The Packer-owned Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd (PBL) is preparing to announce as early as today a major deal which could involve the $4 billion sale of half its media interests, including the Nine television network.
Ms Buttrose, who once edited the Packer-owned Australian Women's Weekly, said she wonders if James Packer will now make a play for John Fairfax Holdings.
"The thing that interests me most about this is whether they will make a tilt for Fairfax," she told Southern Cross Broadcasting.
"I think one thing about the Packers, a lot of people don't remember, is just how fierce the battle was between the Fairfaxes and the Packers."
Ms Buttrose said the Packer family also had a score to settle over the Fairfax coverage of the Costigan royal commission in 1984, at which Kerry Packer was accused of having links to organised crime.
The Australian government unequivocally cleared him of any criminal activity in 1987.
"There is a grudge there to be paid," she said.
"I do seem to recollect that the Fairfax press gave Kerry a very hard time over some allegations that were not proven."
Ms Buttrose said the sell-off was about James Packer wanting to show he was going to do things his way.
She said he also did not share the same passion for media that
Kerry or his grandfather Frank had.
"It was the thrill of what you could do with the media, the thrill of the big deal in advertising, the thrill of winning the ratings on Channel Nine, the thrill of all of those things," she said.
"I don't think James gets the same buzz."
Instead, James had inherited Kerry's love of gambling, she said.