Nagoya Corp - News Corp Approve Split.

Online, September 7, 2012 (Newswire.com) - The News Corp board of directors have approved in principle to a separation into two separate companies, one focused on publishing and the other on entertainment, a source has indicated to Nagoya Corp.

The board of the $60 billion media conglomerate, which is controlled by their octogenarian chairman Rupert Murdoch, met on Wednesday and decided to split into two separate publicly traded companies, according to the source.

"This is quite a surprise as Murdoch has previously resisted shareholder calls to sell off their newspapers", alleged Nagoya Corp's source. Many of News Corp's newspapers make a loss and those that don't are not particularly lucrative.

There has been increased pressure in recent time on news Corp to divest its newspaper business as a result of the phone hacking scandal in the UK that caused the closure of the News of the World and tainted many other titles. It also was one of the primary reasons that News Corp's complete takeover of subscription TV service BSkyB, a pet Murdoch project, did not go ahead.

The process of splitting the company is still far from complete as the management structure of both companies will have to be decided and then the board will have to give formal approval to the plan. A source close to situation, who did not want to be named, claimed to Nagoya Corp that this process is unlikely to be finished within the next 12 months.

"This is quite a surprise as Murdoch has previously resisted shareholder calls to sell off their newspapers", alleged Nagoya Corp's source. Many of News Corp's newspapers make a loss and those that don't are not particularly lucrative.