MUMBAI: New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has announced a new two-year deal with Sky TV for the broadcasting of all home domestic and international cricket matches.

The new agreement runs through to March 2014 and will include tours by England, West Indies and India. Part of the new commitment from Sky TV is to broadcast a number of domestic HRV Cup matches in the Friday night time slot.

NZC CEO David White said that he was delighted to continue the partnership with Sky and is particularly excited about the agreement to showcase HRV Cup games on Friday evenings.

"New Zealand Cricket has enjoyed a strong relationship with SKY and we are thrilled to be extending our agreement.Sky?s commitment to cricket is highlighted by their offer to broadcast HRV Cup matches on Friday evenings, helping extend the reach of our highly entertaining Twenty20 competition. Part of NZC?s mission is to have more people playing and more people watching cricket. The partnership with SKY will play a key role in delivering on that vision."

Sky Television director of sports content Richard Last said, "We are especially excited about the introduction of Friday night HRV Cup matches where we will have the opportunity to provide even greater exposure for cricket in this country. There are some of important international tours coming up, including England and India, and we are looking forward to showcasing top international cricket from New Zealand to fans around the world. We very much look forward to continuing this association over the next two years."

MUMBAI: Global media conglomerate News Corporation has suspended the voting rights of a portion of Class B Common Stock owned by foreigners in order to comply with U.S law that restricts foreign holdings and voting powers to be within 25 per cent.

The company asserted that the suspension of voting rights will not impact the rights of Non-U.S. Stockholders to receive dividends and distributions.

The decision to curtail voting rights was taken as the company discovered that foreign investors held a total of 36 per cent Class B Common Stock well above the permissible limit. The voting rights of 50 per cent of the Class B Common Stock held by Non-U.S. Stockholders was suspended immediately.

The remedial measure comes as the company, which owns and operates the popular Fox network channels, seeks to renew licenses for its 27 TV stations.

The company‘s 27 owned-and-operated stations and the Fox Broadcasting Company together generated $4.8 billion in revenue and $681 million in operating profit in fiscal 2011.

Accordingly, after the suspension of voting rights, the aggregate percentage vote of the Murdoch Family Interests will remain initially at 39.7 per cent of the outstanding shares of Class B Common Stock not subject to the suspension of voting rights.

According to Wall Street Journal, News Corp.‘s largest foreign investor is Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who has about 7 per cent of the voting stock.

Station owners are required to file biannual reports to the FCC that provide information on ownership interests, including foreign owners with a significant stake.

The disclosure comes in the backdrop of the multiple scandals that rocked the company in UK. Television regulator Ofcom is scrutinising whether James Murdoch and News Corp. are "fit and proper" persons to be in control of BSkyB, the company that runs Sky TV.

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.