Wolff: Man in the shadows key to Murdoch deal

What are Rupert's inside moves? He always has them.

His offer of about $80 billion for Time Warner is described as "unsolicited" and has been rebuffed by the company. But Murdoch, contrary to his image, is not a raider, threatening companies for negotiating leverage. It would be unlikely, if not unimaginable, that he would allow a move of this magnitude to become public without a high degree of confidence that it will succeed.

This time he has his own man inside his prey.

Murdoch's last aggressive acquisition was of Dow Jones, a four-month battle in 2007. After an in-depth investigation of the various members of the Bancroft family that held control of the company, and knowing he would be opposed by current non-family management, he leaked his offer.

One of the people closest to him during these maneuvers and throughout the battle to acquire Dow Jones was Gary Ginsberg, his principal PR lieutenant — and effectively his chief of staff. Ginsberg, a former lawyer and Clinton White House aide, had been with Murdoch since 1997 and had become his eyes and ears and principal back channel man. Indeed, there are few people who have studied Murdoch as closely as Ginsberg and can anticipate his wishes as well.

In part because of this closeness to Murdoch, Ginsberg in 2009 was forced out of Murdoch's inner circle by Murdoch's son, James, jealous of Ginsberg's influence over this father.

Ginsberg left Murdoch's company and took up virtually the same role he had with Murdoch with Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes. Ginsberg's high value is not just as a public relations craftsman but as a near legendary behind-the-scenes player in the media business. He's the man in the media shadows, the ultimate media politician.

He has been said to have been quite restless at Time Warner after the excitement of working for Murdoch. Notably, Ginsberg was in part responsible for recruiting Jeff Zucker to run CNN and had been planning on taking a senior operating role there. But in the last several months he was blocked by internal politics at Turner, the Time Warner division that oversees CNN — leaving him all the more restless.

Murdoch's move beyond the British hacking scandal, with the recent acquittal of his former top London manager, Rebekah Brooks, may have created as much an opportune moment for Ginsberg as for Murdoch.

Ginsberg's channel to Murdoch is, in some sense, the ultimate back channel. There would, via Ginsberg, be almost nothing about the predisposition of Time Warner, its board and Bewkes that Murdoch would not know. Murdoch's dealmaking has always worked best on a one-on-one basis — and with intimate intelligence. With Ginsberg at the center, Murdoch may have hit something of a career sweet spot.

The key intel here would be largely about Bewkes himself. Bewkes is 62 and, in effect, wrapping up his tenure at the company. It is a company he has transformed, but he has not made it bigger and greater — rather, smaller, more discrete, more niche. Gone are its cable assets, AOL and Time Inc. magazines. He has reduced its ambitions. He is almost proudly the opposite of a visionary. One would be hard-pressed to say what else he can do with the company. In a sense, he's prepared Time Warner for sale.

And, indeed, just at the moment when distributors are consolidating — Comcast buying Time Warner Cable, AT&T buying DirecTV — this would seem, by wide consensus in an ever-stampeding business, to be the moment to sell.

But selling is as much an emotional moment as a financial or strategic one. This may be Ginsberg's greatest talent, reading the mood of CEOs and moguls.

I hasten to say Ginsberg is not necessarily selling Bewkes out. Rather, this is choreography of a high order. Ginsberg would be the conduit between the two men, between buyer and seller. His goal would be to bring both men to the middle. Murdoch would surely not have gone public in this deal without Ginsberg's encouragement, and Bewkes would have known that he could have given Murdoch absolute discouragement through Ginsberg.

This is all in the media family.

The men may not be quite in the middle yet, but at this point, with a public offer out there, they are likely separated only by price.