Airdate: Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story

Nine has slated its two part miniseries Power Games: The Packer-Murdoch Story to air on consecutive Sunday nights in September.

This stars Lachy Hulme as Sir Frank Packer and Patrick Brammall as Rupert Murdoch in the early days of their great media rivalry.

Part 1 will screen on Sunday, September, 8 at 8.30pm with Part 2 to follow on September 15. It isn’t clear yet how this will impact on the episodes of Underbelly: Squizzy, but presumably they will be rested during this time.

It started when Australia’s most powerful man, Sir Frank Packer, invited “boy publisher” Rupert Murdoch to a tennis party in 1960. It was an encounter that would forever change their lives, the future of their country and the face of the world’s media.

Sir Frank controls the Packer family’s business empire with a mix of generosity and terror. He spearheads Australia’s first attempt at winning the America’s Cup, determined to prove we 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 Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch’s expansion into the Sydney media 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 out in the suburbs with a small line of local papers, snaps up the struggling Daily Mirror and muscles up to take on the Packer boys in a bloody street fight.

Through 15 years of political intrigue, raw corporate power and high-rolling luxury, these fierce rivals used every means at their disposal to build their empires – and ultimately came to respect and admire each other as titans on the world media stage. Power Games takes us into the hearts and minds of the two families who have shaped Australia’s media landscape, reveals their private passions and heartbreak, 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.

Starring alongside Lachy Hulme and Patrick Brammall are Luke Ford as Kerry Packer, Alexander England as Clyde Packer and Maeve Dermody as Murdoch’s second wife, Anna Torv, with Heather Mitchell as Lady Gretel Packer, Anne Looby as Florence Packer and Hamish Michael playing Bruce Gyngell.

Power Games is produced by Southern Star Productions; John Edwards and Jodi Matterson.