James Murdoch, deputy chief operating officer, has relinquished his position as executive chairman of News International, its UK publishing unit," News Corp said in a statement. "Tom Mockridge, chief executive officer of News International, will continue in his post and will report to News Corporation president and COO [chief operating officer] Chase Carey."

NewsCorp has announced that digital newspaper 'The Daily' has amassed 100,000 paid subscribers to date. 'The Daily' was launched a year ago. At the time, News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch said 'The Daily' would have to pull in 500,000 paying subscribers to be viable, given its weekly operating costs of $500,000. Despite the fact that 'The Daily' is currently the top grossing app, the paid subscribers level to date is well below the half-million goal set by Murdoch last year.

News Corp and Moby Group have signed an agreement under which News Corp is to become a minority investor in the Dubai-headquartered media firm. According to the terms of the deal, News Corp will contribute its 50% shareholding in Broadcast Middle East (BME) for a minority shareholding in Moby. It will also provide growth capital to Moby for its expansion plans.

Rupert Murdoch has opened an account on micro-blogging platform Twitter. Murdoch, who is the owner of News Corp., now has more than 40,000 followers on the site. The media mogul has tweeted about a range of subjects, including politics and movies. Murdoch himself was openly criticized via the social media platform when the News of the World scandal broke earlier this year.

According to The National, plans to launch the Arabic-language station based in Abu Dhabi, Sky News Arabia, are still on despite the phone hacking scandal in the UK rocking Rupert Murdoch's News Corp empire.

Google Inc has entered into preliminary negotiations to acquire online video portal Hulu, Los Angeles Times has reported, citing people familiar with the situation. Google is making a major push to add professionally produced content to its mix of user-created videos on YouTube.

Arabian Business reports that Iran has closed the Tehran office of a television channel partly owned by News Corp and operated by a Dubai-based firm and arrested five employees for “helping the anti-revolutionary movement”, the semi-official Mehr news agency said on Tuesday. Iranian authorities were in the past critical of the channel, saying its programmes were contradictory to Iran’s Islamic and revolutionary values and stated that they would close down publications that carry news of the opposition movement.

The National reports that Rupert Murdoch’s Fox International Channels plans to launch additional entertainment channels next year. Now broadcasting 12 channels in the MENA region, including Fox Movies, Fox Series and Star World, Fox plans to convert all of its regional broadcasts to high definition by 2012. The company intends to pursue its strategy of broadcasting across both pay-TV and advertising-driven free-to-air platforms.