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Fox Studios in Los Angeles, where the News Corporation annual meeting was held. Photo: Reuters

It was a sunny Los Angeles autumn day a week ago when six people boarded a special-purpose bus from the city's Century Park West carpark to Fox Studios. The six people, all shareholders, were off to attend what would be a momentous annual meeting of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

None had a clue that they were about to witness the 83-year-old media baron come dangerously close to losing his iron-fisted grip on a large part of his empire at the hands of a shareholder revolt.

News Corp's financially challenged newspaper assets form the basis of the (new) News Corp. Photo: Phil Carrick

No one expected that the billionaire Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, on whose support Murdoch relies to retain control of News Corp, wouldn't vote his shares.

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For Murdoch, in a corporate sense at least, the outcome of this meeting represented a near-death experience.

Thus Rupert Murdoch has been put on notice that his family's control of News Corporation the company that owns his international stable of newspapers, Australian pay television, book publishing and digital directory assetsis vulnerable.

The Sun king's dictatorship is being threatened by several of the company's large shareholders, who have been behind this push to force democracy on the company.

This is not the first time Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corp, has been challenged by shareholder detractors. But it is the closest shave so far. A massive 47.4 per cent of votes cast supported a proposal to eliminate the company's dual-class share structure which, had it passed, would have diluted his voting interest from almost 40 per cent to a mere 14 per cent.

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Rupert losing grip on empire