News International chairman, James Murdoch,
announced yesterday that Sunday's edition of the News of the World will be the papers last, 168 years from when the paper was first printed. The closure of the paper was announced following the recent allegations of phone-hacking involving murdered school girl,
Milly Dowler, and the relatives of soldiers killed in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The final print of the paper, which has a circulation of 2,606,397 (April 2011), will be edited by Colin
Myler and all proceeds are said to be going to "good causes" as well as the advertising space being reserved for charities. However as the ongoing police investigations commence, where Prime Minister David Cameron has stated that "no stone will be left
unturned" in the investigations, rumours have surfaced that Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport was in line to outbid Rupert Murdoch, owner of News International, to take over the
BSkyB broadcasting network, although no final clearance has been given.
Rupert Murdoch's decision to stop production of the paper, which is one of the largest English language papers read in the world, seems to be both a desperate and
albeit belated attempt to remove any reason for the UK authorities to reject his bid to take over the pay-
tv firm. Yet Murdoch wouldn't drop the paper without a back up plan. Speculations have already begun, suggesting that The News of the World will be replaced by production of The Sun on Sunday. The paper's sister production, The Sun, isn't printed on a Sunday and a large percentage of it's readership read the alternative NOTW. It seems inplausable that Murdoch would miss this
blatent opportunity to boost his bank balance and drop the dead weight of the paper which was holding his Sky dreams back.
