“We have lost the most wonderful mother but we are all grateful to have had her love and wisdom for so many years,” read a family statement. “Throughout her life, our mother demonstrated the very best qualities of true public service. Her energy and personal commitment made our country a more hopeful place and she will be missed by many.”

In a New Yorker story about Rupert Murdoch’s daughter, the younger Elisabeth Murdoch, author Ken Auletta shared an anecdote about the family matriarch.

Rupert Murdoch, who is eighty-one, abhors the gossip about his successor. Like Charles de Gaulle, he cannot imagine death knocking on his door. He maintains a careful diet, works out with a trainer, and reminds people that his mother, Dame Elisabeth, is a hundred and three years old. “When the Queen Mum died, at one hundred and one,” Roger Ailes recalls, “I said to Rupert, ‘She had a good run.’ ” Murdoch replied, “I’d call it an early death.”

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Among the topics covered was Fox News, which Sherman says is not of particular appeal to either Elisabeth or James, though he notes that James Murdoch is a businessman first and foremost, and loves the cable channel’s big profits:

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Brand Republic reports that News Corp. has withdrawn undertakings it has promised to the government, delaying the BskyB process for months, and possibly longer… if the government even allows it to continue. Unlike in the U.S., where a company makes a deal to acquire another and then seeks government approval, in the U.K. the process is effectively reverse, with the government having to grant approval first.

As part of the move, News Corp. has withdrawn its plans to spin off Sky News as part of the deal to acquire BskyB.

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Following this story and this one from media reporters Lloyd Grove and Michael Wolff, speculating that Murdoch family members want Ailes out of Fox News, Ailes has responded to the LA Times. Additionally, News Corp. deputy chairman Chase Carey stands up for Ailes, saying, “News Corp. is 100% behind Roger Ailes — we hope and expect he will continue to lead Fox News well into the future.”

This was all touched off by this quote in the New York Times story from Matthew Freud, who is Rupert Murdoch‘s son-in-law.

Ailes tells The LA Times’ Joe Flint he’s sure he has met Freud but, “I couldn’t pick him out of a lineup … most people who have a problem at least walk up to me and talk to me about it.”

Ailes has communicated with Freud’s wife, Elisabeth Murdoch as well as James Murdoch. “There is nothing to the idea that I have any problem with the children,” says Ailes. “The entire Murdoch family has been nothing but supportive.”

Ailes joked that the U.K.-based public relations executive, who is a descendant of Sigmund Freud, “needs to see a psychiatrist.”

This story appeared on the mediabistro.com Morning Newsfeed. Click here to subscribe and get the morning’s media news in your inbox.

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The MSNBC host has made a list the includes such TV luminaries as Tina Fey, Elisabeth Murdoch and Tyra Banks. In fact, Maddow is the only TV news host to make TVWeek’s Women in Television: 2008 list, unless you include Barbara Walters who made it alongside her The View co-hosts.

TVWeek says Maddow made the list because, “She is the biggest, brightest overnight star ever created in the cable news universe.”

> More: The icing on the cable cake — Friday’s ratings. Maddow won her time slot in younger viewers, coming in second in Total Viewers. She also helped deliver strong viewership for the re-air of Countdown at 10pmET which also came in first in younger viewers in its time slot.

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