With Ball, the man credited with much of Sky's recent success, standing down, it is widely predicted that Rupert Murdoch is lining up his second son, James, to take on the role, especially with Murdoch-owned newspaper the Sunday Times running a story saying as much.
James Murdoch is currently chief executive of the Asian satellite television network Star and would move to the UK to work for his father, who has denied that he plans to stand down as chairman of BSkyB.
It had been reported at the weekend that he was considering doing so to placate investors, who are concerned that with his son in place he will divert cash from Sky to his other ventures.
In today's announcement, BSkyB said that Ball's successor would be decided by an independent committee, to reassure investors that it would be a fair process.
While there were rumours in some quarters of a fractious relationship between Murdoch Snr and Ball, others discount this as the reason that Ball will not be renewing his contract when it expires in the spring of next year.
Lorna Tilbian, an analyst at Numis Securities, said: "Having doubled both digital subscriber numbers and revenues over the last four years I think, like all the best CEOs, Tony has decided to quit while on top!"
BSkyB is widely thought to have been testing market reaction when rumours that Ball might not be around for much longer first began to circulate last week.
The market responded then with a small dip in the share price. On today's news, however, the share price rose -- although it is still well off last month's high. Mid-morning, BSkyB shares were trading at 630.5p, a rise of 1.45% or 9p, and had climbed further by midday, up 2.1% to 635.5p.
The rise in the share price is, Tilbian said, an indication that the market has now digested the Murdoch news.
"The share price is up as the market has by now digested the strong possibility of James Murdoch taking over and, anyway, it has come off from 724p in August at the time of the interims," she said.
Gareth Hunt, an analyst at independent London brokerage Collins Stewart, argues that the question of BSkyB's share price is not over whether James Murdoch is a great business executive or not, but whether or not he will return BSkyB profits to shareholders.
"It's unlikely that Rupert Murdoch would let his son loose on what remains one of News Corp's prize assets if he's not a smart guy," Hunt said. "But News Corp has historically used its cash flow to expand, while Tony Ball had indicated that BSkyB would pay high dividends. Now that Ball's gone, is this going to change?"
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