Fox CEO James Murdoch expects Sky deal to be approved next year

James Murdoch, chief executive of Twenty-First Century Fox Inc, said on Wednesday he expects its bid to acquire Sky PLC to be approved by British regulators in the first half of 2018 despite fallout from a sexual harassment settlement involving former Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly.

Reports recently surfaced that O'Reilly reached a $32 million settlement with a woman before Fox News renewed his contract earlier this year. O'Reilly was fired in April.

Murdoch spoke of Twenty-First Century Fox's $15 billion bid to acquire the remaining 61 per cent it does not own of Sky PLC while appearing at the Paley International Council Summit in New York.
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Rupert Murdoch son's rebuke of Donald Trump may signal a shift

At 5:55 p.m. on Thursday, James Murdoch sent an email to a list of blind-copied recipients offering a striking repudiation of President Trump and a pledge to donate $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League. He addressed the note to “friends,” stating in the first line that he was writing it in a “personal capacity, as a concerned citizen and a father.”

Yet for the son of the conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who speaks regularly with Mr. Trump, it’s impossible to separate the personal, the political and the corporate.

James Murdoch’s message, which he wrote himself, was sent to a number of business associates from his company email address at 21st Century Fox, the global media conglomerate where he reigns as chief executive. And within two hours, it had been leaked to the news media, offering a window into the nuanced internal and external politics of the Murdoch media empire.
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