Lachlan Murdoch was always going to struggle in his attempt to breathe new life into his takeover of Consolidated Media Holdings, which finally died over a failure to agree terms with deal partner James Packer.

Mr Packer held the much stronger hand all along as his 38 per cent stake in CMH gave him plenty of flexibility to fund his half share in the A$3.3bn (US$3.1bn) deal, as announced in January.