James Murdoch Has Quit Boards of British Newspapers

Media analysts in Britain speculated that the move by the younger Mr. Murdoch might presage the News Corporation’s eventual exit from British newspapers, once a core holding but now an increasingly marginal segment, in financial terms, of the company’s worldwide operations.

The younger Mr. Murdoch no longer sits on the boards of News Group Newspapers, which publishes The Sun, and of Times Newspapers, which publishes The Times and The Sunday Times of London, according to a statement released by the News Corporation’s News International unit, which oversees all Murdoch-owned businesses in Britain. All three papers are among the most influential in the country.

The statement, issued in response to reports in the British news media, said James Murdoch, 38, stepped down from the boards in September, but remained a director of Times Newspapers Holdings, the holding company of Times Newspapers that was established by Rupert Murdoch when he bought The Times titles in the early 1980s to honor his pledge to keep the papers editorially independent. James Murdoch will also remain chairman of News International and deputy chief operating officer, from a base in New York, of the News Corporation.

He will also continue as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting, Britain’s most powerful satellite broadcaster and one of the News Corporation’s most lucrative businesses.

The board changes appear to signal a significant gesture by the Murdochs, a step back from the family’s personal oversight of the newspaper properties in Britain that were the foundation for Rupert Murdoch’s emergence as an international media tycoon, after making his start as a newspaper proprietor in Australia. From Britain, Rupert Murdoch, now 80, moved his headquarters to the United States and vastly expanded his empire into film, television and other holdings.

Rupert Murdoch is said to have a passion for newspapering that James Murdoch, who has spent much of his career overseeing the News Corporation’s overseas television holdings, does not share.

News International spokesmen disputed suggestions that the Murdochs were walking away from the British newspapers, or seeking to distance themselves from the phone hacking scandal that ensnared The News of the World, a highly profitable tabloid that they closed this summer amid revelations about the newspaper’s role between 2001 and 2009 in the illegal interception of private voice mail messages of almost 6,000 people. The hacking victims included members of the royal family, sports and entertainment celebrities, and vulnerable families that had lost children to abduction and murder.

The News of the World had published continuously for 168 years, and James Murdoch has refused to rule out closing The Sun, the country’s largest daily newspaper by circulation, if it should become embroiled in the phone hacking scandal, as some of those who believe that their phones were hacked have alleged. At least 16 former News International employees, including Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive, have been arrested in police investigations.

Two News Corporation officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in return for discussing internal company matters that they described as confidential, said the board moves were “housekeeping” measures. The decision was made, one said, because Mr. Murdoch “will be spending more time in the United States” in his role as a News Corporation executive. His position on the two boards was assumed by Tom Mockridge, the new chief executive of News International, who was appointed to the position after his predecessor, Ms. Brooks, resigned over the phone hacking scandal.

The news of Mr. Murdoch’s departure from the two boards, two months after the moves occurred, broke when a reporter for The Evening Standard, which is not a Murdoch property, examined filings at Companies House, the government agency where privately owned businesses in Britain file financial statements and other corporate documents.

Mr. Murdoch’s decision to step down from the two boards followed his appearance with his father in July before a House of Commons committee conducting televised hearings into the long-running scandal.

James Murdoch made a second appearance this month before the panel, known as the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, where he faced further questioning about his role in the scandal, in particular his approval of a $1.3 million financial settlement with Gordon Taylor, a soccer executive whose cellphone messages were among those intercepted by a private investigator working for The News of the World. Mr. Murdoch testified that the settlement was not a payment to cover up the extent of the wrongdoing at the newspaper, as some members of the committee suggested.

Although James Murdoch has rejected any hint of wrongdoing, it is widely expected that he will come in for criticism, and possibly harsher censure, when the parliamentary committee makes its report, expected before the year’s end.

Media analysts in the City of London financial district said they saw the board changes as part of a broader strategic repositioning by the News Corporation, and as a possible preliminary to a decision by the Murdochs to abandon their British newspaper holdings. “It feels like they’re loosening the ties,” said Alex DeGroote, an analyst at Panmure Gordon. “Over all, I don’t think News Corporation will own News International in the next 14 months or so. This is slowly withdrawing family interest from the U.K. titles, which are a marginal asset and increasingly became a distraction of management time.”

Julia Werdigier contributed reporting.

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