Trusted deputy waits in wings

Chase Carey is the trusted outsider - the most senior decision-maker at the clan table who does not bear the Murdoch name. His eccentric appearance belies a deal-making steel that has taken him very close to the summit of News Corp.

Despite his list of titles - president, deputy chairman and chief operating officer - as recently as a fortnight ago it would have been unthinkable that he might succeed his "close friend" Rupert Murdoch. Now, with panic spreading, that is increasingly what Wall Street wants.

The 57-year-old New Yorker is seen as an unsentimental numbers man with none of his boss's emotional attachment to ink. It is widely believed he wanted to cut adrift all News International titles rather than give up the BSkyB deal. A former Harvard Business School rugby player, he made his name as the man who turned Fox TV into a national force, helping to launch Fox Sports and FoxNews.

In 2003 he left News Corp to become chief executive of satellite broadcaster DirectTV, where he added one million subscribers a year. It meant Carey escaped blame for arguably Murdoch's worst deal, the ill-fated $580 million takeover of MySpace, in 2005.

Carey returned to News Corp in 2009 as the mogul's number two.