And he doesn't have to. More so than any other sector in American business, media companies are a kind of father-son banquet writ large. Comcast was conceived by the father, Ralph Roberts, but it has become a giant corporation, devouring the rest of the media world, under his son Brian. Cablevision is a family affair, with Charles Dolan using the footprint of a single cable system with 1500 customers on Long Island to build a company big enough to buy Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks, the New York Rangers and AMC Networks, all of which are now run by his son James. In a lot of media companies, the normal rules of shareholder-driven capitalism do not necessarily apply. 21st Century Fox and News Corp are public companies in name only, with a dual-class stock structure that leaves most investors as bystanders and gives the Murdoch family a controlling interest of about 40 per cent. But even a cursory look at the media landscape suggests Rupert Murdoch is far from an outlier in wanting to see a property he built with his bare-knuckled hands land on his progeny. The list of media and cable companies with closely held stock includes Cablevision, CBS, Comcast, Discovery Communications, E.W. Scripps, The New York Times Co, Viacom and well, just about every other big media company you can think of. In fact, Disney and Time Warner, both widely held stocks, are the exception. In many cases, determined media entrepreneurs have made big bets and taken big risks that eventually required access to the public markets, but not at the cost of losing control. Beginning in the 1980s, media companies began splitting shares into voting and non-voting classifications and have come to be the dominant users of that strategy to centralise authority.

For years, shareholders complained about the lack of accountability and steered clear of media stocks because of it, but those days are over for a simple reason: according to Michael Nathanson of the media and technology research firm MoffettNathanson, while the rest of the market rose 30 per cent last year, media companies did 40per cent or better on average. Nathanson said that, setting aside the split, the stock prices of the two companies controlled by Rupert Murdoch went up 76 per cent last year. Investors in his stocks have lots of greenbacks to wipe away those tears of disenfranchisement. ''People tend not to complain when they are making a good return on their investment,'' Nathanson said. ''When you look at the performance of these media companies, the complaint about family ownership just doesn't fly.'' There is no small amount of freedom in not having the shareholder lurking over your shoulder, inspecting every move. Murdoch has been free to defy conventional wisdom, building out a hugely successful cable news division when everyone said there was no room for it, paying huge sums for access to sports that others were shunning and creating a satellite network in Britain to compete with an entrenched, government-backed television service. Family ownership can have significant downsides, but it is not subject to the tyranny of the short-term, quarter-to-quarter approach of most public companies. Perhaps a business ruled by bloodlines rather than investors has an advantage in a sector where instinct and risk-taking are rewarded. ''If you really think about long-term value creation, News Corp has been a model,'' Nathanson said. ''Rupert Murdoch would have never been able to make those big bets, to be as aggressive as he was, if he didn't control the company.''

For now, Chase Carey will continue to lead the day-to-day operations at 21st Century Fox. He's had an exceptional run, and Wall Street loves him. But he knew when he arrived in 2009 that the keys to the car would be eventually be handed to someone named Murdoch. If that seems like a quaint relic of a bygone era, more typical of small businesses like dry cleaners, it's worth remembering that a huge company named Ford has kept the car keys in the family for decades. In fact, dual classes of stock have been gaining momentum among companies that are not exactly legacy outfits. In the past few years, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Yelp have all opted to issue non-voting shares as a measure of maintaining control while gaining access to investment. When it comes to exercising corporate might and capitalist prerogative, there's no school like the old school. The New York Times