The announcement that Elisabeth Murdoch, media mogul cum movie
star, is swapping her leading role at BSkyB to form her own start-up
production company has held the UK media industry in thrall.
Because Ms Murdoch is hot news. The Murdoch name, harnessed to her
status as a senior executive at the UK’s most successful pay-TV brand,
means she is a front page story for both Tatler and the Financial
Times.
Outside work, her contacts with the rich and famous, including Prince
Andrew, Chris Evans and her relationship with PR guru Matthew Freud,
mean there is plenty of material for the tabloids’ gossip columns. And
the media frenzy isn’t limited to the UK, the May edition of Tina
Brown’s US-based Talk Magazine carries a profile of Murdoch entitled
’Grit and Glamour’.
Her decision to sever the NewsCorp umbilical cord and set up her own
multimedia content venture - without funding from her father - has only
served to heighten media interest. Has she fallen out with BSkyB chief
executive Tony Ball, or (better still) with Rupert? Is she bowing out of
the much publicised contest between Murdoch siblings to succeed their
father at the helm of News Corp?
The truth is more mundane. Pregnant with her third child, Murdoch, 31,
wants to do her own thing. ’Liz is incredibly independent minded,’ says
Channel 5 marketing director Jim Hytner, who is a personal friend. ’If I
think of all the Murdoch children, she is the one who is most
independent and has the most fun.’
Details of her new project are sketchy. In a statement issued via BSkyB,
it is described as a production company specialising in film, television
and new media. The level of Murdoch’s involvement in it is also
unclear.
However, those who have worked with Murdoch have little doubt about her
level of commitment.
’Liz is not one for doing things half-heartedly,’ says Scott Menneer,
BSkyB marketing director. ’She will leverage all her contacts, and give
120% and it will be successful. One would be foolish to assume
otherwise.’
Hytner agrees, saying that this latest venture reflects Murdoch’s
passion for content. ’She seems at her happiest creating content. That’s
where her skills and passion lie, the people whose company she most
enjoys are those who invest in content.’
Murdoch’s latest move is not her first attempt at making a name for
herself in TV outside her father’s empire.
Her career has encompassed a range of creative and commercial roles in
TV companies across three continents, including researcher/producer for
Nine Network in Australia (not part of News Corp), and manager of
programming and promotions for Fox Television in LA. However, in the
early 90s, using a dollars 31m loan from her father, she and then
husband Elkin Pianim bought two TV stations in Northern California,
which they ran and later sold for a dollars 12m profit. ’She’s done this
before, it’s not a developmental step,’ says Hytner.
Four years on the jury is still out on the exact nature of her
achievements at BSkyB. True, she has survived the alleged power
struggles with former bosses Sam Chisholm and Mark Booth, but when you
are Murdoch’s daughter that sort of victory has a somewhat hollow
ring.
Being the boss’s daughter also makes it difficult to gain an objective
view of her performance. She was either, as Tony Ball claims ’pivotal in
the company’s creative development,’ or according to another insider
’didn’t bring Sky a huge amount’.
The consensus among BSkyB sources is that she has championed the cause
of original programming within Sky by pioneering Sky’s two production
arms: Sky Productions, which makes original non-film programming for Sky
One and Sky Premier; and the film production arm Sky Pictures. ’Before
Liz arrived here Sky was not investing in any original programming. She
persuaded Sky to invest in original production,’ says one source.
While the divisions have had some initial successes, the real test for
both is still to come. Sky One’s loss of the rights to Friends and ER,
its biggest rating shows, to Channel 4, means that original commissions
will have to deliver for a channel whose share in multi-channel homes is
steadily declining. Meanwhile, Saving Grace, Sky Pictures’ first
theatrical movie on general release, hits the cinemas this month. It is
scarcely surprising that some observers share the view of that Murdoch
is leaving ’before the job is complete’.
Others, however, believe that by going solo Murdoch is taking a vital
step to ensure that any future successes are genuinely seen as hers.
’She’s working to establish herself as an independent entity,’ says
Hytner.
BIOGRAPHY
1992-1993
Manager, programming and promotion, Fox Television, LA
1993-1994
Programme director, KSTU Fox 13
1994-1995
Director of programme acquisitions, FX Cable Networks
1995-1996
President and CEO, EP Communications
1996-1998
Director of programming, BSkyB
1998 to present
Managing director, Sky Networks
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