Why DirecTV's CEO wants to be Murdoch's sidekick at News Corp.

Why would anyone running his own company jump ship to take a dead-end No. 2 job at a smaller shop? That's the mystery surrounding Chase Carey's imminent move from DirecTV (DTV), where he's been CEO since 2003, to News Corp. (NWS), where, according to The Wrap, he's expected to take over from outbound vice chairman Peter Chernin, who's leaving this month.

In plenty of ways, of course, Chernin's job is a big fat plum. For years, he's had a surprisingly free hand to run the entertainment side of News Corp. as he's seen fit, leaving his boss, Rupert Murdoch, free to obsess over the parts of the business that he really cares about (most recently, The Wall Street Journal). "By many measures Peter Chernin is Hollywood's most powerful man," Forbes noted last year.