In newspaperland, there are only two kinds of companies: those with a proprietor or proprietorial family, and the wretched public companies that are, surely, suffering from chronic instability because they have to boost profits and are at risk of being taken over at a moment’s notice. This kind of thinking allows commentators to tilt at say, the Daily Mirror, while extolling the virtues of long-termism at the Daily Mail, where profit margins are lower. After all, journalists like to think that papers are like football clubs: the less profit, the better the team.

Yet, like all good theories, the reality is more complex. One idea, used widely in America, was to marry family control with public companies, creating two tiers of share capital. This creates a marriage of market discipline with the sought-after long termism, allowing proprietors to monopolise the votes while sharing out the economic benefits. However, the bargain has come under strain, as shown by the situations at the New York Times Company and Dow Jones, which owns The Wall Street Journal. What families want to achieve and what public investors want is proving different, particularly as Wall Street falls out of love with newspapers. This leads to running conflicts that are not easily resolved.

This is not just a phenomenon of the past fortnight. News Corporation, the parent company of The Times, also uses a dual class of shares to maintain control in the hands of the Murdoch family, but the media group relinquished control over its satellite operator DirecTV to satisfy its second-largest shareholder, Liberty Media. Viacom, the equally large home to Sumner Redstone, agreed to split itself into two to satisfy a critical Wall Street, despite its own two-tier structure.

Those kind of precedents suggest that some sort of change is inevitable at two of America’s great newspapers. The New York Times is controlled by the Ochs-Sulzberger family but has been under siege for years from Morgan Stanley, which managed to persuade fellow investors holding 42 per cent of the vote to abstain from reelecting directors at last month’s annual meeting.

Yet, even that struggle is nothing compared with the difficulties faced by the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones and is now grappling with a $5 billion bid from News Corp. The family has said that it wants to say no; its problem, though, is the attitude of nonfamily shareholders and fund managers such as T Rowe Price, which described the approach as worthy of consideration. When public investors see a good price dangled, conflict with a family owner is inevitable.

So what’s left? The status quo, in either case, may not be the most realistic option. Perhaps for The New York Times, where the shares are held in a single trust, going private may be the soundest plan. However, the Bancrofts hold stock individually so it remains possible that the people who saw themselves as guardians of the Journal will become split, particularly if a higher offer or another bidder emerges. Other small companies with similar two-tier structures – Daily Mail and General Trust being the sole example back home – may also want to consider what could happen if trouble hit. Take the Daily Mail private and turn the rest of the firm into a pure-play, high-growth electronic publishing concern is one option, replicating a strategy pursued on a larger scale by Canada’s Thomson family.

Being big, like News Corp or Viacom, or for that matter Google, another two-tier company, is one protection. For those that cannot, life is easier remaining totally private. But, in reality, neither matters: what makes a successful newspaper or media company is talented managers and creatives. In the end, there is no ownership structure that protects a newspaper, media group or owner for ever.

—You can watch EastEnders four nights a week, but at least Wednesday nights are free for going out. Or at least they were: the talk is of a fifth nightly episode, to keep the addict chained to their living room, and to ensure that BBC One’s share holds up. After all, more soap is what the licence-paying public wants, right? Especially now that the BBC faces losing Neighbours.

Or maybe not. One survey of 1,806 people – done admittedly by a rival broadcaster, so take it with a pinch of salt – concluded that 76 per cent of those surveyed reckoned that EastEnders 5 would be a poor use of the licence fee, while only a tenth of people want Walford’s woes on Wednesdays. Those kind of figures suggest that the public wants the BBC, the broadcaster that is meant to be a bit more creative, to do better.

—Mr Justice Eady, the judge who sits in most High Court libel and privacy cases, is perhaps the most powerful man in media regulation. Yes, there are appeal courts, but he hears cases alone, and is less accountable to outside pressure than either Ofcom or the Press Complaints Commission. The judge is often thought of as no friend of the press, but the decision, endorsed by the Court of Appeal, to allow details to emerge about Lord Browne of Madingley’s relationship with Jeff Chevalier, goes to show how hard the courts are to predict.

What seems trivial, in this case a white lie about where the two met, becomes tremendously important in the context of a final decision in the judges’ minds. So this case has set the useful precedent of “write what you like if you can get the other party to fib in court”. Curiously, the “revelations” now allowed have so far proved less than compelling; so what if you share company secrets with a partner? But perhaps The Mail on Sunday, which paid Mr Chevailer a few thousand for what were initially not thought of as overwhelming disclosures, has something compelling up its sleeve.

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