I was the head of programming at the British satellite broadcaster BSkyB for four years, and sat in on several meetings with Rupert Murdoch, its boss at the time. But I have only ever had a single face-to-face one-on-one conversation with him.
It lasted about 30 seconds and I have no recollection of what was said. A good lip-reader might be able to work it out by looking at the film of the encounter, which was included – somewhat mortifyingly, as visual wallpaper – in the recent BBC three-part documentary series, ‘The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty’.
Much of the first part of the first episode was devoted to the famous appearance by Tony Blair at a conference for senior executives of Murdoch’s company, News Corporation, held on Hayman Island, off the coast of Queensland. This event in 1995 became famous (or, depending on your viewpoint, notorious) as part of Blair’s attempt to cosy up to Murdoch in the hope of weaning his newspapers from supporting the then Tory prime minister, John Major.
