News Corp Set to Formally Announce Split
The board of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has reportedly approved the split of the $60bn media group.
The separation of its publishing and entertainment arms could be announced later on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal and Reuters reported.
The move would protect News Corp’s more profitable TV operations from its UK newspaper business, which is embroiled in a phone-hacking scandal.
The group owns a 39% stake in UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
Entertainment v publishing
The education and publishing businesses include the Sun and the Times newspapers in the UK, the Australian newspaper, and the book publisher HarperCollins.
Their $8.8bn revenues were dwarfed by those of the entertainment arm.
Currently, the film and television businesses include 20th Century Fox, Fox broadcast network and Fox News Channel, as well as BSkyB.
Together these generated $23.5bn in revenues in the year to June 2011.