The true story behind ‘Succession’: Which real-life family inspired the Roys?

As season 4 of ‘Succession’ approaches, the last episodes of the HBO Max series, looking back we can see that, what at first seemed like a satire of the business world and the North American media, is VERY inspired by the royal family of a telecommunications magnate: Rupert Murdoch.

‘Succession’ inhabits a world Murdochian to the core, from his New York City milieu to his right-wing news network, his family conflicts, and the endless controversies of his succession. Waystar Royco is a copy of News Corp and the core members of the Roy family have more than we think in common with the Murdochs and are their News Corp empire.

News Corp, unlike Waystar Royco, has never been involved in cruise ships and theme parks, but it has been in ultra-conservative news (the ATN of the series is clearly based on Fox News), in movie studios (it owned 21st Century Fox), in publishing houses (HarperCollins) and in newspapers, with Waystar’s right-wing tabloid Royco New York Globe modeled after the New York Post. Logan Roy’s obsession with Pierce Global Media, a primary competitor of Waystar, has many similarities to Rupert Murdoch’s successful acquisition of Dow Jones (publisher of The Wall Street Journal) in 2007.

Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and Rupert Murdoch are both patriarchs of powerful business families who immigrated to the United States. (Roy is from Scotland, Murdoch from Australia). Both are Republican supporters, have been married more than three times, and have almost half a dozen children, many of them working in the family business. Perhaps the biggest difference between Logan and Rupert is that the former is brash and braggart, while the latter, on the surface at least, is more calm.

Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert’s eldest son and possible heir to the family empire, would be Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong). Although Lachlan has never waged an aggressive war against his own father like Kendall Roy did in ‘Succession,’ he is a pretty obvious inspiration for his character. Like Kendall, he is often assumed to be his possible successor, but has faced stiff competition from his younger siblings, such as Roman Roy (Kieran Culkin), who seems to be passing on James Murdochthe younger brother with the longest history of rebellion and controversy.

Elisabeth Murdoch and Shiv Roy (Sarah Snook), however, are very different from each other. While Elisabeth has built her career as a television producer, with shows like MasterChef and the HBO series ‘Chernobyl’, Shiv’s resume revolves mostly around business and politics. yes it’s true that Shiv’s husband, Tom Wambsgans (Matthew MacFadyen), may be loosely based on Elisabeth’s first husbandpublic relations executive Matthew Freud (great-grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund).

At various times, the three Murdoch family scions mentioned above have been considered the best option to succeed their father Rupert. Lachlan, as the eldest, was initially seen as the most obvious candidate, as was Kendall. But when Lachlan took a hiatus from News Corp (also like Kendall), the public perception was that James had taken the lead as the new favorite. Then a wiretapping scandal severely damaged his reputation and his credibility.

Elisabeth has not been involved in the day-to-day operations of News Corp, but some have speculated that her success outside of the family business and lack of involvement in controversy could make her a safer bet to succeed her father. Today, Lachlan seems to be better positioned to take his father’s place.but as we have seen in recent decades, Anything can happen in the Murdoch family, just like the Roys.

The fourth and final season of ‘Succession’ premieres on Sunday March 26th on HBO Max.