Jeremy Darroch | MediaGuardian 100 2012
Job: chief executive, BSkyB
Age: 50
Industry: broadcasting
2011 ranking: 19
Jeremy Darroch has plenty to celebrate. The BSkyB chief executive was seen punching the air in delight after Team Sky's Bradley Wiggins became the first British winner of the Tour de France.
If the broadcaster's £10m-a-year cycling sponsorship was the brainchild of James Murdoch, then Darroch saw it over the finishing line, in more ways than one. Chief executive since 2007, he hit his predecessor Murdoch's 10 million subscriber target a month early, and now has a total customer base of 10.6 million.
Sky had revenues of £6.8bn in the year to the end of June (compared with the BBC's total income of just over £5bn), with record pre-tax profits of nearly £1.2bn, up 17% year on year.
All this at a time when there is no Murdoch at the top of the satellite broadcaster for the first time in years following James Murdoch's resignation as chairman in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal and News Corporation's aborted takeover of BSkyB.
News Corp remains BSkyB's largest single shareholder, hence the blot on Darroch's horizon – media regulator Ofcom's investigation into whether BSkyB is a fit and proper owner of a broadcasting licence. But Darroch's power waxes as the Murdochs wane.
The Sky chief executive has overseen a big drive into homegrown programming on Sky1 and Sky Atlantic, and expanded its sports portfolio with Formula One on its own dedicated channel.
Darroch held on to live Premier League football – the bedrock of his business – but at a cost, splashing out 40% more in a new three-year, £2.3bn deal. Its latest challenger, albeit with a fraction of the games, is BT. A new name on the field of play, then, but will the result be the same?
Now he is taking on LoveFilm and Netflix with Sky's Now TV. With growth of BSkyB's traditional pay-TV business continuing to slow, the battle for eyeballs has moved online.