MUMBAI: James Murdoch, the scion of media empire News Corporation, has distanced himself from the phone hacking scandal at UK publishing business News International by putting the blame on his subordinates who he alleged misled him on the goings-on at the now defunct News of the World tabloid.

Speaking under oath at Lord Justice Brian Leveson?s inquiry into media ethics, Murdoch alleged that the tabloid?s then-editor Colin Myler and the company?s former in-house lawyer Tom Crone misled him about the illegal activities at the tabloid.

According to Associated Press, Leveson asked Murdoch: "Can you think of a reason why Mr. Myler or Mr. Crone should keep this information from you? Was your relationship with them such that they may think: ?Well we needn?t bother him with that? or ?We better keep it from it because he?ll ask to cut out the cancer??"

"That must be it," Murdoch said. "I would say: ?Cut out the cancer,? and there was some desire to not do that."

The News Corp has been at the centre of scandal ever since it came to light that reporters at the News of the World hacked into the phones of hundreds of high-profile people, including a teenage murder victim.

The emergence of the scandal led News International to shut 168 year old News of the World on 7 July last year leading to a loss of 200 jobs.

For News Corp the implications of hacking scandal ran beyond News International as the move to up stake in UK broadcasting business BSkyB proved futile even after it got culture minister?s Jeremy Hunt to gobble up the remaining 61 per cent of Sky for ?8 billion.

Murdoch also denied the charge The Sun newspaper endorsed the Tories? election bid saying, "I would never have made that kind of a crass calculation," Murdoch said. "It just wouldn?t occur to me".

Rupert Murdoch, who is still chairman and chief executive of News International?s parent company News Corp, is scheduled to appear before the inquiry on Wednesday, AP reported.

Earlier, James Murdoch had to step down as the chairman of BSkyB, while continuing to remain on BSkyB?s board as a non-executive director. In February the Jr Murdoch stepped down as executive chairman of News International.

To firewall him from the likely impact of the scandal, News Corp had relocated him to New York headquarters as the deputy COO of the parent company.

Jr. Murdoch had last month further cut off all remaining ties with News International, the UK publishing business of News Corp, by resigning from the boards of Times Newspaper Holdings; News Corp Investments; and News International Publishers Limited.

The British media regulator Ofcom is already evaluating whether James Murdoch is ?fit and proper? to hold a broadcast licence on behalf of BSkyB. The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee?s report into allegations of phone hacking by the end of the month.

Meanwhile, in a related development the judge Brian Leveson said British Sky Broadcasting?s Sky News channel breached criminal law by hacking into e-mails for a story, even though the investigation applied to a case on a man who faked his own death to collect insurance money.

"What you were doing wasn?t just invading somebody?s privacy, it was breaching the criminal law," Leveson said during testimony by Sky News chief John Ryley. "At the end of the day you committed a crime."

Media regulator Ofcom said on Monday it started a probe of Sky News over the e-mail hacking incident.

BSkyB said earlier this month executives at Sky News cleared a reporter to access e-mails as part of his investigations into criminal activity, including the 2008 case of a British couple who faked the husband?s death in a canoe accident to collect life and mortgage insurance.

MUMBAI: News Corp-owned American television network Fox Broadcasting Network Sunday celebrated 25 years of its existence with a look back at the groundbreaking and irreverent shows that have defined the network since its first signal transmission on 5 April 1987.

Fox changed the American broadcasting landscape ever since it launched by keeping a check on its competitors with path breaking shows prominent among them being The Simpsons, 90210, and American Idol, which proved to be a great gamechanger.

In April 1985, Rupert Murdoch controlled News Corporation bought 50 per cent interest in Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation for $250 million, only to complete the acquisition later in the year by buying the remaining 50 per cent interest in company for $325 million.

The company followed that up with the acquisition of six Metromedia television stations in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston and Washington, for $1.9 billion which eventually led to the formation of the Fox Television Stations Group.

The acquisitions marked the beginning of News Corp?s foray in the American broadcast market which was till then dominated by American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) and National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

News Corporation and Fox Television Stations completed the acquisition of New World Communications Group for $2.3 billion in January 1997, making Fox the largest and most powerful station operator with 22 stations covering more than 40 per cent of the nation.

In 1999, Fox finished its first-ever broadcast season as the most popular network among Adults 18-34 and Teens, while also ranking second among its target audience of Adults 18-49 by the smallest margin in the network?s history.

According to Associated Press report, Fox proved that there was room for a fourth U.S. broadcast network, three decades after Dumont dissolved in 1955 and left the Big Three networks to slice up an increasingly rich pie.

Horizon Media SVP research Brad Adgate believes Fox hasn?t just met expectations it has exceeded them. "Of the major networks, it?s the only one that can bring in younger audiences on a regular basis," Adgate said. "They have brought out some breakthrough shows ... They?ve really done things that the other three networks wouldn?t have done with their programming," Adgate told AP.

Garth Ancier, Fox?s inaugural programming chief, said the challenge for the network was how to attract audiences in a different way from NBC, ABC and CBS and drag them over to an alternative.

MUMBAI: It was a day of double whammy for media conglomerate News Corp as British lawyer Mark Lewis, who has been pursuing the phone hacking scandal, said that he planned to take the case to United States, the centre of Murdoch?s global media empire.

However, the bigger threat for Murdoch comes from a British Parliamentary report into a phone hacking scandal which may lead eventually to News Corp being forced into cutting or selling its stake in the highly profitable pay-TV firm BSkyB, according to newswire Reuters.

Lewis said he would take legal action on behalf of three people which includes two sportsperson and an American citizen.

?The News of the World had thousands of people they hacked. Some of them were in America at the time, either traveling or resident there," he said.

Lewis?s clients also include the family of Milly Dowler, an abducted teenager who was murdered in 2002, and whose voice mail was said to have been hacked after she disappeared.

Coming back to the Parliamentary panel?s report on the hacking scandal, the Reuters report says that the Parliament?s culture committee is widely expected to criticise News Corp in its long-awaited report.

The report also says that the panel?s criticism could raise possibilities that the British broadcast watchdog Ofcom will take action against Rupert Murdoch?s media conglomerate.

The culture select committee could publish its findings and recommendations into the scandal by the end of April to which the government must respond within two months.

Ofcom is already conducting its own investigation into News Corp and BSkyB?s directors to ensure that directors of TV companies are "fit and proper" to hold a broadcast licence.

Earlier this month, James Murdoch had stepped down as the chairman of BSkyB. However, he continues to remain a board member. In February, the Jr Murdoch had stepped down as executive chairman of News International that is being probed by UK authorities for phone hacking surrounding its now defunct News of the World paper.

MUMBAI: Facing heat over alleged use of piracy to scuttle business of pay-TV rival ITV Digital, News Corporation CEO Rupert Murdoch vented his anger on social networking platform Twitter by terming the allegations as baseless.

"Seems every competitor and enemy piling on with lies and libels. So bad, easy to hit back hard, which preparing," Murdoch said on his Twitter handle @rupertmurdoch.

According to a BBC Panorama documentary, a company part-owned by News Corp carried out hacking by obtaining codes belonging to ITV Digital and posted them to allow viewers to watch for free which finally led to the demise of Sky?s main digital TV rival, ITV Digital.

NDS, which manufactured smartcards for all News Corp pay-TV companies across the world, said that Thoic was legitimately used to gather intelligence on hackers while Gibling worked as a consultant.

The publication of codes resulted in widespread piracy which finally resulted in the demise of ITV Digital, which had been set-up by Britain?s leading free-to-air commercial broadcaster, in 1998.

In a statement late on Wednesday, News Corp President Chase Carey said the BBC programme presented "manipulated and mischaracterised emails to produce unfair and baseless accusations", and he backed NDS?s call for the publicly owned British broadcaster to retract them.

The piracy scandal came as a second blow to the already beleagured News Corp as it had hardly recovered from the phone hacking scandal involving its UK publishing unit, News International.

The media conglomerate is under tremendous pressure as it is already under television regulator Ofcom?s scanner which is scrutinising whether James Murdoch and News Corporation are "fit and proper" persons to be in control of BSkyB, the company that runs Sky TV.

MUMBAI: Even as the dust on phone hacking controversy has hardly settled, another scandal is rocking Rupert Murdoch?s News Corporation that has put the company?s business operations in that country at risk.

According to a BBC documentary, a company part-owned by News Corporation carried out hacking by obtaining codes belonging to ITV Digital and posted them to allow viewers to watch for free which finally led to the demise of Sky?s main digital TV rivals ITV Digital.

Lee Gibling, who had set up a website The House of Ill-Compute or Thoic in 1990s, said News Corp-owned NDS had funded expansion of the Thoic site and later had him distribute the set-top pay-TV codes of rival ITV Digital.

ITV Digital?s former chief technical officer, Simon Dore, told the programme that piracy was the killer blow for the business. "The business had its issues aside from the piracy... but those issues I believe would have been solvable by careful and good management. The real killer, the hole beneath the water line, was the piracy. We couldn?t recover from that,? he stated.

NDS, which was recently acquired by Cisco for $5 billion, though denied the allegation by saying that Thoic was legitimately used to gather intelligence on hackers while Gibling worked as a consultant. NDS manufactures smartcards for all News Corp pay-TV companies across the world.

Incidentally, James Murdoch was the non-executive director of NDS when the scandal took place. However, BBC did not find any evidence of his involvement. The Junior Murdoch had recently stepped down from all posts of controversy-ridden News International, the UK publishing business of the company.

The company?s justification notwithstanding, Gibling has said that although Thoic was in his name the website actually belonged to NDS, which according to Gibling was also used to defeat the electronic countermeasures that the ITV used to try to stop the piracy.

Furthermore, the new codes created by ITV Digital were also sent out to other piracy websites so that consumers don?t buy even a single card.

"We wanted people to be able to update these cards themselves, we didn?t want them buying a single card and then finding they couldn?t get channels. We wanted them to stay and keep with On Digital, flogging it until it broke,? Gibling revealed further.

No sooner did the allegations surface calls for probe started growing louder with Tom Watson, a member of parliament and who has been examining the phone-hacking scandal, being the leading voice.

"Clearly allegations of TV hacking are far more serious than phone hacking," he said. "It seems inconceivable that they (Ofcom) would not want to look at these new allegations. Ofcom are now applying the fit and proper person test to Rupert and James Murdoch. It also seems inconceivable to me that if these allegations are true that Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch will pass that test."

Already, television regulator Ofcom is scrutinising whether James Murdoch and News Corporation are "fit and proper" persons to be in control of BSkyB, the company that runs Sky TV.