Elisabeth Murdoch yesterday sought to quash speculation that she was positioning herself to succeed her father Rupert as head of News Corp, limiting the chances that a member of the wider Murdoch family will continue to lead the media empire in the future.

Speaking at a Q&A session at the Edinburgh TV festival, Ms Murdoch, who chairs Shine, News Corp’s TV production company, said: “I really harbour absolutely no ambition for the top job.”

She added that no recent family discussions had taken place over succession to Mr Murdoch, chairman and chief executive at News Corp, which spans Fox News, The Times stable of newspapers and a 39 per cent stake in BSkyB.

Many people close to News Corp and the Murdoch family long assumed that Ms Murdoch was in competition with her brothers, Lachlan and James, to succeed their father, or that responsibility for the company’s operations would effectively be split between the three of his six children who have worked in the business. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012)