A former Fox executive now argues Murdoch is unfit to own TV stations

Preston Padden joined the Fox broadcast network a few years after its launch and helped founder Rupert Murdoch make it viable. Its ultimate success echoes Murdoch's triumphs around the globe, including in Australia, the U.K., Europe, Latin America and Asia. Fox introduced the world to The Simpsons, COPS, House, computerized first down lines on NFL broadcasts and more. Padden worked for Murdoch as a senior executive for six years in the 1990s.

"At the time, the company motto was 'Fortune favors the brave'," Padden says now. "He was my hero. There was no question in my mind that what we were doing was good for America, good for viewers, good for advertisers, good for television stations, good for democracy."

An Associated Press photograph from the time shows him conferring with Murdoch in Washington, D.C., at a crucial Federal Communications Commission meeting in 1995. He later left to become president of ABC Television.

Now, a generation later, Padden is once more now front and center at a fight