Power Games Premieres on Nine on September 08, 2013
Power Games is about the making of Modern Australia through the eyes of competing media moguls.
In the early 1960, ‘boy publisher’ Rupert Murdoch receives an invitation from Australia’s most prominent media family, the Packers, for tennis and cocktails. By the end of the day, Sir Frank Packer, joined by sons Kerry and Clyde, make sport of Murdoch and attempt to run the ‘boy publisher’ out of town. Little does anyone know the young man will one day be the most powerful media player in the world and he’s not about to go home.
Spanning 1960 to 1972, Power Games takes us behind the scenes of Australia’s newspaper and television empires. Inside the Packer family, Sir Frank controls the family business with a mix of generosity and terror. He spearheads the country’s first attempt at the America’s Cup, determined to prove Australia can compete on the world stage. He wines and dines politicians and Presidents, expands his family’s fortune and protects it against the latest interloper, young Murdoch.
Rupert Murdoch’s expansion into the Sydney media landscape catches the established players off guard. But their usual tactic of intimidation and exclusion simply do not work on the tenacious Murdoch, who quickly proves he has a vision beyond their grasp.
Murdoch starts in the suburbs with a small line of local papers, snaps up the floundering Daily Mirror and engages his own muscle to take on the Packer boys in a bloody street fight. But when the Packers influence over the rich and powerful result in Murdoch being denied a Television license, Murdoch pulls off a coup that has the Packers scrambling to hold their position as number one. While Murdoch sees an opportunity in television, Kerry Packer finds his great love. Kerry begins a journey that will shape Australian TV for generations and put an end to the dominance of newspapers. But, Kerry’s vision for the family business sets him at odds with his brother, Clyde.
The Packer heirs soon discover there are only one set of keys to the kingdom and their father, Sir Frank, isn’t about to hand them over. As the Packers face destruction from within, Murdoch looks beyond Australia’s shores and sees a world ready for the taking.
Power Games takes us into the hearts and minds of the families who have shaped Australia’s media landscape, reveals their private passions and heartbreaks, their ambitions and failures and the sheer thrill of playing on a big stage in front of the biggest audience they can capture. Visionaries, gamblers and king makers, the men at the centre of Power Games take on the world and win.
Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story is a Southern Star John Edwards Production for the Nine Network Australia.
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