Sky's not the limit for Elisabeth

She might have to battle her brothers for it, but Rupert Murdoch's daughter has her eye on the old man's job.

There's a new Murdoch in town. Elisabeth, 27-year-old daughter of Rupert, is about to become general manager, broadcasting, at BSkyB, the London-based satellite television company that her father controls.

This is news that will be treated cautiously by staff at the Sky stations. The scions of powerful families tend to invite respect wherever they land, but when Daddy controls a vast chunk of the world's media - book and newspaper publishing, film and television companies included - and has a reputation as one of the most ruthless managers on the planet, respect comes in spades.

The Murdochs are emerging as a dynasty that has an eye on its succession. Last year, Rupert, 64, made his 24-year-old son, Lachlan, deputy chief executive of his master company, News Corporation's Australian subsidiary. Two days after that appointment, Elisabeth was asked if the new title implied Lachlan was being groomed for the company's top job. "I don't think so," she replied. "But it does make me feel like I have to hurry up."

No one could accuse Ms Murdoch of taking it easy. While Lachlan has been climbing the corporate ladder in leaps and bounds, Elisabeth has been carving out her own route to News Corp's executive suite.

She grew up in Manhattan, moving there at six when her father took control of the New York Post. Educated at the smart, all-girl Brearley School on the city's Upper East Side, she went to Vassar College in northern New York state, where she met her Ghanaian husband, Elkin Pianim, while filming a promotional piece for a university television show - he smiled and she wangled an introduction through a mutual friend.

Although they dated "seriously" early on, there was no talk of marriage until two years later, while she was working as a researcher for Australia's A Current Affair television programme.

"I gave him a deadline," says Ms Murdoch, with a laugh. She was about to move to Salt Lake City for a stint as programme director at the News Corp-owned Fox Television station there, and felt they had to make a decision about their future together. "I told him: 'You have until Christmas to ask me to marry you.' He asked me on Christmas Eve."

She says race has never been an issue for them or their parents but admits there have been some unpleasant experiences. "Sometimes Elkin will open my eyes to the fact that people may be being rude to us not because they don't happen to like us but because he's black. There are certain things you probably don't pick up on fast enough."

With the blessing - and loan guarantees - of her father, Elisabeth hit the ground running in 1994 with the purchase of two northern California television stations. Elkin, her partner in the project, had been scouting opportunities for months, but it was her father who found the stations - cast-offs from a $500m deal done by his Fox Television network.

Although the price-tag - $35m - was small by Fox standards, it was a huge responsibility for the then 25-year-old Ms Murdoch. She had barely two years' management experience in television, and her husband, who had been in investment banking, had none. In addition, she was just weeks away from giving birth to her first child, Cornelia, when they took ownership of the stations. "It was hard," she says. "I was back at work two weeks after she was born."

As president and general manager, Ms Murdoch was run ragged trying to manage both stations. The largest, KSBW in Salinas, was only half an hour from her home, but the other, KSBY in San Luis Obispo, was a three-hour drive away.

She and her husband drove to San Luis Obispo once a week in the first months, and quickly began making personnel changes - beginning with the removal of a well-liked community service director, who had been at the station more than 13 years. Within a month they had sacked their newly appointed general manager.

In all, of a staff of 75, about 18 were either fired or not re-engaged, and by the end of the year, almost half the staff had turned over. The changes were not well received in the small town and Ms Murdoch was criticised for her inexperience, for her treatment of staff, even for having unrealistic standards.

"I will never lower my standards," she says, and makes no apologies for the personnel turnover, either - most, she says, simply couldn't adapt to change. "Unfortunately, these things happen. I was in a situation where I wanted to raise the bar and those who could, and wanted to, did it with me."

Disappointed by constant on-air gaffes, Ms Murdoch issued a directive, which came to be known as the "Three-Strikes Memo", in which she warned of reprisals for production glitches. Staffers claim the note threatened firings if any newscast contained three production errors.

Ms Murdoch disagrees: "Basically, there was a point where we were having continual errors and we put out a note to people who had asked what the course of disciplinary action was."

She concedes now, however, that the tactic was counterproductive. "Sabre- rattling sometimes backfires. It certainly does not instil a sense of trust, and obviously I learned a lot from that lesson," she says.

While her personnel moves were questioned, financially, the Murdoch/Pianim tenure was undeniably successful. After little more than a year, the two stations were recently sold for an impressive $12m profit - a 30 per cent return - about $1m for every month of ownership.

Ms Murdoch is plain about her ambition to rise to the top of News Corp but had been intending to delay her move in order to take a masters degree in business. The fact that that plan has been put aside lends weight to the idea that she and Lachlan may one day compete for the succession. She acknowledges that it will probably come to her or one of her two brothers - the youngest, James, is 23 - to succeed their father as CEO of the company. All have a strong dose of Murdoch drive, she says.

"I don't know how we couldn't be ambitious - being relatively normal, sane people. Of course we've been influenced to think big. My parents are both doers and I think we all have that in us."

As to her father stepping aside, she does not see retirement in his future. "I think he plans on doing this until the day he drops. ... I just look forward to the day my brothers and I are ready to be his deputies, to help him. I'd like to be able to take a bit of the weight off his shoulders and to be the extra eyes and ears for him."

While youngest brother James has yet to join News Corp - he recently started a record company in New York - he could become a key player in the future. "He may be brighter than all of us," Ms Murdoch says, insisting that he will eventually join the fold.

As a Murdoch, the attraction may be inescapable. Even James, who, when contacted in New York, initially declined to comment about the possibility of joining the company, eventually admitted, "I guess I will always be involved - it is the family business."