H

BSkyB/Tim Anderson
James Murdoch

“It’s not for me to comment on previous regimes. The “We owe it to them to be able to tell them all the things
business evolves. The marketplace evolves. That’s what that we know and all the things that we plan,” he says.
everyone does when they come in – you say: where are we It is already clear that James Murdoch is a very differ-
going? Let’s dig in and understand this.” ent chief executive from predecessors such as the “effing
His analysis of the state of the UK satellite broadcaster and blinding” Sam Chisholm, or Tony Ball, who was a hard
after taking over clearly convinced him of the need for radical driver of targets like the £400-a-year Arpu (average revenue
change. The first outlines of the new multi-faceted strategy per subscriber).
– including the £150 “free” satellite offer – started to form as “He [James] is excep-
early as January. tionally bright and very
collaborative in his man-
‘We outlined a plan
Non-subscribers: we know who you are
The next step was to amass data, ask endless questions
agement style. He real-
ises that in going for-
to take this business
and test gut feelings against the facts to decide how best to
kick-start the business after the current 8 million subscriber
ward the business faces
different challenges to
to a greater scale than it is
target is met.
“It was really only when we got to the summer that the
what it faced to date,”
says an understandably
today… and to go out and
details of the plan really came together as part of a short-
term and long-term budgeting process. We took it to the
delighted Sky channel
chief Dawn Airey, who
re-introduce this company
board and said, ‘Here’s where we are going. Let’s do it
now,’” says the executive who cut his teeth running News
will get extra money for
high-profile programmes
to the marketplace’
Corporation’s Asian satellite television business Star TV in
Hong Kong.
for Sky One.
James Murdoch
He acknowledged that the plan could have been released Few friends in the City
piecemeal. Instead, the decision was taken to let it all hang The City, however, will continue to be wary of James Mur-
out, the good news as well as the bad, and take the inevita- doch and his plan. It will want to see proof that after 2007
ble heat from the City. he really can drive the business to new levels of profitability
Thus the new target of having 10 million subscribers and success, and that the process will begin to accelerate
by 2010, compared with the current 7.3 million, came out once the necessary investment has been made.
alongside the need to invest in modernising Sky’s broad- And will the eventual natural “equilibrium” for pay-TV in
casting operations, not least to avoid breaching health and the UK, on the other side of digital switch-off, really turn out
safety regulations. to be 80% of the population as Murdoch believes?
In what looked like throwing in the kitchen sink, there What if the second son of Rupert Murdoch should end up
was also more money for Sky One and the creation of an getting it wrong, despite the wealth of data that has been
elaborate proprietary “prospects” database on the more assembled? “Look, we are not going to be wrong. We have
than 12 million or so homes that have so far managed to put a lot of work into this. We are very committed to this.
resist the Sky marketing department. The whole team is committed to it. We have got our eyes
Given the enormous scale of the changes, Murdoch believes very, very firmly fixed on making this happen. And we are
that BSkyB shareholders deserved complete frankness about going to do it,” he says in a characteristic note of Murdo-
what was planned and how much it would cost. chian certainty. ±

Television September 2004 13

12-13 Murdoch - Snoddy v3 3 8/8/04, 8:27 pm