SUCCESSION IN MEDIA DYNASTIES

Silvio Santos, the Brazilian TV tycoon owner of the SBT network, just announced that his successor will be her daughter Patricia.

Murdoch (in a 1990´s picture) plans the same: one of his children will replace him.

Media dynasties are part of this business.

Family successions are not easy.

You need planning, training and a lot of mentoring.

Our work in this area, mainly done by our President, Carlos Soria, that has conducted and advised many successful media family transitions, shows that the biggest mistake is to wait too much and follow the "Prince Charles" model.

Let me recommend two readings on this subject:

A recent column of Jack and Suzy Welch in Businessweek, "The Nitty-Gritty on Nepotism"

And Carlos Soria´s chapter about "The Family Owned Newspaper: A Manual for Survival" that you can find in our 2005 Innovations in Newspapers Global Report

Remember Carlos Soria´s advise: "Indentify and train future family and corporate leaders as early as possible."