Which Son Will Inherit The Empire?

By Michael Schuman

James Murdoch must have felt as if he'd stumbled onto the set of Fox TV's Celebrity Boxing. Just days after being named chief executive of BSkyB by his father, News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, James took a solid beating from the broadcaster's shareholders. Accusing the Murdochs of nepotism, they tried to block the 30-year-old Harvard dropout from the board. One lambasted the family for "arrogance and indifference" that "is completely appalling."

James sat quietly, knowing that his father, who controls not only BSkyB but also the 20th Century Fox movie studio, Fox television networks and newspapers around the world, would quash any dissent. But BSkyB shareholders may want to stick around to see how the show plays out. After a mediocre early business career--he started a rap-music label and lost News Corp. money in a bad Internet play--James proved himself at the company's Star TV. A karate enthusiast, he transformed the lossmaking Asian satellite broadcaster into the largest private TV player in India and penetrated the booming China market with cheesy American-style reality police dramas, male beauty contests and wisecracking talk-show hosts. James "clearly has some significant achievements under his belt," says Simon Twiston Davies, chief executive of the Cable & Satellite Broadcasting Association of Asia.

The BSkyB appointment has heightened chatter that James has now leapfrogged his older brother Lachlan as the most likely successor to their father, who is 72. Hardworking Lachlan, 32, who had long been viewed as Daddy's favorite, runs News Corp.'s U.S. publishing and TV business from New York City, where he has had some success turning around the perpetually troubled tabloid the New York Post. The subject of succession is clearly a sensitive one in the family. When questioned recently by a journalist, James, looking agitated, snapped, "It would be very nice to put that speculation to bed." Maybe Fox could create a new TV show to settle it: Who Wants to Be a Media Mogul? --By Michael Schuman. With reporting by Mark Halper/London

With reporting by Mark Halper/London