By selling her a vision of online media moguldom, in which Elisabeth Murdoch (pictured) would conquer the one medium that still thwarts her father's ambitions, the internet. Under the arrangement, Elisabeth's media company Shine will invest in Shields' content startup, Kara Swisher of All Things D reports, helping launch a new player in the hot online video space. Murdoch, to her credit, conceived the idea to import The Office and Pop Idol to America. But she's also a sucker for charmers: Her "close friend" and sometime yacht guest Ben Silverman unloaded his production company, Reveille, onto Shine for a cool $125 million. The Australia-born mogul-in-the-making should hope her new partner does not similarly boomerang.

That deal seemed smart when Silverman was an NBC honcho in a position to steer business Elisabeth Murdoch's way, but now he's been ousted — and is all set to compete with Murdoch with the online video startup he's building for Barry Diller's IAC.

Freud Communications is based in London, but its New York office—headed by Lisa Dallos, a veteran media flack who's done PR for US Weekly, Talk, Rolling Stone, George, GQ, CNN, and others—isn't going to be called that anymore. This morning, Matthew Freud sent out a memo to staff:

I wanted to let you all know about a new development in our US business. Lisa Dallos recently introduced me to Hamilton South, ex CMO of Ralph Lauren and now running a very successful agency in NY and LA working in fashion, luxury and entertainment among other sectors. We had been looking at ways to grow our NY offering for some time, and the fit was so good that we decided to partner with Hamilton's company, HL Group. We will work together on projects and share expertise, and for us in London means we now have access to a broader range of people with varied experience that complements Lisa and her team. Both operations will remain independent, but we will work together and also explore the potential to collaborate on larger scale global assignments. The US operation of Freud will move into HL Group's New York-based headquarters, where they have about 60 staff.

A press release that's supposed to be released soon clarifies that all of Freud's NY employees, including Dallos, are packing up and "move into HL Group's New York-based headquarters." What we think happened? Freud was on the verge of shuttering the NY office, but Dallos managed to strike this deal. No one's losing their jobs, we're told, so bully on her. But Freud being Freud, sent out a memo so that by the time that the news is announced, any troubles at his NYC outpost would have vanished; this is simply a great merger opportunity, which "complements Lisa and her team."

Freud is good at PR.

[Can you give more clarity? Email us. Pic via]

As a buyer for the FX channel in the early nineties, Murdoch said she had virtually no acquisitions budget and spent time wandering the lower reaches of the Palais convention hall seeking out foreign formats.

"Ultimately it seemed that I was always being chatted up by quite elderly Teutonic broadcast executives who could tell how green I was by the titles on the one-sheets that I was clasping."

The young executive learned the ropes, she told the SRO hall, "through endless meals at the Majestic and drinks at the Carlton, while dreaming of one day staying in a hotel that was anywhere near the Croisette."

Through copious amounts of blood, sweat, and tears—combined only with her own inherent talent—she slowly rose through the ranks of the meritocracy.

It was not until she took over as BSkyB's content head that she secured the coveted balcony meetings with "actual Hollywood studio executives."

But when she began her own production venture, Shine, in 2001, it was back to the "bottom rung of the ladder," this time as a struggling indie producer.

"It was back to anonymity faster than you could say Martinez," she said. "I am not sure which was worse — the early days as a broke acquisitions executive or as an unknown producer peddling my wares."

You can say "Martinez" almost as fast as you can say "Murdoch."