LOS ANGELES — Under pressure to limit contagion from the British phone-hacking scandal, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. said Tuesday that it is considering splitting into two publicly traded companies.

The move comes as Britain’s communications regulator, Ofcom, enters the final stages of its review of whether satellite TV firm British Sky Broadcasting – of which News Corp. holds a 39 percent stake – is “fit and proper” to hold a broadcast license.

The separation of News Corp.’s tainted newspaper division from the lucrative TV and movie assets might appease regulators, analysts said.

British investigators have been probing allegations that News Corp.’s U.K. newspaper journalists hacked into phones and bribed public officials in the hunt for scoops. The probe has caused the company to abandon its bid for full control of British Sky Broadcasting. A split could help the company avoid being forced to sell off its remaining stake, worth some $6.9 billion.

The Wall Street Journal, News Corp.’s flagship newspaper, reported late Monday that the company is considering separating the newspaper and book publishing businesses from the entertainment arm, which includes Fox News Channel.

The entertainment arm is far more profitable. It accounted for about 75 percent of the company’s revenue and nearly all of the operating profit in the first nine months of the fiscal year, which ends this coming Saturday.

A former News Corp. executive familiar with internal company deliberations says such a split has been talked about for years, although discussions gained new momentum in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal, which erupted last July.

 

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