News Corporation withdrew its bid to BSkyB because of the pressure from the public and parliament on Wednesday. Rupert Murdoch’s media group News Corporation previously bid to take full control of pay-TV company BSkyB.

“It has become clear that it is too difficult to progress in this climate,” Chase Carey, News Corp.’s Chief Operating Officer, said in an e-mailed statement today. He said News Corp. remains a committed long-term shareholder in BSkyB.

This move shattered News Corp’s key strategy for UK corporate growth. The proposed £8bn deal has been in process for more than a year starting from June 2010. News Corp will have to pay BSkyB a break fee of around £38.5m after walking away from the deal.

More than £3bn has been loosed from the value of BSkyB shares since the Guardian revealed that News of the World journalists had hacked into a mobile phone belonging to murdered teenager Milly Dowler on Monday 4 July.

The phone-hacking investigation is going on and the London police arrested  Andy Coulson, one-time editor of the News of the World and former communications chief for Cameron. Coulson has denied any knowledge of reporters tapping phones when he led the paper.

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