Elisabeth Murdoch has backed out on a planned talk at this weekend’s Edinburgh International TV Festival. The Shine Group founder became convinced questions about phone hacking at Shine parent News Corp would dominate any appearance, a spokesman said Monday. Shine was purchased earlier this year by her father Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for $680M. Her planned ascension to the News Corp board was put on hold in the wake of the phone hacking scandal and a shareholder lawsuit over the inside nature of the sale which sent a whopping $212M her way.

The Edinburgh International TV Festival is the UK industry’s most prestigious gathering. That’s why Google chairman Eric Schmidt is giving the keynote MacTaggart lecture Friday. He’s the first person outside the broadcasting arena to do so. News reports say he’s expected to offer an olive branch after years of fighting lawsuits from broadcasters and film studios over copyright infringement. Though his speech is still secret, he’s expected to tell content-providers, “Google needs you”.