Rupert Murdoch

LOS ANGELES — Rupert Murdoch began his restless quest to build one of the world’s most influential media empires 65 years ago, when his father died unexpectedly, leaving him a tiny newspaper in southern Australia. In the decades since, Murdoch’s appetite seemed insatiable as he gobbled up more and more newspapers, a Hollywood movie studio, television stations, TV networks and satellite TV operations that circle the globe.

Thursday, however, the 86-year-old tycoon walked away from some of his most significant properties. He sold much of his 21st Century Fox media company to Walt Disney Co. for $52.4 billion in an all-stock deal that will slenderize Fox at a time when Disney and other media companies are bulking up.

“Are we retreating? Absolutely not!” Murdoch told Wall Street analysts on a conference call Thursday. “We are pivoting at a pivotal moment.”

One thing is clear. Murdoch is drastically downsizing his empire and charting a far different path forward than what Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger is pursuing.

Murdoch has long been a contrarian, never a sentimentalist. Now, facing a more fraught media environment and challenges by deep-pocketed technology companies like Netflix, Google, Facebook and Amazon, he and his two sons will retrench and begin to reconstitute what they are calling “new Fox.”

The slimmed-down company will be made up of the mogul’s cherished Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, the Fox broadcast network, dozens of television stations, including Los Angeles-based KTTV-TV and KCOP-TV, and a few cable sports channels. The company will hold onto its lucrative real estate, the Fox Studios lot in Century City on the west side of Los Angeles.

Murdoch, according to those familiar with his thinking, simply lacked confidence that Fox in the future could be as dominant as it has been in the past.

“Times have changed,” said Robert Wright, the former chief executive of NBCUniversal. “It is a clear retreat. It clearly is the end of an era of expansion for Rupert.”

Murdoch and his family could still have influence for years to come through their newspapers and Fox News Channel. And President Donald Trump regularly cites Fox News as his favorite information source, and Murdoch has become an informal adviser. The president even called Murdoch on Thursday to congratulate him on the deal, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

The Murdochs also will retain a second company, News Corp., which owns The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The Times of London, dozens of papers in Australia and the HarperCollins book publishing house.

The Disney-Fox deal is not expected to close until 2019 because Disney needs time to secure required regulatory approvals in the U.S. and overseas. The Murdoch family then would become the second-largest shareholders in Disney with about 4.4 percent of Disney’s stock. But such a stake would not give the Murdochs the sway they are used to.