Elisabeth Murdoch surprise contender to become new BBC Director-General Prospect of Rupert Murdoch’s daughter running the BBC will unnerve staff – but she has the right credentials for Downing Street

Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of Rupert Murdoch who became a successful television entrepreneur in her own right, has emerged as a surprise candidate to run the BBC.

Ms Murdoch, former head of Shine UK, the production company behind Masterchef and Broadchurch, would be seen as an acceptable new Director-General by the BBC’s critics in Downing Street.

However the prospect of a member of the Murdoch family, which has waged a consistent campaign against the licence fee-funded BBC through its newspapers, running the broadcaster will strike fear into many at the beleaguered corporation.

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The i has learned that the BBC is appointing headhunters to broaden the search for a new leader, following the announcement that Tony Hall is leaving.

Headhunters appointed

Current favourites include Charlotte Moore, BBC Director of Content, the best-placed internal candidate, Jay Hunt, former head of BBC1 and Channel 4 who now leads Apple’s European TV commissioning, Alex Mahon, chief executive of Channel 4 and ITV chief executive Carolyn McCall.

Insiders say the BBC is almost certain to appoint its first female Director-General.

The BBC Board, led by Sir David Clementi, is seeking a figure with proven leadership in the creative industries who carries enough authority in Whitehall to guide the BBC through tough negotiations over the future of the licence fee.

Murdoch is a BBC supporter

Ms Murdoch, who founded Shine in 2001 and pocketed £130m when she sold the business to 20th Century Fox a decade later, ticks many of the boxes.

She does not share her family’s antipathy to the BBC, having sold dozens of shows to the broadcaster as a producer.

Stepping aside from her family’s succession battle, Ms Murdoch, 51, has spoken in support of the “universal licence fee” but urged the BBC to show “how efficiently that funding is being spent on actual content”.

It is not clear if Ms Murdoch would welcome an approach for the £450,000 post.

Last year she co-founded Sister, a global television production business which developed the acclaimed Sky drama Chernobyl.

Rebekah Brooks ‘dream candidate’

Last week, Culture Secretary Baroness Morgan warned that the BBC licence fee may not survive beyond the end of the current Royal Charter in 2027.

Although Downing Street’s dream choice to lead the BBC into a post licence fee future would be a longstanding critic such as Rebekah Brooks, CEO of Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, a figure such as Ms Murdoch would prove an acceptable compromise.

Who is Elisabeth Murdoch?

Australian-born Elisabeth, Rupert Murdoch’s second-eldest child, joined her father’s cable TV network FX, then took a senior position at the family-controlled satellite broadcaster, BSkyB.

Elisabeth quit to set up her own TV production business Shine in 2001. Distributing hits such as Masterchef it became the UK’s largest “indie”, selling 20 shows to the BBC and buying other production companies like Kudos, maker of Broadchurch.

Shine Group was sold to 21st Century Fox, her father’s media conglomerate, in 2011 for £415m. It later emerged that Shine had debts of around £100m, much higher than had been thought.

Her second marriage, to PR guru Matthew Freud, placed Elisabeth at the centre of the “Chipping Norton set”, with the likes of David Cameron regular party guests. The couple, who have two children, divorced in 2014.

When the hacking scandal broke, Elisabeth was publicly critical of the response of her brother James, the head of News International.

She staked her independence from the family, calling the BBC licence fee “a strategic catalyst to the creative industries of this great country” in an Edinburgh TV Festival lecture.

Friends say her gender has held Elisabeth back in the male-dominated Murdoch succession battle. She is the template for the character “Shiv”, Logan Roy’s daughter in HBO’s media drama Succession.

Her third husband, the artist Keith Tyson, says Elisabeth finds it “rough to watch.”

Barriers to Murdoch takeover

Although the appointment of the new Director-General is a matter for the BBC Board, Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s top aide, has privately warned that a “business as usual” successor to Tony Hall would only hasten the end of the licence fee.

Handing the BBC’s future to a scion of the Murdoch dynasty would be a huge risk for the broadcaster’s board.

Headhunters already have their sights on female candidates with commercial TV experience – Jay Hunt’s role at Apple, heading the tech giant’s drive into streaming from London, probably gives her the edge.

Elisabeth Murdoch has £300m in the bank, boosted by dividends from her father’s sale of Fox’s entertainment assets to Disney, and has made a number of strategic investments in digital start-ups.

Would she give that up for a £450,000 salary and the task of leading an organisation she has never worked for, into an uncertain and likely diminished, future?

If the BBC baulked at Ms Murdoch, an attractive option is Alex Mahon, Channel 4’s chief executive.

Hired by Murdoch for her Shine group in 2006, it was Mahon who struck a series of deals, bringing the likes of Broadchurch producer Kudos into the expanding business.

The upside of luring Ms Murdoch, named the fifth most powerful woman in Britain in a Woman’s Hour poll, to Broadcasting House, is the instant authority her name would carry in tough negotiations over the BBC’s future with Downing Street.

“It could be a genius move. They wouldn’t dare f*** with a Murdoch,” said one insider.