The recent acquisition and gutting of National Geographic by Murdoch once again raises questions about Murdoch's activities. In particular concern over whether Murdoch will turn National Geographic into a propaganda vehicle like FoxNews and some of his other "news" outlets.
It should be noted revenue serves as a check upon Murdoch's business activities. When Murdoch created FoxNews he simply copied the existing right wing rant radio business model and brought it to TV. FoxNews was something "new" (in TV, not radio) and was designed to draw some revenue from the right wing away from the other TV news channels.
As readily seen in Murdoch's other businesses, revenue requirements constrain Murdoch's activities. Programming on the Fox entertainment TV network can be little distinguished from programming on the other networks. The network’s business size makes it impossible to ignore its larger revenue needs -- which means revenue from a broader segment of the population than just right wing extremists.
Another way to look at this is, compared to other Murdoch business activities, FoxNews is a small boutique channel catering to a specific demographic. However the Fox entertainment TV network would see a dramatic revenue decline if it began catering to the right wing extreme. The same applies to Fox movie studios. Fox movie studio's revenue requirements means it cannot afford to alienate major segments of the population.
This "alienation" would not, in the larger, express itself through political/ideological actions such as boycotts. It would express itself simply through large numbers of consumers choosing other entertainment options because the Fox TV network and Fox movie studios offerings had become boring jokes.
They would become boring jokes not purely because they took on a right wing propaganda tone. Rather the effort to introduce right wing propaganda would result in the shows/movies becoming so far detached from the realities of the real world only right wing extreme ideologues would find any connection to them. A connection having a strange fantasy necessitating the suspension of reality in order to accept the story. Something easily seen by envisioning a network trying to introduce the original Leave It to Beaver storylines to modern TV. Everyone would assume it was meant as a joke, while only a dysfunctionally small market segment would say “this is great because it’s so wholesome.”
Another reality playing into Murdoch's business activities is most of his business properties are in slowly dying markets. Money can still be made in dying markets. It's what's referred to as the "last man standing" business strategy. A business makes a lot of money being the only business remaining to service the few remaining stragglers buying from the market. Many of these properties Murdoch has purchased cheap because they've been struggling. A result of a huge market shift -- largely lead by progressives/liberals -- moving on to other markets
In particular, more uncontrolled content delivered via the Internet. This includes larger scale content delivered by NetFlix, and slowly growing smaller scale content being delivered via sites like YouTube. While "big budget" content creation commonly delivered via NetFlix remains controlled by corporations due to project funding requirements, the small scale content creation commonly delivered via YouTube is more (small "d") democratic.
So what of National Geographic? It is highly unlikely National Geographic will be converted into delivering right wing propaganda ala FoxNews. That would promptly kill off its following and revenue, and thus flush Murdoch's investment down the toilet.
People who follow National Geographic want to see momma bear taking care of her cubs. They don't want to see Mike Huckabee. In fact they're probably going to National Geographic to get away from the political noise.
The most extreme action Murdoch may take would involve simply silencing National Geographic covering any climate change stories. People largely don't notice when something goes away, so such an action would slip into place unnoticed by the product’s followers.
To continue providing a service to its customer base (and thus revenue back to Murdoch), Murdoch still needs a nature content production staff. That makes it extremely unlikely Murdoch could slip climate change denial messaging into National Geographic without the action being exposed. If such actions start occurring and being exposed, National Geographic's image converts from nature content to political content. That conversion would result in additional loss of customers.
Thus "silence" on the subject of climate change is the most likely change if any.
As for the future, those people who served National Geographic so well with excellent content will be looking for something else to do if Murdoch alienates them. With technology constantly reducing the cost of producing content, perhaps we can hope to see an excellent alternative to National Geographic emerge as an Internet-based product, with the new product having the superior talent behind it.