The Media Show

In today's programme with Steve Hewlett:Just a day after MPs say Rupert Murdoch is not fit to run a major international company, satellite broadcaster BSkyB posts big profits. It won't have escaped NewsCorp's attention that, if all had gone according to plan last summer, it would now own all of BSkyB and would now have all those profits to itself. In the current political climate, what are the prospects of NewsCorp launching a new bid for the 61% it does not already own? Mathew Horsman of Medatique and Theresa Wise discuss the future of BSkyB and whether NewsCorp will sell if buying all the shares becomes too problematic.Ashley Highfield is the chief executive of Johnston Press and tells Steve how he sees local paper surviving in the digital age. Later this month, some of Johnston's long-standing daily papers are going weekly.And Mihir Bose looks at the treatment the new England manager Roy Hodgson can expect from some newspapers simply because he is not the papers' favourite, Harry Redknapp.The producer is Simon Tillotson.

Steve Hewlett canvasses reaction to today's evidence from Rupert Murdoch with Ben Fenton of the Financial Times and Sarah Ellison, formerly of the Wall Street Journal and now contributing editor of Vanity Fair. Steve traces the rise of the Murdochs - and politicians' interest in them - from Margaret Thatcher onwards, with former cabinet member Lord Fowler, former Guardian editor Peter Preston and Claire Enders of Enders Analysis. Moving on to the BSkyB takeover that dominated yesterday's coverage of James Murdoch's evidence, the panel are joined by Steward Purvis, formerly of OFCOM. Are the controls on media ownership, which the Murdochs have challenged over the decades, as relevant now as they were before the rise of the internet? Should politicians be taken out of decisions about media ownership? The producer is Simon Tillotson.

Steve Hewlett questions Keir Starmer DPP on his new public interest defence guidelines. How much reassurance can journalists draw from them in their day to day work. Do they make it more or less likely that a jury would support investigative journalists even if they break the law?How significant are this week's changes at the Johnston Press papers and the closure of Manchester's Channel M tv station? Some of the Johnston papers are going from daily to weekly and Channel M stopped work this week. Prof Tim Luckhurst is a former editor of the Johnston Press's paper The Scotsman and Ruth Spratt is former MD of Channel M and the Manchester Evening News and they discuss whether these are milestones on the way to a more secure future for local news - or not.The Times leader on Monday called for this weekend's Formula 1 race in Bahrain to be cancelled. Ed Gorman, the paper's deputy news editor and former F1 correspondent looks at the PR drive behind the event and at calls on the media to boycott coverage.And how does Simon Cowell come out of this week's serialisation of Tom Bower's unauthorised biography? Celebrity agent Jonathan Shalit gives his view. The producer is Simon Tillotson.

Paul Staines ("Guido Fawkes") has been praised and criticised for publishing the leaked Motorman files relating to News International this week. These files appear to show the names of journalists who asked private investigator Steve Whittamore for information on hundreds of people, most of them not public names, along with the names of those people. Qualified praise comes from campaigners such as Hacked Off who say the files should be published but with the names of the public concealed, while unqualified criticism comes from the Information Commissioner Christopher Graham. Steve Hewlett talks to all three - Staines, Graham and Hacked Off's Brian Cathcart.Facebook's to buy photo sharing programme Instagram for $1billion. a little more than a year since it started up. The Telegraph's Emma Barnett looks at the reaction and at what the next steps will be.The BBC Trust has just published the job specification for the next Director General which, among other details, says that editorial background and commercial acumen would be "nice to have" but not "must have". Former BBC trustee and news editor Professor Richard Tait asks what kind of candidate the headhunters are looking for.The producer is Simon Tillotson.

How much will BSkyB and Sky News miss James Murdoch after his resignation yesterday and what is the bigger picture for the Murdoch family's NewsCorp? Are the interests of the family and the shareholders diverging? That's the discussion between media analyst Mathew Horsman of Mediatique, US National Public Radio media correspondent David Folkenflik and former Guardian editor Peter Preston.The Leveson Inquiry reaches the end of its second stage today, focussing on whether the relationship between the press and police acts in the public interest. It comes after concerns that some former Met Police officers became too close to staff at the News of the World. Sean O'Neill of The Times and Anne Pickles of The Cumberland News discuss how working relations with police have changed since the News of the World closed last July. Peter Preston looks ahead the next stage of the Leveson Inquiry later this month, when news proprietors and politicians will be cross examined.And what is riding on the success of Britain's Got Talent and The Voice? Should Simon Cowell be concerned if The Voice becomes the most talked about singing talent show while The X Factor is off air? Colin Robertson, The Sun's TV editor, gives his views.The producer is Simon Tillotson.

Almost a year after the furore over superinjunctions, there is a joint Lords and Commons report on what should be done to safeguard privacy. Among the recommendations is a call for search engines such as Google to do more to limit potential breach of court orders, with legislation to back that up if needed. Max Mosley has been calling for tighter control and he discusses this with John Kampfner, the outgoing director of Index on Censorship. John Whittingdale MP chaired the committee behind the report and Steve questions him over the findings on privacy and press regulation.BBC Panorama has been reporting on claims that a NewsCorp business, NDS, hacked into rivals' software in the pay-TV business in the UK and Italy and the front page story in the Financial Times today widens this to Australia. NDS denies any wrongdoing. Stewart Purvis, formerly of ITN and Ofcom, gives his view of where, if anywhere, the story is going.And there's a legal threat to The Only Way is Essex, ITV's "dramality" show, from the people behind a pilot programme, Totally Essex, which they say TOWIE's makers lifted from them. TOWIE's producers, Lime Pictures, say it's entirely their own work. Lawyer Rebecca Swindells outlines the issues when trying to protect any rights in a TV format. The producer is Simon Tillotson.

The Controller of BBC 1, Danny Cohen speaks to Steve Hewlett about The Voice UK. As headhunters draw up the job spec for the Director General vacancy, what issues can the next DG expect to face? The Times has won a libel ruling from the Supreme Court, what are the ramifications for the press generally? And we hear from editors at this years Press Awards.The producer is Simon Tillotson.

The Voice launches on BBC1 next week, a few weeks ahead of the usual launch date of ITV's Britain's Got Talent. This year, though, BGT's been brought forward and the two programmes will clash. Neil Midgley has been looking into how this happened and what's at stake for the broadcasters.James Murdoch's written to the Commons committee investigating phone hacking at the News of the World, reasserting that he has not misled Parliament while sharing responsibility for not uncovering wrongdoing earlier. Why has he written this now, without being asked and what hangs on the committee's delayed report? Channel 4's political editor Gary Gibbon and Guardian media editor Dan Sabbagh discuss.Lord Hunt is the chair of the Press Complaints Commission which, he announced last week, is closing down to reform. He says he has the encouragement of Lord Leveson to develop a new model for self regulation - which Lord Leveson has clarified is not the same as endorsement. Lord Hunt tells Steve how he thinks a new PCC could work.And Emma Barnett, the Telegraph's digital media editor, looks at Mashable, the technology and social media news site which CNN is said to be thinking of buying for $200 million, just a few years after a Scottish teenager started it up in his bedroom in Aberdeen.The producer is Simon Tillotson.

This week Dame Elizabeth Filkin's been telling the Leveson Inquiry about claims of improper relations between police and the press, including suggestions that some senior officers exchanged information to keep their private lives out of the papers. What impact could her recent report on police/press relations have on this and, based on what we've heard from the Inquiry this week, does she see senior officers as a greater problem than the junior ones? Lord Birt was BBC Director General from 1992 to 2000. As the search continues for a successor to the current DG, Mark Thompson, what qualities does he think the candidates need and what are the main problems that she or he will face? You can hear Greg Dyke's thoughts on this on The Media Show on 1st February.And, following this programme's coverage of the debate about women on TV, what are the prospects for the latest campaign? Broadcast magazine's calling for women to make up at least 30% of the experts used on news programmes and, so far, Sky News and Channel 4 News have pledged their support. The BBC's head of diversity, Amanda Rice, discusses this with Broadcast's editor Lisa Campbell.

As James Murdoch steps down from News International to expand the international TV side of the business and as the police claim there was a "culture of illegal payments" at the Sun, what next for the Sun and the newborn Sun on Sunday? Ben Fenton, media correspondent of the Financial Times and Sarah Ellison of Vanity Fair discuss the latest news and what this means for News Corp. They are joined by Nick Davies who has just won the Paul Foot Award for campaigning journalism for his breaking stories on phone hacking.Last autumn the BBC invited radio executive John Myers to review the planned changes to local radio which, broadly, would cut output rather than management. He tells Steve why it should be the other way round.Media analyst Theresa Wise looks at ITV's figures, out today. The broadcaster wants to move away from its reliance on advertising to pay for programmes. What signs are there that this is happening? The producer is Simon Tillotson.