I don't think the customer base is going to disappear any time soon.
Cynical - certainly - it appears all to be about BskyB
1.35pm: The BBC's Robert Peston tweets:
Live blog: Twitter
@Peston EXCLUSIVE: Ofcom to signal that a probe into whether News Corp a fit-and-proper owner of BSkyB is highly likely. See my blog soon
As always, the Murdoch bigwigs so far get away with the disgusting behaviour of the hackers and the minions are now out of jobs
Murdoch's world in crisis
Karen Kissane, London
July 9, 2011/the AGE
News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks leaves the office of The News of The World overnight. Photo: Getty
THE crisis engulfing Rupert Murdoch's media empire continued to escalate last night despite his dramatic move to shut down the newspaper at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal.
As police revealed up to 4000 people had been targeted for hacking by the News of the World, Andy Coulson - the paper's former editor and a former aide to British Prime Minister David Cameron - was arrested over the affair.
At a torrid press conference, Mr Cameron announced two inquiries into the scandal and said that News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, who was editor of the newspaper when the hacking took place, should have been removed.
Arrested: former the <i>News of the World</i> editor Andy Coulson.
Financial damage from the scandal has spilled over from the Sunday tabloid and analysts say the company's entire British newspaper group is at risk.
Mr Cameron last night defended his decision to hire Mr Coulson as his media adviser. ''I made the decision, my decision alone, to give him a second chance . . . but the second chance didn't work,'' he said. ''People will judge me for that.''
But he said that mistakes had been made by all politicians. They had failed, he said, to stop and ask whether media organisations were behaving properly and politicians should now ''stop, frankly, trying to curry favour with the media''.
News Corp Chairman James Murdoch. Photo: AP
Up to 4000 people had been targeted for hacking by the paper's former private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, police said. They are also investigating documents indicating the paper spent £100,000 in payments to five police officers.
The paper had initially claimed that the breaches were confined to a single rogue reporter but Rupert Murdoch's son James, chairman of News Corp's British arm News International, yesterday issued a humiliating mea culpa and apology over the company's multiple failures.
He announced the closure in a letter in which he said the behaviour of which the paper had been accused ''was inhuman and has no place in our company''.
Rupert Murdoch. Photo: AP
''The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account, but it failed when it came to itself,'' the letter said.
The closure of the paper was greeted by politicians and phone-hack victims as a cynical ploy to protect Mr Murdoch's bid for satellite broadcaster BSkyB. Ownership of BSkyB would make him Britain's dominant media proprietor, but there have been calls to examine whether he is a ''fit and proper person'' to hold the licence.
Labour MP Tom Watson said: ''Rupert Murdoch did not close the News of the World. [It was closed by the] revulsion of families up and down the land. It was going to lose all its readers and it had no advertisers left. They had no choice.''
Most of the paper's advertisers said they were pulling their accounts because they no longer wanted their names associated with the newspaper. ...<cont>
