James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch’s son, will remain chairman of BSkyB, six months after the News International phone hacking scandal broke out. MSNBC has more:

“Embattled businessman James Murdoch has been re-elected as chairman of the British broadcasting company B-skyB. Murdoch received more than 80% of the votes at the company's annual meeting”.

The outcome of the vote wasn’t a big surprise considering BSkyB's parent company -- News Corp. -- owns 39 percent of BSkyB. But the Hollywwod Reporter says the 18.7% vote against was the most dissent Murdoch has faced during his career on the board of BSkyB. 

“Almost a quarter of non-News Corp.-controlled BSkyB shareholders voted against James Murdoch's re-election. (...) The size of the protest vote was more than 10 times the vote against James Murdoch's re-election tally at the same time last year. “

A small group of unhappy shareholders protested outside BSkyB's annual meeting in London. And CNN reports - minority shareholders were not the only ones who wanted James Murdoch to resign:

“We have had a number of very senior and very weighty investors, some of the top ten investors coming out and speaking against James Murdoch's re-election as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting. That's largely because, of course, the handling of the phone hacking scandal.”

But his possible involvement in the phone-hacking scandal is not the only reason why some shareholders want Murdoch out. In addition to being chairman of B-Sky-B, Rupert Murdoch’s younger son is also deputy COO of News Corporation. Financial analyst James Bevan told Bloomberg he believes that is a clear conflict of interest:

“Can he genuinely be independent? When actually he is an employee of News Corporation. He therefore has two interests at the table:  One is, chairman of BSkyB should be, in the BSkyB context, the only thing that occupies his mind. And the second is this elephant in the room which is News Corp ownership and potential future acquisition in the full acquisition of BSkyB.”

But BSkyB board’s senior independent director Nicholas Ferguson gave James Murdoch a strong endorsement during the chair meeting in London. The Guardian reports :

“We've worked with James for eight years, He is a highly competent man. [His handling of the phone scandal] had no effect on sales, customers or suppliers over the last five months. (...) As for honesty, we've seen nothing that makes us question it. ”

News Group Newspapers is the subject of a string of lawsuits, which pushed Murdoch to resign from the boards of The Sun and The Times last week.At least 17 people have been arrested by police during the hacking investigation.