Independence declaration or a bid for the Murdoch empire?

The chief executive of the News Corp-owned Shine Group gives the keynote MacTaggart lecture three years after her brother James delivered a stinging criticism of the BBC.

Ms Murdoch’s lecture also follows a difficult year for News Corp following the phone-hacking scandal, which prompted the closure of the News of the World in 2011 and James Murdoch’s resignation, first as chairman of News Group Newspapers and then as executive chairman of News Corp’s newspaper arm.

Some media commentators have speculated that Ms Murdoch is using the lecture as an opportunity to set out her stall for an eventual role in News Corp, more than a decade after leaving the family business to her younger siblings James and Lachlan.

But media commentator Steve Hewlett told Channel 4 News that while the lecture is likely to be significant for her, it is more of an opportunity to assert her character, which is different from her brother James.

“I’ve just interviewed Sarah Ellison of Vanity Fair, a Murdoch watcher, and for her this is Elisabeth Murdoch’s coming out speech,” said Mr Hewlett.

“Sarah Ellison’s point is that Elisabeth is both capable and ambitious. I’m sure the audience in the back of their minds will be asking: are we listening here to someone who at some point in the future will get the News Corporation top job?

“But more likely is that reasonably soon there is no Murdoch at the top of News Corporation.”

Family tradition

Ms Murdoch is the latest member of her family to give the MacTaggart lecture. In 1989 her father Rupert predicted the digital era and an on demand television, whilst lambasting the TV license fee.

In his 2009 MacTaggart lecture, James Murdoch hit out at the dominance of the BBC with its “guaranteed and growing” income through the license fee.

He described the corporation’s activities and future ambitions as “chilling”.

He said: “There is a land-grab, pure and simple, going on – and in the interests of a free society it should be sternly resisted.

The land grab is spearheaded by the BBC.”

In the three years since his lecture the BBC has seen its license fee frozen, while it has been required to fund the World Service and take responsibility for Welsh language broadcaster SC4. To compensate it has had to make cuts of up to 20 per cent.

Heir apparent?

Ms Murdoch has been chief executive of Shine since 2001, the maker of shows including Merlin and MasterChef. It was sold to News Corporation, owner of The Sunday Times, in a £415m deal, including debt.

She recently announced that she would step back from the day-to-day running of Shine allowing her to “refocus” her responsibilities towards leading Shine’s creative talent, culture and strategy.

Ms Murdoch is an observer on the News Corp board and was due to become a director until she withdrew her nomination after the phone hacking scandal broke last July.

There has been speculation that with James Murdoch now focusing on News Corp’s international TV business and Rupert Murdoch resigning as director of a string of News Corp companies, Elisabeth Murdoch could play an increasing role in the running of News Corporation.

According to the Guardian, she is “emerging as the strongest family contender to take over at the helm of her father’s empire” after reports that she had pushed for Rebekah Brooks’s resignation against the wishes of her brothers James and Lachlan.

Steve Hewlett, a writer for the Guardian newspaper and presenter of Radio 4’s Media show, tells Channel 4 News that Elisabeth Murdoch does not usually do much in public so this suggests that she sees this lecture as important.

“Given the context of everything that’s happened to her family, this has to be a significant matter for her. This is her saying to the industry: here am I.”

“James and Elisabeth are different characters… She’ll want to talk about creativity, business and enterprise – that will connect her in some respects to what her family members have said before. “James’s 2009 speech, which was aggressive and spiky, rather in the manner of his father’s 20 years ago in 1989.

“I’d be very surprised if that’s the tone Liz Murdoch strikes. She is much more a part of the television industry than either her father or brother. I’ll be surprised if we see anything as pointed or aggressive.

“The thing about the James Murdoch speech was that we were right in the period of the run-up to the 2010 election, when the Murdoch newspapers were changing sides. The speech was interpreted as a political plea to cut the BBC down to size.

“I’m sure she knows that people will expect her to at least acknowledge the elephant in the room, which is what’s happened to her family in the last 12 months – and what effect that’s had on her. There may be a difference between what she wants to say and what people want to hear.”

“It’s widely written that she tended to feel that her father overlooked her in favour of her brothers. There’s a sense in which she may feel she’s had to do her own thing to prove to Rupert she’s as good as her brothers. And she’s done that because Shine is a big company – although built with the Murdoch name and money.”

Steve Hewlett will be interviewing Elisabeth Murdoch at the Edinburgh Festival on Friday 24 August.