It might sound like one of Richard Desmond's magazines, but "fit and proper" is a test that would not ordinarily have any connection with the scandal-strewn end of Fleet Street. It exists as a means of allowing the meticulously technocratic regulator, Ofcom, to pull the plug on a broadcaster which is breaching basic proprieties. Fifteen months ago it would have been unthinkable for it to be applied to a respectable outfit such as BSkyB, and yet such have been the travails of the Murdoch family, who control a large minority stake, that Europe's biggest pay-TV provider spent the early part of the summer waiting to hear whether it would be allowed to carry on at all.

A couple of months ago BSkyB received the report, which was eventually published on Thursday, and with it the predictable news that it would not be shut down. What was more striking about Ofcom's decision was how far short it fell of declaring a clean bill of health. The test, as the ruling underlined, is an "ongoing duty", giving scope to react to any information that comes to light in the multiple, ongoing prosecutions and police inquiries sparked by the scandal that engulfed the Murdoch empire after the Guardian revealed that the News of the World had hacked into the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.

The caveat about what happens next is matched by another about what came before the report was finished. When Ofcom's probe was launched, in July 2011, NewsCorp was still bidding to raise its stake in a broadcaster, which James Murdoch chaired, from 39% to 100%. Days afterwards that bid was withdrawn, and then – in April this year – Mr Murdoch gave up his commanding position for a non-executive directorship. Ofcom was clear both that the size of an owner's shareholding is material, and indeed that the concern about any board member undermining the operation's overall fitness will be shaped by their exact role – and lessened to the extent that they "may be moderated" by their peers. Given the scorn the regulator poured on the former chairman, it seems fair to ask whether the overall conclusion about BSkyB would have been different if – instead of stepping away – Mr Murdoch had been consolidating his command.

Ofcom did not mince its words in damning a hereditary magnate who "repeatedly fell short of the conduct expected of him as a chief executive officer". It did not find conclusive evidence that he had engaged in deliberate wrongdoing, but nor did it exonerate him. Indeed, by detailing his inaction and seeming incuriosity after the first 2009 Guardian report about a £1m payout to silence hacking victims, and then again after Sienna Miller's litigation began, the regulator strengthened a conclusion that was already becoming hard to resist – that Murdoch junior is either a knave or a fool. Whichever it is, the damning language in this decision will scar his reputation for a time to come, and is there to be quoted by his enemies in the event that he should attempt a march back to the top of NewsCorp, where he remains deputy chief operating officer, or a corporate reincarnation elsewhere.

The implications for the royally remunerated former heir apparent of the media world's octogenarian colossus may be chilling for the family, but for the broadcaster which they helped to build there is the glimmer of an opportunity here. When NewsCorp's bid for 100% of BSkyB was withdrawn in the crisis month of July 2011, it seemed possible that this was a mere tactical retreat from a strategy that would be reasserted in due course. That looks less plausible 14 months later, and especially after Thursday's report. Since Mr Murdoch quit the chair in April it has become pertinent to ask what a future for BSkyB without the Murdochs might look like. Thursday will only encourage that question. With its phenomenal sports rights, a solid news operation and improving arts coverage, the broadcaster could surely thrive in a world where it was freed from any connection to NewsCorp and British newsprint – a world, in sum, where it was accepted that Sky was the limit.

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