News Corp.

For its fiscal fourth quarter ending in June 2012, News Corp. said its Fox network unit had lower TV advertising, largely due to lower American Idol ratings. But revenues were offset by retrans revenues, which doubled versus the prior-year period.

LONDON (AP) — The Church of England says it has sold its shareholding in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. because of findings that the media giant was involved in phone hacking. The church says in a statement Tuesday it is not satisfied that News Corp. has shown, or is likely to show, a commitment to reform […]

British prosecutors are evaluating whether to bring charges against News Corp.‘s  London-based publishing unit in connection with the phone-hacking scandal, according to a person familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Roku, the maker of a nifty device that plays a variety of content over televisions, is getting $45 million in a new round of investment from News Corp. and British Sky Broadcasting.

Eight people, including former News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, will face a total of 19 charges relating to phone hacking.

Hill was named senior executive vice president of the corporation after more than a decade running Fox Sports. Rice, who served as  entertainment chairman at Fox Networks Group since 2010, has been named chairman and CEO of the division.

Murdoch stepped down this past week as a director of NI Group, Times Newspaper Holdings and News Corp. Investments in the U.K. The companies oversee The Sun, The Times and The Sunday Times.

News Corp. is donating $20 million to the Motion Picture & Television Fund, the media company said today. The gift will go toward the Hollywood charity’s $350 million capital campaign. The MPTF provides assistance, medical care and housing to TV and movie business retirees.

A year ago Wednesday, the world was shocked by that headline in the Guardian. It was the headline that turned Rupert Murdoch’s phone hacking scandal from a local irritant to an international catastrophe, and kicked off a crisis that has shown no signs of slowing down.

For years, the success of News Corp.’s lucrative cable and entertainment assets formed a buffer between its print properties and the downturn in the newspaper industry. Now, many journalists at those newspapers worry about what will happen as they become part of a much smaller company.

News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch long resisted any suggestion that the media conglomerate spin off the newspaper assets. But recently he became more receptive to the idea, and this week, he relented.

The global media conglomerate will be divided into two publicly traded companies. One entity will operate as a newspaper and book publishing firm. The other will be an entertainment company that includes the 20th Century Fox movie studio, the Fox broadcast TV network and the Fox News cable channel.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that the News Corp. board voted unanimously to approve a plan splitting the global media conglomerate into two separate publicly traded companies. One will operate as a newspaper and book publishing firm. The other will be an entertainment company that includes the Fox News cable channel, the Fox broadcast TV network and the 20th Century Fox movie studio.

News Corp. said yesterday that it is considering splitting the $53 billion media company. After rising 8.3% on the news, News Corp. is still valued at an almost 10% discount to media stocks versus earning.

Rupert Murdoch is overseeing internal discussions on splitting his News Corp. media company into two, one focusing on publishing and the other on entertainment, according to two people familiar with the matter. The talks are at a late stage, one of the people said.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. made a $2 billion takeover offer for Australia’s Consolidated Media Holdings on Wednesday, boosting top shareholder and billionaire James Packer’s warchest as he abandons media in favour of casinos.

Comcast is exploring whether the British Sky Broadcasting Group, Britain’s largest satellite broadcaster and a lucrative pay TV asset 39% owned by News Corp., could become available for purchase, according to several people briefed on the company’s strategic thinking.

News Corp. lawyer Michael Silverleaf told a court hearing Friday that “we are dealing with 500 claims, potentially” from people who say their voicemail messages were intercepted by the now-defunct News of the World.

BBC quiz show host and television news presenter Jeremy Paxman told a media ethics inquiry that current CNN host Piers Morgan, then editor of Britain’s The Mirror, told him how to change phone security settings to listen to messages.

Rebekah Brooks, a close confidante of Rupert Murdoch, was charged on Tuesday with interfering with a police investigation into a phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the tycoon’s News Corp. media empire and sent shockwaves through the British political establishment.

Operation Elveden, the investigation into allegations that News Corp. reporters bribed police, Army and defense ministry officials to get scoops, has more potential to upend News Corp. than the more sensational phone hacking scandal.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski testified Wednesday that his agency takes calls to cancel Fox’s broadcast licenses “very seriously.” During a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Frank Lautenberg pressed Genachowski on whether he plans to do anything about the allegations. Genachowski said it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment on a specific case, but that the commission is “certainly aware of the serious issues that have been raised in the U.K.”

News Corp. spent $63 million on hacking-related costs in the quarter ending March 31; overall in the first nine months of fiscal 2012, costs related to the ongoing investigations dating back to the closure of The News of the World last summer have run to $167 million.

Excluding the absence of the NFL championship, advertising revenues at the television stations and broadcast network were essentially flat from a year earlier. Retrans revenue doubled.

Rupert Murdoch faces limited risk of losing News Corp.’s U.S. broadcast TV station licenses, even amid screaming headlines in Britain that the media mogul is unfit to run a major company.

A U.K. parliamentary committee’s searing indictment of Rupert Murdoch on Tuesday may trigger legal headaches for him in the United States and spur opposition to the renewal of News Corp.’s television licenses, according to legal experts.

Hulu.com owners Walt Disney Co., Comcast and News Corp. are close to buying out Providence Equity Partners’ stake at a price valuing the company at about $2 billion, said two people with knowledge of the matter. Providence is selling its 10% of Hulu for about $200 million after investing $100 million when the venture began in 2007, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to talk publicly.

The 81-year-old media magnate apologized today before a U.K. panel for the British phone-hacking scandal. He noted that the corporate cleanup that followed had cost his New York-based News Corp. hundreds of millions of dollars and transformed its culture.”I failed, and I’m sorry about it,” Murdoch said.

Speaking before an inquiry on Wednesday, the News Corp. chief, Rupert Murdoch, sought to deflect suggestions that he wielded influence with British officials to further his corporate interests.

The News Corp. chairman is testifying today before the inquiry set up following a phone hacking scandal at one of News Corp.’s British newspapers.

News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting, reduced the voting power of non-U.S. shareholders to comply with the country’s law governing broadcast station licenses. The company suspended the voting rights of 50% of the Class B shares held by investors who aren’t U.S. citizens, according to a statement today. The change will last “as long as the company deems it necessary to maintain compliance with U.S. law,” News Corp. said.

A British parliamentary report into a phone hacking scandal may lead eventually to News Corp. being forced into cutting or selling its stake in the highly profitable pay-TV firm BSkyB, having already dropped its bid to buy it outright last year.

Fleet Street lawyer Mark Lewis says he plans to file three separate lawsuits against Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. on behalf of clients who believe their phones were hacked while they were on U.S. soil.

Britain’s hacking scandal spilled into television as Sky News, whose parent company is controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., said a reporter had accessed e-mails.

Rupert Murdoch on Thursday declared war against “enemies” who have accused his pay TV operation of sabotaging its rivals, denouncing them as “toffs and right wingers” stuck in the last century. The 81-year-old News Corp. chief executive tweeted: “Seems every competitor and enemy piling on with lies and libels. So bad, easy to hit back hard, which preparing.”

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is taking steps to start a U.S. sports network on cable TV aimed at challenging ESPN, according to people with knowledge of the situation. While a final decision hasn’t been made to move forward, the company is considering converting its Fuel action-sports network to the new channel, two of the people said.

Pressure is building in Britain and Australia for fresh probes into Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., already under siege over phone-hacking claims, after allegations that it ran a secret unit that promoted pirating of pay TV rivals.