Rupert Murdoch

The turmoil over Europe's fast-emerging, multibillion-dollar digital pay TV market is intensifying. In recent weeks, media companies have announced programming packages that will bring digital pay TV to Germany, Scandinavia and the Benelux countries--Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg--for the first time this summer. At the same time, an alliance of media giants aimed at the Continent's large and lucrative German market has all but collapsed due to internal differences.

Lucie Salhany, who resigned as chairman of the Fox Broadcasting Co. network last month, is in discussions on becoming the head of United Paramount Network--Chris-Craft's and Paramount's joint venture to start a fifth TV network, industry sources said. Salhany, who left Fox after clashing with studio Chairman Rupert Murdoch, previously worked at Paramount, helping to develop hits such as "The Arsenio Hall Show."

This was not how media titan Rupert Murdoch envisioned the final chapters of his storied career. With his family-controlled company engulfed in a phone hacking scandal in Britain, Murdoch's legacy has been sullied and his plan of handing over the reins of News Corp. to his children is in jeopardy. Murdoch's son James, who just six months ago was seen as the heir apparent to succeed his father as chief executive, could be pressured to resign from senior management. Statements he made to the British Parliament in July about his knowledge of the extent of the eavesdropping have been called into question.

A year or so ago, at a dinner of media executives and a few journalists, one of the guests told this joke: "Rupert Murdoch, asleep in the middle of the night, is awakened by a flash of light. He sits up, rubs his eyes and sees Satan standing at the foot of his bed. " 'What are you doing here?' the mogul demands. " 'I have come to offer you any deal you can imagine,' the devil responds. " 'What do you want in return?' says Murdoch, clearly intrigued.

Executives were wearing coats and ties for a 4 a.m. meeting Wednesday at the Manhattan headquarters of the Fox News Channel, the new 24-hour cable network. The session, which was followed by a run-through simulating the network's first day on the air, was called by Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes to impress upon staffers that they have less than a week before the "on" switch is thrown for real.

At the stroke of 6 p.m. on Sunday, British Satellite Broadcasting will launch a $2.1-billion television programming service that will give Britain five new national channels, advance the state of TV technology by a couple of notches and threaten competitor Rupert Murdoch's dream of a satellite television empire. Premiere night viewers will first see a program about the company's operations called "Around BSB in 80 Minutes."

William C. Cox Jr., the patriarch of the Bancroft clan that controlled Dow Jones & Co. for 105 years and sold it to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. in a decision sparking a family feud, died Wednesday at his home in Hobe Sound, Fla., according to his daughter, Ann Bartram. He was 82. The cause was complications from diabetes. Cox was at the center of a protracted family dispute that ultimately led to the sale of New York-based Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, to News Corp.

James Murdoch cleared the first hurdle in his bid to hold onto power in his father Rupert's company, News Corp., when he was retained as head of Britain's largest pay-TV provider despite questions about his handling of the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed the media empire. In London, the board of British Sky Broadcasting, which provides TV service to 10 million homes in Britain and Ireland, reaffirmed its support Thursday for James Murdoch to continue as chairman. The move was a bit of good news for the Murdoch clan after three weeks of daily drubbings in rival newspapers and pointed questions from members of Parliament.

A close associate of embattled executive James Murdoch will step down from her high-level position as chief human resources officer of News Corp. at the end of the month. The company said Beryl Cook would be replaced by longtime corporate consultant Jeff Mook. The move is significant because Cook was seen within News Corp. as a key member of James Murdoch's "shadow government" as he began to amass power within the global media conglomerate and was being groomed as a successor to his father, Rupert Murdoch.

Les Hinton, a former top publishing executive at News Corp. and longtime friend of its chief executive, Rupert Murdoch, has been called by a committee of British Parliament to answer a fresh round of questions this month about the phone hacking scandal roiling the media conglomerate. Hinton served for a dozen years as executive chairman of News Corp.'s British newspaper unit, News International, when the hacking allegedly occurred. He left in late 2007 to become chief executive of Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.