliminate the dual class ownership structure received a whopping 79M votes, or 47.4 percent of outstanding shares.
That votes surpassed by far the second highest dissenting tally: 26.8M votes against executive compensation.
The Murdoch family ownership of 14 percent of total shares translates into 40 percent voting power.
Australian and British newspapers have been buzzing about Murdoch's "near death experience."
The Nov. 22 Sydney Morning Herald reported: "None had a clue that they were about to witness the 83-year-old media baron come dangerously close to losing his iron-fisted grip on a large part of his empire at the hands of a shareholder revolt."
It also commented on the decision of Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's failure to vote in favor of upholding the two-tier ownership structure.
The Prince, who controls 6.6 percent of News Corp., abstained from the tally. He did release a statement to say that he would never vote against "our partner Murdoch."
The Nathan Cummings Foundation, owner of 14 percent of News Corp. sponsored the resolution.
Chief financial officer Bill Dempsey likened News Corp's s ownership set-up similar to Cuba or North Korea and "at odds with good governance structure here."
The SMH reports that Murdoch has been put on notice that his family's control of the company is vulnerable.
The paper noted that his family's control of News Corporation is vulnerable. "The Sun king's dictatorship is being threatened by several of the company's large shareholders, who have been behind this push to force democracy on the company," SMH concluded.
There's also speculation that the News Corp. vote was a run-up to an attempt to make a run at the big prize: sister company 21st Century Fox, has a dual class structure. Murdoch used 21st Century Fox as a platform to mount an aborted takoever of Time-Warner.
One thing is for certain: wily Murdoch will never give up control of his crown jewels without a hard fight. Only fools count Murdoch out.
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