They are sons of strong women. Both have sparred publicly with their heirs, both are plotting to conquer China, and both seem to view immortality as their best succession plan.
But what really unites Viacom Inc. Chairman Sumner M. Redstone and News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch is that, to a degree almost unknown today among heads of U.S. public companies, they can do as they please.
Redstone and Murdoch are part of a line of autocratic media titans stretching to CNN founder Ted Turner, William S. Paley of CBS, Henry Luce of Time Inc., newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst and such lions of early Hollywood as Louis B. Mayer and Adolph Zukor. Their power derives not just from their dominant stakes in the companies they've built but also from their inclination to use it.
"The amazing thing is that when Rupert says 'Let's do it,' everyone drops everything to focus on whatever he wants," said one News Corp. executive. "It's like an army that can turn on a dime."
Today, as the digital revolution is overturning old-media business models and new threats and opportunities are materializing at video-game speed, a leader's ability to act boldly and unilaterally -- without having to consult lawyers, directors or Wall Street in advance -- can be a powerful advantage.
In fact, when Murdoch decided to make his move into new media, he didn't order up strategic studies but took the company checkbook in hand and spent $2 billion on acquisitions, sometimes holding talks without keeping even his top executives in the loop.
"There's a huge difference between executives who rise up through the ranks versus a founder-executive in terms of personality and style," said Lilli R. Friedland, a psychologist in Century City who advises business executives on strategies, collaborative skills and succession issues.
Because these individuals are excruciatingly possessive about what they've built, she said, they can never let go, even in their waning years.
"I am Viacom," Redstone, 83, said in a recent interview. "My life is Viacom and it continues to be Viacom. I live the company that I built from three drive-in theaters," a business he inherited from his father. He controls about 70% of the voting shares of Viacom and of CBS Corp., which were split apart in January.
