Ball quitting top job at BSkyB

RUPERT Murdoch's campaign to lever his 30-year-old youngest son James into the chief executive's job at BSkyB gathered pace today as the incumbent Tony Ball quit.

Ball 'decided not to renew his service contract with the company', the satellite broadcaster announced, and would go 'well before his current contract ends on 31 May, 2004'.

The company quelled speculation of a rift between Ball and his chairman, Murdoch Snr, announcing the former would remain available to give advice and would become a consultant to the parent company, News Corp. It insisted that the departure was Ball's decision, but declined to say whether he would receive any pay-off.

In a move designed to counter any accusations of favouritism and nepotism, the company announced a nomination committee of 'independent' non-executive directors to search for a successor.

Murdoch Snr, who sat on the nomination committee when Ball was appointed in 1999, will not do so this time. The senior independent non-executive director Lord St John of Fawsley, the former Arts Minister, will chair the committee. John Thornton, the former Goldman Sachs dealmaker, Allan Leighton, the Royal Mail chairman and publisher Gail Rebuck will also be on the committee.

James Murdoch, who runs the Star TV pay-television venture in the Far East, is the favourite to win the job. News Corp owns 34% of BSkyB. Institutional shareholders have already made plain that they expect the rules of boardroom best practice to be followed.

Murdoch Snr paid tribute to Ball, describing him as 'one of the outstanding businessmen in Britain'. In his four years in charge, Ball doubled subscriber numbers to seven million and smashed rival ITV Digital, set up by Granada and Carlton.

Ball said: 'I leave with many happy memories...I look forward to helping to make the transition to a new chief executive as seamless as possible.'

Curtain call for showman

TONY Ball's final presentation to City analysts and media was a typical display of salesmanship.

'Who in this room doesn't yet have Sky Digital?' he asked.

A surprisingly large number of hands went up. Unabashed, the showman declared: 'OK - give us your business cards and you can have three months for free.'

It was a slick example of how Ball oozes confidence. No stuffy old school tie and pinstripes. No horn-rimmed spectacles peering over a podium. The silverhaired Londoner paced the stage like a TV evangelist preaching the gospel. The gospel according to Saint Rupert.

Rupert Murdoch made Ball, 47, one of his most senior henchmen in a meteoric rise through the ranks of the mogul's TV empire in Britain and the US in the 1990s. In his four years in the top job at BSkyB, he built up a digital subscriber base of some seven million homes, thanks to his £2bn gamble on set-top box giveaways.

A shoo-in that meets with the City's approval

IF EVER the appointment of a FTSE 100 chief executive could be described as a shoo-in, this is surely it. And if anyone other than James Murdoch, Rupert's 30-year-old second son, is anointed the new boss of BSkyB following Tony Ball's departure, it will be a shock of seismic proportions for the media world, writes Jonathan Prynn.

Today's announcement talks about a Higgs-compliant 'search process' conducted by a nomination committee headed by 74-year-old constitutional expert Lord St John of Fawsley. However, few in the City believe this will amount to anything more than a 'rounding up the usual suspects' exercise before a puff of white smoke confirms that the Murdochian succession is safely in place.

This outcome is causing less concern in the City than might be expected. Paul Richards, media analyst at Numis Securities, said James's impressive track record at Star meant that his credentials were authentic. 'If he is a chip off the same block as his father then it is going to be pretty good news for shareholders.'

The approval comes with one caveat - that the youthful new chief keeps intact the management line-up at BSkyB under chief operating officer Richard Freudenstein, the only potential candidate being seriously talked about as a rival to the Murdoch scion.