Vic­to­ry!

Rupert Mur­doch’s media group News Cor­po­ra­tion bowed to pres­sure from the pub­lic and par­lia­ment on Wednes­day and with­drew its bid to take full con­trol of pay-TV com­pa­ny BSkyB.

All three main polit­i­cal par­ties were poised to call on News Corp to aban­don its offer in a vote in the House of Com­mons lat­er on Wednesday.

The move leaves News Cor­p’s key strat­e­gy for UK cor­po­rate growth in tat­ters. The pro­posed £8bn deal has been in train for more than a year, with the first offer tabled in June 2010.

News Cor­po­ra­tion does still own near­ly forty per­cent of British Sky Broad­cast­ing, how­ev­er. The con­glom­er­ate should now be required to sell its remain­ing stake (which the Mur­dochs don’t want to do) so that BSkyB can be ful­ly independent.

Odd­ly enough, shares of both News Cor­po­ra­tion and BSkyB are up this morn­ing fol­low­ing the behe­moth­’s announce­ment that the deal was off.  It just goes to show how much the human mind fears uncer­tain­ty more than any­thing else.

Mean­while, the chief coun­sel for News Inter­na­tion­al (News Cor­po­ra­tion’s British sub­sidiary) announced that he is resign­ing from his post after twen­ty-six years:

Offi­cials at the com­pa­ny said that the lawyer, Tom Crone, had been the lawyer chiefly respon­si­ble for clear­ing con­tro­ver­sial sto­ries pub­lished in The News of the World and anoth­er paper in the Mur­doch sta­ble, The Sun. His res­ig­na­tion made him the first senior exec­u­tive of News Inter­na­tion­al to quit in the scandal.

News Inter­na­tion­al increas­ing­ly looks like a sink­ing ship. Will News Cor­po­ra­tion sell it, or spin it off, as many investors are sug­gest­ing? Or will Rupert Mur­doch hold on to his British papers, even if they’re threat­en­ing to drag down his entire conglomerate?

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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