21st Century Fox

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox already owns just over 39% of Sky. An earlier attempt to acquire the rest was scuttled by the 2011 phone-hacking scandal that rocked his British newspapers. This deal is worth $14.6 billion and values Sky shares at $13.41 each.

Five years after then-20th Century Fox scrapped a deal to acquire Sky amid the hacking scandal, it looks like a sale will happen after all. Sky said today that it has reached an agreement on an offer price for £10.75 per share in cash ($13.52), or around $15 billion.

Netflix Inc. helped make binge-watching a national pastime with its tens of millions of subscribers eagerly gobbling up their favorite shows. But now the streaming giant is facing accusations of a different kind of binging — the poaching of executives from the competition.

Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who filed that first sexual harassment lawsuit against former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, will be interviewed by ABC News’s 20/20 for a full hour on the subject of sexual harassment. It airs on Friday.

Former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson is set for 20/20 on November 18, marking her first television interview since the Roger Ailes debacle.

Higher retransmission consent revenue and political money growth were offset by a “shift in advertising spending towards the Rio Olympics and the absence of the prior year broadcasts of the Emmy Awards and the FIFA Women’s World Cup final.

Hulu has signed on Disney and 21st Century Fox for its live TV streaming service, which will launch in early 2017. The deals will add some three dozen networks to the service, including the ABC and Fox broadcast networks. Earlier, Hulu had signed on Time Warner networks, including CNN, TNT, TBS and Turner Classic Movies.

21st Century Fox has appointed Paul Cheesbrough, formerly CTO of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., as chief technology officer overseeing the media conglomerate’s tech, platforms and systems worldwide.

Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson, who left the network amid allegations of sexual harassment against former network chairman and CEO Roger Ailes, has revealed she will testify before Congress on forced arbitration, a common TV contract clause that legally binds parties to settle resolutions outside of the court system.

Since the Roger Ailes scandal broke, 21st Century Fox’s James and Lachlan Murdoch have become more involved in the cable news network. Not only did the brothers unilaterally decide to retain the law firm Paul, Weiss, whose internal investigation facilitated Ailes’s exit, but they are now playing a pivotal role in persuading the network’s brightest star, Megyn Kelly, whose contract expires in July 2017, to sign a new pact.

21st Century Fox Executive Chairman Rupert Murdoch saw his annual compensation rise almost 25% compared with fiscal-year 2015, with a total package of $34.6 million. He made $27.9 million in 2015, when he also was CEO. His son James Murdoch, in his first year as the new CEO, was at $26.4 million. That’s a big bump from a year ago’s $15.1 million.

21st Century Fox on Friday filed a lawsuit against Netflix Inc., accusing the streaming video giant of illegally hiring two of its executives who were under contract. The suit  alleges that Netflix has run a “brazen campaign to unlawfully target, recruit, and poach valuable Fox executives by illegally inducing them to break their employment contracts with Fox to work at Netflix.”

Opponents of the FCC’s set-top box market reforms are putting more pressure on Democratic Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, seen as the swing vote on the hotly-contested item. In a filing on Friday, a set of programming companies disclosed that they spoke with Rosenworcel last week and said that “any arrangement in which they are required to allow their content to be distributed on terms or conditions to which programmers would not agree would be tantamount to a compulsory copyright license, which the Commission lacks authority to impose.”

21st Century Fox’s $20 million settlement with former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson has created a publicity nightmare for the cable channel, and it’s also raised questions about whether 21st Century Fox’s shareholders will take legal action against the company’s board of directors because company funds were used to settle sexual harassment claims.

21st Century Fox and Gretchen Carlson said today they settled the former Fox News correspondent’s sexual harassment suit against the company. Fox’s statement said, in part, “We sincerely regret and apologize for the fact that Gretchen was not treated with the respect and dignity that she and all of our colleagues deserve.” No terms of the settlement were disclosed, but a source familiar with the settlement said Carlson was paid $20 million.

Fox News may have lost its longtime leader Roger Ailes, but the channel’s brand identity won’t be changing under his replacement. That was the message from Lachlan and James Murdoch, the top executives at Fox News parent 21st Century Fox, who addressed Ailes’ departure during the company’s earnings call on Wednesday.

Strong retransmission consent revenue growth and 9% higher network advertising revenues accounted for the increase.

An attorney for former Fox News anchor Laurie Dhue, who says Roger Ailes once asked her if she was wearing underwear, says 21st Century Fox has not investigated sexual harassment claims against Ailes properly.

Now that Roger Ailes has stepped down as head of Fox News, the television news industry is bracing for a seismic shift. But the impact on the nation’s political discourse may be just as significant. Without Ailes guiding the network, conservatives and Republican politicians are left wondering whether the talk might soften under new leadership.

Does it need “a tweak or a transformation”? Might Megyn Kelly be its younger, more feminist-seeming new face? Is it just a tonal shift that’s in order, or does the whole news product have to change? These are among the questions that media analyst Ken Doctor surmises Fox News must be asking itself post-Ailes as James and Lachlan Murdoch look to how far they will fashion their company’s golden goose.

Fox News is heading into a general election campaign in its customary spot at the top of the ratings, but without the man who sets its editorial tone every day. For now, Rupert Murdoch will fill the spot left vacant by Ailes departure. “I am personally committed to ensuring that Fox News remains a distinctive, powerful voice,” Murdoch says. “Our nation needs a robust Fox News to resonate from every corner of the country,”

Though Rupert Murdoch has stepped in to run Fox News in the interim, the search is on for a permanent replacement for Roger Ailes. But Murdoch, the 85-year-old executive chairman of 21st Century Fox who hired Ailes to invent Fox News two decades ago, is no long-term solution, and Ailes groomed no obvious successor.Among the names thought to be in the mix: current Fox managers Bill Shine, Jay Wallace and Mark Kranz and Michael Clemente, as well as The New York Post‘s Jesse Angelo.

As of Wednesday night, negotiations between 21st Century Fox and soon-to-be-ousted CEO Roger Ailes were still unresolved. The New York Times looks at the wider implications of his departure at Fox, including how much of Ailes’ management team will remain, and meanwhile staffers remain in the dark on what’s to happen next.

Fox News’s seemingly unassailable position as the most powerful cable news channel was rocked this week by the news that Roger Ailes, the only leader the network has ever known, was negotiating his exit as chairman after accusations of sexual harassment. But no matter how unseemly his departure, Ailes will leave Fox News in strong shape. Speculation about who will replace him has already begun, with names including Bill Shine, Fox News’s senior EVP for programming; David Rhodes, president of CBS News and a former Fox exec; and Jesse Angelo, CEO of The New York Post, thought to be among the contenders.

Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker says that Fox News chief Roger Ailes’ troubles will likely be an “overhang” on the stock of 21st Century Fox, given that the news channel accounts for 9% of the parent’s revenue and 25% of its EBITDA.

The fall of Fox News chief Roger Ailes likely marks the end of the Rupert Murdoch era at 21st Century Fox. “The ouster of Ailes, a sorry PR capitulation in [Rupert] Murdoch’s view, is not just an abrupt end to Ailes’ career at 21st Century Fox, but, in a way that’s hard to miss, rather a Murdoch coda,” according to The Hollywood Reporter‘s Michael Wolff.

News of Roger Ailes’ exit from Fox News seems to have been premature. The Fox News chief’s attorney said Tuesday that “there is no agreement,” and CNN’s Brian Stelter and Dylan Byers report that numerous media organizations walked back an initial story, first posted by Drudge Report, that Ailes was in fact out.

Susan Estrich, a lawyer for Fox News head Roger Ailes, released a statement denying reports that Ailes had harassed Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. “Roger Ailes has never sexually harassed Megyn Kelly,” Estrich said. “In fact, he has spent much of the last decade promoting and helping her achieve the stardom she earned, for which she has repeatedly and publicly thanked him.”

The Daily Beast late Tuesday said that 21st Century Fox had confirmed that Fox News chief Roger Ailes, embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal, was leaving the news network. The site later said that Fox News had walked back their confirmation, with the news network issuing the following statement: “Roger is at work. The review is ongoing. The only agreement that is in place is his existing employment agreement.”

Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who has been conspicuously absent among the group of Roger Ailes defenders, has broken her silence, according to a report in New York magazine. According to two sources briefed on parent company 21st Century Fox’s outside probe of the Fox News chief, Kelly told investigators that Ailes made unwanted sexual advances toward her about 10 years ago when she was a young correspondent at Fox.

“In many ways, [Roger] Ailes is Fox News. So the notion that he could be sacked at the height of a captivating presidential election is even more earth-shaking,” says The Washington Post‘s Callum Borchers. “A change at the top would immediately raise questions about the role of Fox News throughout the remainder of the presidential race … and beyond.”

In response to a New York magazine story that said Roger Ailes was to be removed as head of Fox News, 21st Century Fox said late Monday afternoon that its investigation into former anchor Gretchen Carlson’s accusations of sexual harassment is not over. “This matter is not yet resolved and the review is not concluded,” 21st Century Fox said.

Roger Ailes’s tenure as the head of Fox News may be coming to an end. Rupert Murdoch and sons Lachlan and James — co-chairmen and CEO, respectively, of parent company 21st Century Fox — have settled on removing the 76-year-old executive, according to a report from New York magazine.

In the year since Rupert Murdoch handed over the reins of 21st Century Fox to his sons James and Lachlan, the brothers have been remaking the company. During that time they’ve largely kept their hands off Fox News and Roger Ailes. But as Ailes’ sexual harassment scandal plays out, 21st Century Fox now faces questions about succession planning at the linchpin operation. Analysts say, it has become the Murdoch brothers’ biggest leadership challenge since taking over.

A handful of the world’s top programmers said they support the pay TV industry’s “Ditch the Box” proposal for opening up set-top boxes — however they urged the FCC to ensure that their own apps on a set-top box be given “parity” with pay TV providers’ apps.

Hundreds of 21st Century Fox have taken buyouts the company announced earlier this year, as part of a proposed $250 million spending cut. The headcount is between 300 and 400, an individual familiar with the buyouts told The Wrap. Layoffs are not currently planned, the insider said.

Chip Smith becomes executive vice president of public affairs. He will be based in Washington and New York and will oversee the policy offices of the company in the United States, Hong Kong, Brussels and the United Kingdom.

Strong retransmission consent revenue growth and higher advertising revenues led by higher political spending accounted for the increase.

Longtime Fox lobbyist Michael Regan is stepping down from his post as 21st Century Fox’s EVP of global public policy, effective June 30. Regan has led Fox’s legislative and regulatory efforts in Washington for 15 years. His portfolio was expanded three years ago to include all public policy initiatives globally.

21st First Century Fox is interested in acquiring a minority stake in Viacom’s Paramount Pictures, a source close to the situation said on Wednesday. The company would be interested in exploring a deal that would create synergies for Paramount but not in being a pure financial investor, according to the source.