After much speculation over the last few days, Sky has confirmed that Tony Ball will step down as BSkyB’s Chief Executive or in the words of the Sky press release “he has decided not to renew his service contract with the Company”.
He’ll stay with Sky until a successor has been appointed – “likely to be well before his current contract ends on 31st May 2004”. The industries view is that there are some large commercial changes likely at Sky, as changing the CEO is often a signal to this is Murdock companies.
Speculation is rife as to the successor, but a fair amount of the smart money is on James Murdock, who is currently with Asia’s Star TV.
BSkyB is the dominant digital TV platform in the UK with nearly seven millions homes supplied through satellite.