Byline: By danny hakim section: Section B; Column 0; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 1 Length

LOAD-DATE: March 27, 2008
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The New York Times
March 26, 2008 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

Paid Notice: Deaths SCHOTT, MICHAEL B.
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Classified; Pg. 21
LENGTH: 597 words
SCHOTT--Michael B., Beverage Industry Exec, dies at 59. Michael Bennett Schott, age 59, died on March 24, 2008 after a valiant battle with brain cancer. Born in Cincinnati, OH, in 1948, to the late Cincinnati Police Chief Jacob Schott and his wife Dollie, Michael leaves behind his wife Evonne Stevenson Schott; his children, Kyle Louise, Chicago, John Chapin, Boston, Margaret Condon, San Francisco, Leslie Kathleen, Los Angeles, and Mark Edmund, Santa Cruz, CA; siblings Barbara Boyd (Jack Boyd, late), Jacksonville, FL, Jacob Schott (Donna), Cleveland, OH, and; step-children Samuel Joseph Stevenson and Thomas Scott Stevenson, Grosse Pointe Woods, MI. Mike graduated from Western Hills High School and was named All-American for his football prowess.

Mike attended Ohio University on a full football scholarship and excelled not only on the field but in the classroom as well. After leading his team to an undefeated season and the 1968 Tangerine Bowl, he was inducted into the Ohio University Hall of Fame. Dr. Vernon Alden, then president of Ohio University and former Associate Dean of Harvard Business School, became Mike's mentor, guiding his decision to pursue a Masters in Business Administration at Harvard Business School rather than a professional football career. After graduation from Harvard in 1972, Mike began his career and eventual rise as the industry king in the beverage world. He returned to Cincinnati, with NuMaid Margerine where he met and married Roberta Louise Condon. As newlyweds they moved to the New York metro area and Mike began working for Pepsi Bottling Co. He eventually became president of Poland Spring Water, holding the position until the company's purchase by Perrier. Upon the sale of Poland, Mike moved back to Cincinnati, to be a partner in the Hudepohl Schoenling Brewing Co. In Cincinnati, Mike's family grew to five beautiful children. Not long after the birth of their youngest child, the family moved to Detroit where Mike turned his efforts to Don Lee Distributor. Within a year, the talented entrepreneur was tapped to launch AriZona Iced Tea. At AriZona, Mike further demonstrated his ability to improve operations and manage rapid sales growth in the beverage industry. He was quickly promoted into senior management at Nantucket Nectars, Snapple, SoBe, Everfresh, and others, eventually becoming the lynchpin in building Monster Energy, the backbone of the unprecedented growth of Hansen Beverage Company. During Mike's five years with Hansen, the company was named by Forbes Magazine as the number one small company in the U.S. in 2005 and 2006. In 2005, Mike Schott married Evonne Stevenson. Too soon thereafter, in October 2006, Mike was diagnosed with a Stage Four GBM brain tumor. Mike's work ethic and determination to succeed now faced an even greater challenge. He used this tragic turn of events as an opportunity to move medical science forward. Mike was a man who put his time, effort, and financial resources into supporting projects he felt would benefit the greater good. While his battle with cancer was eventually lost, the medical progress he forged with Genentech Inc. will continue to fight for those suffering from similar ailments for years to come. Mike was known for his work ethic based on his favorite sayings including attitude is everything, persistence and determination alone are omnipotent and from those to whom much is given, much is expected. His legacy will continue to grow through the Michael B. Schott Fund at the Hermelin Brain Tumor Center at the Henry Ford Health System, Detroit, MI.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: DEATHS & OBITUARIES (90%); FOOD & BEVERAGE (90%); BEVERAGE INDUSTRY (90%); EDUCATION (90%); CHILDREN (89%); NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS (89%); BEVERAGE MFG (89%); UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION (88%); SOFT DRINKS (78%); CANCER (78%); MARRIAGE (77%); AMERICAN FOOTBALL (74%); SPORTS (74%); SCHOLARSHIPS & GRANTS (74%); SALES FIGURES (72%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (72%); SOFT DRINK WHOLESALERS (69%); ETHICS (66%); BREWERIES (64%); POLICE FORCES (57%); BUSINESS EDUCATION (90%)
COMPANY: HANSEN BEVERAGE CO (62%); HUDEPOHL-SCHOENLING BREWING CO (65%); PEPSI BOTTLING GROUP INC (54%)
ORGANIZATION: OHIO UNIVERSITY (91%)
TICKER: PBG (NYSE) (54%)
INDUSTRY: NAICS312111 SOFT DRINK MANUFACTURING (54%); SIC2086 BOTTLED & CANNED SOFT DRINKS & CARBONATED WATER (54%)
PERSON: MICHAEL L BENNETT (91%)
GEOGRAPHIC: CINCINNATI, OH, USA (94%); BOSTON, MA, USA (92%); SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA (92%); LOS ANGELES, CA, USA (92%); CLEVELAND, OH, USA (79%); NEW YORK, NY, USA (79%); JACKSONVILLE, FL, USA (79%); DETROIT, MI, USA (79%); SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CA, USA (90%) OHIO, USA (94%); MASSACHUSETTS, USA (92%); CALIFORNIA, USA (92%); NEW YORK, USA (79%); FLORIDA, USA (79%); MICHIGAN, USA (79%); ARIZONA, USA (72%) UNITED STATES (94%); POLAND (90%)
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The New York Times
March 25, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Social Entrepreneurs: Here's What They Can Do
SECTION: Section A; Column 0; Editorial Desk; LETTER; Pg. 26
LENGTH: 235 words
To the Editor:

''Thoroughly Modern Do-Gooders,'' by David Brooks (column, March 21), illustrates the power social entrepreneurs have to develop measurable solutions to social problems and the supportive role government can play. In several states this effort is already under way.

Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu of Louisiana created the first Office of Social Entrepreneurship in 2006 after witnessing how social entrepreneurs helped after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

In Virginia, the Phoenix Project partnered with the governor's office to encourage social entrepreneurial solutions to reduce poverty. In Texas, One Star Foundation is working with the governor to explore several opportunities like those Mr. Brooks suggested.

There is also research emerging on the topic, including a chapter on social entrepreneurship in the latest Small Business Administration annual report and coming Aspen Institute activities. These initiatives are only the beginning of what may be a new role for government as the public innovator.

By adapting some of the same policies and programs that encourage private-sector entrepreneurship, government leaders can stimulate innovative solutions that work.

Andrew Wolk Cambridge, Mass., March 24, 2008

The writer is the founder and president of Root Cause, an organization dedicated to advancing social innovation, and a senior lecturer in social entrepreneurship at M.I.T.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: ENTREPRENEURSHIP (93%); LETTERS & COMMENTS (90%); GOVERNORS (90%); US STATE GOVERNMENT (76%); EDITORIALS & OPINIONS (74%); SMALL BUSINESS (72%); HURRICANE KATRINA (71%)
ORGANIZATION: SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (56%)
GEOGRAPHIC: LOUISIANA, USA (92%); MASSACHUSETTS, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: March 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
DOCUMENT-TYPE: Letter
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The New York Times
March 25, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Small Firms Find Credit Is Tightening
BYLINE: By ELIZABETH OLSON
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1189 words
Lenders' credit woes are starting to take a toll on small businesses.

Though it may be too early to determine how hard small businesses will be hit, some national surveys show that the businesses are encountering more restrictions at lending institutions, making it harder to get the credit necessary to expand or, in some cases, stay afloat.

Last month, a Federal Reserve report found that a third of banks in the United States had tightened their lending standards for small-business loans.

Soundings of business owners themselves are mixed because credit availability is not uniform across the country. More than half of those responding to the National Small Business Association's online poll two weeks ago replied ''yes'' when asked whether their business had ''been impacted by the credit crunch in recent months.'' But another group, the National Federation of Independent Business, said that more than a third of the members responding to its February survey said they were borrowing normally, and only 4 percent said there was a problem getting a loan.

The Small Business Administration has not said publicly that it is worried about a credit squeeze even though the number of business loans made through its main program, called 7 (a), has declined so far this fiscal year by more than 15 percent compared with the period last year. And the dollar value of the loans declined by more than 7 percent. The agency guaranteed some $20.6 billion in such loans in the last fiscal year.

This month, Steven C. Preston, the agency's administrator, held a closed meeting with major bank executives at the White House to talk about small-business credit. The list of those attending was not made public, but Mr. Preston said afterward, ''We know affordable credit is the lifeline of any business, and we also know banks have been tightening their credit standards.''

Mr. Preston has been meeting with banks around the country to remind them of federally guaranteed loan offerings, an agency spokeswoman, Christine Mangi, said.

But Congressional Democrats have argued that this is far from enough to help small businesses ride out a tumultuous economy.

''The S.B.A. should be a major instrument to help small business,'' Senator John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, said in an interview. Instead, he said, the agency has raised fees on loans and cut back on debt counseling for small businesses in economic trouble.

According to S.B.A. data, more than $1 billion in 7 (a) loans -- the most basic and most used loan type -- were delinquent on Dec. 31, 2007, compared with about $673 million a year earlier.

The administration ''has been ignoring data on small-business economic conditions since at least October,'' Mr. Kerry added.

Advocates for small business argue that it is a mainstay of employment, even in economic downturns.

''What's significant here is that microenterprises continued to create new jobs even during the 2001 recession,'' said Amy McKenna Luz, president of the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, a national organization for small businesses. When the auto, telecommunications and other major industries were laying off people, she said microenterprises (businesses with five or fewer employees) continued to add jobs -- some 4.5 million from 2000 to 2005.

One small-business owner who has been running into problems obtaining new credit is Tate M. Linden, who opened his marketing consulting business three years ago. Last May, he said, he had no trouble obtaining a $35,000 line of credit for Stokefire, his branding consulting business in Alexandria, Va.

But when he went back several weeks ago to the same institution to add another $15,000 to his credit line, the answer was no.

''We just thought it would be as simple as making a check mark in the box because we have revenues coming in,'' said Mr. Linden, 36.

When the economy slides, he said, businesses like his do well as companies clamor for expertise to refresh or turn around their image. So he had planned to double his three-employee staff now and then add another four to five people later this year in sales, project management and graphic design. But he halted his hiring plans when he got a formal rejection on grounds he already had ''sufficient credit.''

Kathy D. Wheeler, chief executive of Community Business Partnership, a nonprofit organization in Springfield, Va., that trains entrepreneurs to start and expand businesses, said Mr. Linden's tale ''shows me there is a lending problem.''

Sirena C. Moore of Bristol, Pa., said she also had difficulty when she tried to get a line of credit for her company, Elohim Cleaning Contractors, which, she said, took in nearly $2 million last year from asbestos removal and cleanup of construction sites in the Philadelphia area.

''The bank said it wanted more credit history,'' said Ms. Moore, 26, whose company started with $3,000 in revenue in 2002. ''But I've never taken out a loan before and I don't own a house. My car is paid because I bought it used.''

She applied for a $250,000 credit line, she said, so the ''company would have a cushion, and I can actually take a real salary, which I've never done because I always have to make sure the crew is paid first.''

She added, ''The banks are happy to give us a lollipop, but nothing when it comes to credit.''

The trade association for lenders has urged Congress to step in, noting that there is more demand for federally guaranteed loans when credit standards tighten.

''Loan volume is declining at an alarming rate,'' Anthony R. Wilkinson, president of the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders, told a House of Representatives hearing on lending this month. ''With each passing week of this fiscal year, the problem is getting worse.''

Commercial banks like Bank of America insist there has been no change in their lending programs. Even so, a bank spokeswoman, Tara Burke, said, ''Obviously we are being prudent and ensuring that we take the right risks and get paid appropriately for the risks we take.''

Entrepreneurs who are being squeezed are trying to get smaller loans or looking for alternative financing. Ms. Wheeler of the Community Business Partnership says her group is processing more than twice as many weekly requests for microloans for start-ups as it did a year ago.

That program has been a target of Bush administration budget-cutting for several years, but Congress has always stepped in to save it.

While home equity lines of credit are dicier because of the drop in home valuations, many small-business owners are still using them as well as credit cards, even though they generally have higher interest rates than credit lines or loans.

Mr. Linden said he planned to explore a smaller federally guaranteed loan to shore up his credit line.

''There's a big disconnect between what the big banks are saying on their television and radio ads about meeting small-business needs,'' Mr. Linden said. ''It really comes down to numbers, not relationships.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: SMALL BUSINESS (93%); SMALL BUSINESS ASSISTANCE (90%); POLLS & SURVEYS (90%); COMMERCIAL LENDING (90%); SMALL BUSINESS LENDING (90%); US DEMOCRATIC PARTY (89%); BANKING & FINANCE REGULATION (79%); BANKING & FINANCE (79%); LEGISLATIVE BODIES (77%); ECONOMIC NEWS (76%); TALKS & MEETINGS (75%); ENTREPRENEURSHIP (73%); INTERVIEWS (64%); PERSONAL DEBT (60%); CREDIT CRISIS (79%)
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS (56%); SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION (55%)
PERSON: JOHN KERRY (51%)
GEOGRAPHIC: MASSACHUSETTS, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (92%)
LOAD-DATE: March 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Sirena C. Moore, owner of Elohim Cleaning Contractors in Bristol, Pa., said she had trouble when she tried to get a line of credit. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MIKE MERGEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)
PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

943 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
March 25, 2008 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

Election Outcome in Taiwan Buoys Stock Market
BYLINE: By KEITH BRADSHER
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 3
LENGTH: 827 words
DATELINE: TAIPEI
Stock prices soared in Taiwan on Monday as investors welcomed Saturday's presidential election victory of Ma Ying-jeou, a Nationalist Party leader who has called for closer relations with mainland China -- a development that could spur the island's lagging economy.

The market jumped more than 6 percent at the opening and closed up nearly 4 percent, on top of a 4.5 percent rise last week on expectations that Mr. Ma would win. Taiwan's currency rose more than 1 percent, to settle in New York on Monday at 30.21 to the United States dollar, the strongest in more than 10 years.

Mr. Ma said in an interview Sunday that he hoped to have an immediate effect on the economy in his first 100 days in office by opening Taiwan to tourism from mainland China. The island is virtually closed to mainland tourists out of fear that spies and saboteurs might join tour groups and remain behind, though groups of academics and professionals already come.

Mr. Ma acknowledged that economic weakness overseas could hurt Taiwan, but said that the answer was to increase spending at home. ''The global economic slowdown is a reality we cannot change,'' he said. ''What we can change is to enlarge domestic demand.''

To do that, he plans a $130 billion spending program over eight years, mostly for infrastructure projects. He also plans to expand rail and highway links and enlarge ports and airports on the island's western coast to accommodate greater trade and travel. And he intends to pursue a variety of ambitious environmental projects, like replanting extensive forests in southern Taiwan to reduce the risk of landslides, the sort of work that may require large numbers of laborers.

Economic worries played a central role in the decisive victory of Mr. Ma,who received more than 58 percent of the popular vote compared with less than 42 percent for Frank Hsieh of the Democratic Progressive Party.

Officials in Beijing have not issued any response to the outcome, but made clear before the voting that they preferred Mr. Ma.

The current president of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party, has had frosty relations with the mainland as he sought greater political separation for Taiwan.

Investment from Taiwan in mainland China has dropped almost by half during Mr. Chen's nearly eight years in office, to about $2 billion a year. Mr. Ma said he would lift the limits on how much capital can be invested there by Taiwan companies.

His running mate, Vincent Siew, is a longtime advocate of a common market with the mainland, an idea influenced by the economic integration of much of Europe.

Mr. Hsieh attacked this idea as leading to an influx of millions of low-wage mainland laborers into Taiwan. A Democratic Progressive Party rally featured a Trojan horse that, when its belly opened, turned out to have poisoned food from the mainland inside, summoning up the recent health and safety scandals involving products made in China.

Mr. Ma has recently said that he favors a closer economic cooperation agreement with the mainland that would be based on principles of the World Trade Organization.

During the campaign, he promised to raise Taiwan's annual economic growth rate to 6 percent and ensure that a wider part of society benefited from growth.

While the economy grew 5.7 percent last year, the gains were heavily concentrated among professionals with jobs in the island's highly successful computer manufacturing industry and among entrepreneurs with mainland investments, as many factories moved to China to tap low-cost labor there.

Enoch Fung, a Goldman Sachs economist, predicted in a research note Monday that economic growth in Taiwan would slow to 3.8 percent this year and 4.6 percent next year because of weaker demand for exports. But Mr. Fung also said that closer ties across the Taiwan Strait would increase the possibilities for greater growth.

Until the last few years, the Democratic Progressive Party tended to be the party of the young, having capitalized on its role in leading Taiwan to full democracy in the 1980s and '90s. But young voters moved to the Nationalist Party this year, as was evident at a large rally on election eve.

Frankie Chen, a 22-year-old saleswoman for a computer company, attended the rally with two of her friends: Elliott Lee, a 23-year-old in a marketing training program, and Peggy Huang, a 23-year-old college graduate with a communications arts degree who has been unemployed for the last six months. The three said that many of their friends did not have jobs and that careers with decent paychecks were increasingly difficult to find.

They saw more trade with the booming mainland Chinese economy as a way to create well-paid jobs in Taiwan.

''If you didn't go to a really good college, you don't have a job right now,'' Ms. Chen said. ''We were born in an age when Taiwan was really rich, but now Taiwan is poor. It's really, really tough for us.''
URL: http://www.nytimes.com
SUBJECT: CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS (90%); PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS (90%); ELECTIONS (90%); POLITICS (89%); POLITICAL PARTIES (89%); PRICE INCREASES (78%); INTERVIEWS (78%); SEPARATISM & SECESSION (78%); US DOLLAR (78%); ECONOMIC NEWS (77%); ECONOMIC DECLINE (77%); ISLANDS & REEFS (77%); CURRENCIES (75%); INFRASTRUCTURE (67%); STOCK EXCHANGES (89%)
COMPANY: CNINSURE INC (93%)
TICKER: CISG (NASDAQ) (93%)
GEOGRAPHIC: TAIPEI, TAIWAN (94%); BEIJING, CHINA (79%) NEW YORK, USA (79%); NORTH CENTRAL CHINA (78%) TAIWAN (99%); CHINA (94%); UNITED STATES (79%)
LOAD-DATE: March 25, 2008
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: There was plenty to smile about in stock trading on Monday in Taipei, where the main index rose nearly 4 percent. (PHOTOGRAPH BY NICKY LOH/REUTERS)

Economic growth in Taiwan has risen modestly though the demand for exports, like these at the port of Kaohsiung, is slowing. The president-elect plans infrastructure and environment projects. (PHOTOGRAPH BY MAURICE TSAI/BLOOMBERG NEWS)

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Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company

944 of 1231 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times
March 24, 2008 Monday

Late Edition - Final

A Murdoch Sets Her Own Course in TV
BYLINE: By TIM ARANGO
SECTION: Section C; Column 0; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1589 words
One morning last May, Elisabeth Murdoch was leaving a Starbucks in London when her cellphone rang. Her good friend Ben Silverman was calling from Los Angeles to say he could no longer discuss selling her his independent television production company, Reveille.

''He said, 'Liz, you're going to kill me, but I can't have this conversation right now,' '' Ms. Murdoch recalled recently. ''I've only just told my mom. But I was offered the job at NBC, it's my dream job and I have to take it.''

But Ms. Murdoch is very patient, as one might expect in a media entrepreneur with Murdoch for a surname. Last month, she cinched the deal to acquire Reveille for $125 million.

By combining Reveille, which has produced the hit shows ''The Office,'' ''Ugly Betty'' and ''The Biggest Loser'' with her company, Shine Ltd., in Britain, Ms. Murdoch now has a foothold in the world's most important media playground and the beginnings of her own global entertainment business (the family's second).

About two-thirds of the income from Ms. Murdoch's burgeoning television empire is expected to come from the United States. It may also mean she could be selling shows to Fox, her father's network.

Ms. Murdoch, 39, is the second daughter of Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the News Corporation, and the oldest of the three children from Mr. Murdoch's second marriage. It is on this set of siblings -- Ms. Murdoch, James, 35, and Lachlan, 36 -- that speculation over who might succeed Mr. Murdoch has focused.

On the morning after a long dinner to celebrate the Reveille deal at Katsuya Hollywood, the popular sushi joint designed by Philippe Starck, Ms. Murdoch sat down for breakfast at the Polo Lounge in the Beverly Hills Hotel. In growing up Murdoch, she said, ''Media was never a choice. You either have it in your veins or you don't have it in your veins. I couldn't imagine why you would want to do anything else.''

So how to separate Ms. Murdoch the entrepreneur from Ms. Murdoch the Murdoch?

''You know, its such a hard question,'' she said. ''Of course, it's been a huge blessing in my life. I'm incredibly privileged and I've had such opportunity. I've learned at the foot of a master.''

It's worth noting that Mr. Murdoch's daughter has already paid back some of that debt with one of his company's greatest recent successes -- Fox's ''American Idol.'' It's one of those stories that gets told so often, and in so many iterations, that one begins to wonder if it's apocryphal.

''I don't understand how it's gotten slightly so out of control,'' she said. ''Because all I was doing was watching TV enthusiastically. I happened to call my dad in the middle of the show because I was so excited. And he said, 'Oh, I think someone's shown that to us.' I said, 'You have got to buy it.' As one does when you chat with your family, you are very direct. So I was very direct. So Dad went off and said, 'You have to buy this show.' And therein lies the luck of television.''

You might expect that Ms. Murdoch would speak with an Australian accent -- her father does, and her brother Lachlan often slips into one -- but she is by accent and manner, mostly American. Ms. Murdoch, who grew up primarily in New York City, where she was educated at the Brearley School on the Upper East Side before attending Vassar College, lives in London with her husband, the prominent public relations executive Matthew Freud (great-grandson of Sigmund), and their two children. The couple cuts a glittering swath through London's social circuit.

''There is no U.S. equivalent to them as a power couple,'' said Caryn Mandabach, the producer behind the megahit ''The Cosby Show'' and a longtime friend of Ms. Murdoch's. ''It's actually demeaning to call them a power couple, because they are such fine individuals.''

Ms. Murdoch rarely gives interviews, much to the chagrin of the British press. A columnist for The Observer in London recently wrote about what a ''pity'' it is that she ''maintains a stony silence in public'' and noted that the last extensive interview she gave was to The Observer four years ago.

In 2000, Ms. Murdoch left her father's business at British Sky Broadcasting, where she had been managing director of Sky Networks, to introduce Shine. Ms. Murdoch, who has citizenship in both the United States and Britain, now plans to spend about one week a month in Los Angeles, at Reveille's home base on the lot of Universal Studios.

Her strength, say executives who know her, is her acumen for spotting what television viewers want to watch, as well as her ability to adapt different formats to different audiences, whether they be in America, England or elsewhere. At present, for example, her company is working on creating a version of ''Law & Order'' for the British audience.

''I think she has a very strong point of view, and a very strong sense of what the public wants,'' said Michael Lynton, chief executive of Sony Pictures Entertainment, an investor in Ms. Murdoch's company.

Sony helped finance Ms. Murdoch's acquisitions, having recently raised its stake to 20 percent from 14 percent. Another source of funds was a distribution from the Murdoch family trust last year, in which each of the Murdoch children received $100 million in News Corporation stock for their personal use.

That distribution was part of a resolution of a family disagreement over how much influence Mr. Murdoch's two young children from this third wife, Wendi Murdoch, would have over the future of the company.

Reveille became successful by acquiring the rights to shows like ''The Office,'' which was first a hit in Britain, and adapting them for American audiences. Ms. Murdoch is currently working with ABC to bring the British Broadcasting Corporation hit ''Life on Mars'' to the United States. She calls Mr. Silverman's success with ''The Office'' a model for taking a foreign show and refashioning it for the American viewer, which usually means making the action even faster and stressing the story.

''While the entire premise is still intact, as are formal points and even jokes and story lines, the intensity of the hooks in the series has been turned up -- the claustrophobia of the office is more intense, the love affair more quickly established and the characters more intensely drawn,'' she said.

But television audiences do not care what your surname is, how deep your Rolodex is or the ease with which you can access capital. Ms. Murdoch knew this when she introduced Shine, and it took years before she achieved any notable success.

It wasn't until 2006, about six years after Ms. Murdoch left Sky, that Shine earned serious plaudits, winning an International Emmy for the drama ''Sugar Rush'' and scoring a hit in an adaptation of ''Project Runway'' called ''Project Catwalk,'' according to Broadcast magazine, the British trade publication.

''Why I love TV, and I see it in print journalism too, is that the audience will tell you that day whether they like what you've done,'' she said. ''You live or die by whether or not you've got it right.''

The relationship between Ms. Murdoch and Mr. Silverman, who is the co-chairman of NBC Entertainment, goes back to the 1990s when Mr. Silverman was an agent for the William Morris Agency in London.

''We always got on like a house on fire,'' said Ms. Murdoch, who years before the show was broadcast in the United States produced ''The Biggest Loser'' in Britain for Reveille.

In fact, Mr. Silverman said he never opened up bidding for Reveille to a wide group of suitors and called Ms. Murdoch his ''handpicked'' choice. ''I just wanted to go to one buyer,'' said Mr. Silverman. ''She's young, and that works to her advantage. She's in the demo -- she can think like the audience.''

Instead of just selling Reveille or Shine fare to international markets, a growing piece of the group's business is selling show formats abroad for independent producers. In this vein Reveille has sold the format for Mark Burnett's ''Are You Smarter Than A 5th Grader?'' in over 60 countries, and ''The Moment of Truth,'' which is shown on Fox, in more than 40 countries.

''What she needed to pull everything together was a distribution company made up of producers selling content,'' said Chris Grant, president of Reveille International, who was recently in Paris pitching Shine and Reveille shows to the European television company, the RTL Group. ''She didn't have a company to sell her content internationally.''

Her own entrepreneurial activities will always have people wondering if it's not just training to one day rejoin the family business.

Building her own company, she said, is ''validating of yourself, and makes you feel like more of a full person.'' Her brother Lachlan, once seen as the heir apparent to their father, left the News Corporation in 2005 and is starting to dabble in media investments in Australia. Her other brother James is the only sibling still at the company -- he runs Europe and Asia operations.

''Obviously you are very conscious of people thinking, 'Oh, let's see how good she really is.' My brothers have it,'' she said. ''I think it's one of the factors that led me to be an entrepreneur on my own because I had to do it for myself.''

''Could I foresee a day going back to News Corp.?'' she said. ''Yes, I could. Do I know how, or when, or what shape that would take? No. I don't really ever want to leave Shine. So I don't know how it would happen one day, but it's certainly not out of the cards.''