Everyone will have seen these by now, but to recap James Murdoch topped the poll as the director non-Murdoch shareholders would most like to eject, closely followed by Lachlan. The votes against were 35% and 34% respectively, a fair bit higher than the working assumption of about 25% against and, importantly, a majority of the independent votes.
As I have written before, now the News Corp AGM is over and done with I think that pressure for change will come from a number of sources. I hope investors go back to News Corp on the back of the AGM results and continue to push for change. The board has given out the message that it still thinks, for example, that a combined chair/CEO is appropriate so they aren't going to roll over.
In the near future we have James Murdoch in front of the DCMS committee on 10th Nov, and facing re-election as BSkyB chair on 29th Nov. I expect he'll be in for a pretty rough month, as even BSkyB investors are losing faith with him. Also expect to see more hacking developments break in the press. The Indy has clearly got some good lines in as evidenced by this morning's scoop on 'the Hub' - a mobile phone just used for hacking that was kept.... in the NOTW newsroom. ie it wasn't hacking by proxy via Mulcaire etc.
There are quite a few disgruntled NI people now out of work. Especially when they have been given an unceremonial heave-ho, what incentive doe they have to keep quiet now? So I reckon we can expect more to come out.
Personally speaking, I intend to blog about other subjects again soon!
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