James Murdoch, News Corp chief executive in Europe and Asia, took a well-aimed swipe at the BBC as he delivered the annual MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival on Friday night.

Murdoch said the size and ambitions of the BBC were “chilling”, accused it of mounting a “land grab” before going on to criticise media industry regulator, Ofcom, calling for regulation to be scaled down.

The speech came 20 years after his father, Rupert Murdoch, gave a similar speech criticising the domination of the BBC and ITV in which he said the broadcasters were ‘innately unsympathetic to markets and competition”.