James Murdoch Surpasses Father in MediaGuardian Power 100

LONDON, July 14: James
Murdoch has risen to the number two spot on The Guardian’s Media 100 power rankings, passing his father, Rupert
Murdoch, in the number five spot.

Google founders Sergey
Brin and Larry Page sit on top of the annual ranking of power players in the
media business. James Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive for Europe and
Asia at News Corporation, rose to second in this year’s rankings from the
fifth-place spot last year as chief executive of BSkyB. The Guardian Media 100 panel noted: "James Murdoch is more
important in the U.K. than Rupert.”

The BBC’s
director-general, Mark
Thompson, remains in the third spot on the list. "The BBC is
incredibly powerful and remains one of our great success stories with a huge
influence on British cultural life," the panel said. "Unfortunately
for Mark Thompson he has not been able to unite the organization behind
him."

News Corporation’s
chairman and CEO, Rupert Murdoch, sits in fifth place, just behind Associated
Newspapers’ editor-in-chief, Paul Dacre. Murdoch senior was ranked second on
the Media 100 last year and his current ranking is his lowest in the list’s
eight-year history. The panel explained: “The only thing Rupert wants to talk
about now is the Wall Street Journal. He is a man obsessed—and a man in a hurry. But the Wall
Street Journal doesn't matter in
the U.K."

Rounding out the top ten
were Apple chief Steve Jobs, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Ofcom chief executive
Ed Richards, Ingenious Media Group chairman Patrick McKenna and Jane Tranter,
the controller of fiction at the BBC, who the panel referred to as the “most
important person at the BBC in terms of programming outside of Mark Thompson.”

Other notable TV execs on
the list include Michael Grade, the executive chairman of ITV, who fell from
fourth to 11th; Sir Michael Lyons, the chairman of BBC Trust, in 12th place;
Simon Cowell (14); ITV’s television director, Peter Fincham (15); Channel 4
chief Andy Duncan (16) and Virgin Media’s chief executive, Neil Berkett (17).

—By Mansha Daswani