Elisabeth Murdoch supports BBC licence fee

Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch, has used a keynote speech at the..

12:22 26 August 2012

Edinburgh TV Festival to voice her support for the BBC. She urged the media to focus not only on profit but also on morals. 

 

Murdoch, whose production house makes Merlin and Masterchef for the BBC, praised the corporation for its creative way of leadership, a comment that came in stark contrast to her brother James’ comments. 

 

In 2009, James Murdoch gave a lecture of his own and described BBC’s size and ambition as ‘chilling’. James, an executive at News Corp, has recently been embroiled in a phone hacking scandal, an issue which Elisabeth chose to distance herself from. 

 

Elisabeth went on to criticise the ‘dearth of integrity’ in many institutions today that made arguing against the Leveson inquiry into press standards hard. She said that ‘self-serving relationships’ between great pillars of society serve as reminders that ‘with great power comes responsibility’. 

 

She also said that the Leveson inquiry should result in the ‘fierce protection of a free press and light tough media regulation’. 

 

“Sadly, the greatest threats to our free society are too often from the enemies within.”

 

But while she praised the BBC for its Olympic coverage and creative leadership, Ms. Murdoch did add: “The BBC needs ITV and Sky to thrive so that they can maintain a position of equality rather than dominance.”

 

She publicly voiced her support for the ‘universal licence fee’ and mentioned that the biggest challenge that BBC is now facing is ‘to demonstrate how efficiently that funding is being spent on actual content’.