Protesters say "no" to Murdoch's bid for BSkyB

LONDON, ENGLAND, UK (JULY 8, 2011) REUTERS -  News International pulled the plug on one of its most successful newspapers, the 168-year-old News of the World on Thursday (July 7), in a breathtaking response to the phone hacking scandal engulfing the global media empire.As allegations multiplied that News of the World journalists hacked the voicemail of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of Britain's war dead, the tabloid haemorrhaged advertising, alienated readers and posed a growing threat to Murdoch's bid for broadcaster BSkyB.

There's been a long-running campaign over the bid with those opposed to it saying it will give Murdoch a dangerous monopoly over British media.

The News of the World scandal has given the anti-Murdoch campaign much traction in recent days.

"We've seen over a hundred thousand people signing a petition calling on the deal not to go ahead, that's happened in just the space of three or four days and in the last 24 hours over 20 thousand people have been in touch with their MPs urging them to stand up to Murdoch and not let this deal go ahead," said Hannah Lownsbrough from the campaign group 38 Degrees.

If Murdoch's bid fails it could have serious financial implications for News Corp.

Analysts estimate -- though full accounts are not published -- that the News of the World newspaper made perhaps some 10 million pounds ($16 million) a year on sales of 2.7 million copies a week, compared to perhaps 100 times that which Murdoch could hope to earn from full control of the Sky pay-TV chain in Britain.

There are now even stronger calls from many quarters for the government's decision on the BSkyB bid to be delayed.

The demonstration outside parliament featured puppets of Murdoch, Cameron and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who is in charge of the BSkyB bid decision, as the Three Monkeys - see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil.

Murdoch is portrayed as puppet master to Cameron and Hunt.

Some analysts believe the deal is still likely to go through, given that Cameron's government has already given its blessing in principle.

There is still no deadline for approval, however, and some market experts believe political uproar could still thwart the deal, whatever the legal technicalities of approval.

Murdoch, the 80-year-old Australian-born media mogul, is an object of fear among British politicians, using his newspapers, which include the biggest selling daily the Sun as well as London's Times, to set political agendas and capable of swaying at least some votes by apportioning approval to right or left.

News International's closing of the News of the World whilst former editor and current Chief Executive of News International Rebekah Brooks keeps her position has caused uproar, with opposition parties calling for her to resign.

"This is a very cynical measure," said President of the National Union of Journalists, Donnacha DeLong.

"It's not the people who are working on the newspaper at the moment who are to blame. One of the people who was working on the newspaper at the time is now chief executive and she is in charge of the investigation. That makes no sense on any level," he said.

Police have arrested several journalists in recent weeks after reopening inquiries into the hacking of cellphone voicemails, for which the paper's royal correspondent and a private investigator were jailed in 2007.

Former editor of the News of the World who then went on to become Cameron's spokesman, Andy Coulson was arrested on Friday on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and conspiring to corrupt.

Coulson resigned as the paper's editor in 2007 after one of his reporters, Clive Goodman, and a private investigator were convicted of hacking into phones of members of the royal family, although Coulson insisted he knew nothing about the phone hacking.

Hired almost immediately by UK Prime Minister David Cameron to run his media efforts, Coulson became a key figure in Downing Street when the Conservatives won a general election last May, ending 13 years of rule by Labour.

The renewal of police inquiries in January, as News Corp acknowledged evidence that phone hacking was more than just the work of one rogue reporter, prompted Coulson to quit the prime minister's office, still protesting his innocence.

Goodman, the former News of the World royal editor jailed in 2007, was re-arrested over alleged payments to police, a police source said on Friday.

News of the World editor Colin Myler had no comment to make journalists as he left his London home on Friday morning.