The $60 billion-a-year television broadcast industry is up for grabs as billionaire magnates Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch square off as consumers continue to cut ties with traditional TV services.

While attending the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Las Vegas this week, News Corp.'s COO Chase Carey threatened it may end Fox’s 26-year run as a free broadcast channel if US courts continue to allow the Diller-backed Internet startup Aereo to retransmit broadcast programming for free.

News Corp. and Aereo are goalposts at opposite ends of the television playing field. The former pays billions for quality content ranging from NFL games to The Simpsons, Glee, The Following and New Girl. Aereo pays nothing for content that it captures from over-the-air broadcast TV signals via small antennas, which it delivers to computers and smartphones—comparatively cheaply. 

News Corp., defending its fee model for cable and satellite companies, says it is willing to lose viewers and switch to a pay-TV-only offering to undermine and protest Aereo.Continue reading...

After a tumultuous year for News Corporation which has seen the company rocked by an ethics scandal, Rupert Murdoch has named longtime lieutenant Robert Thomson head of global publishing as his company prepares to separate its entertainment and news/book publishing assets into Fox Group and News Corporation, respectively.

As part of the move, News Corp. is folding its digital magazine app that was its Greg Clayman-headed iPadazine, The Daily, which will cease publishing on Dec. 15. While it will no longer exist as an iPad app, The Daily brand will survive as a news channel on properties such as NYPost.com. Now Clayman will oversee digital for News Corp. as part of the executive shuffle involved with separating the company.

First announced on June 28th, the pending company split will group News International's UK titles, the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, the Australian and other News Ltd papers and its HarperCollins book publishing entity under the News Corporation umbrella, while the entertainment properties will fall under the Fox Group. Thomson will run News Corporation while Chase Carey will serve as President and COO of Fox Group with James Murdoch as Deputy COO.

“This is an incredibly exciting time, for me personally, and for our companies’ ambitious futures,” stated Murdoch. “The challenges we face in the publishing and media industries are great, but the opportunities are greater.”Continue reading...

Now that news of the News Corp. is officially moving ahead with splitting its vast global media empire, founder and chairman Rupert Murdoch warned analysts and reporters on a conference call this morning that the plan to divide into two companies “is not a fait accompli. There are a lot of steps to take.”

He also said the impetus, hailed by the markets as a smart business move that will unshackle its challenged newspapers from its more profitable entertainment brands, is  “not a reaction to anything in Britain” such as ongoing investigations into his newspapers’ phone hacking and bribery scandals. COO Chase Carey, who will become CEO of the newspaper and publishing assets that Murdoch has built from his days as a scrappy Australian news magnate, added there were “no changes” in the corporate plan to buy the rest of BSkyB it doesn't currently control.

Murdoch, with his inimitable Aussie turn of phrase, discredited rumors that the publishing unit was the weak ‘orphan’ and emphasized the pending split is not a lack of faith in that business.Continue reading...

When the British prime minister tells you your deal should die, Rupert Murdoch listens.

As News Corp.'s phone hacking scandal continues to dominate headlines around the world and unfold in the very public court of public opinion, the latest shoe to drop is Murdoch's BSkyB bid.

Following British PM David Cameron's call for the "disgraceful" News Corp. to drop its bid to acquire all of BSkyB, the company is doing just that. The move marks something of an about-face for Cameron, who has been criticized for not being tough enough on News Corp. before now.Continue reading...