The testimony of Rupert Murdoch, his son James and
former News Corp. executive Rebekah Brooks on the U.K. phone hacking
scandal was obviously a major event for U.S. cable networks, with all
providing live coverage of at least part of the hearings. But
internationally the decision to provide live coverage was more mixed,
with English-language news nets being much more likely to go live and
networks targeting Asian or Middle Eastern audiences providing more
limited coverage.
A quick B&C survey of the coverage between 9:30 a.m. PT, July 19
and 11 a.m. PT found that many international English language networks
carried at least parts of the hearing live, including the Chinese
government English-language news network CCTV 9, Al Jazeera English, the
English-language version of France 24 and Canada's CBC.
Local
U.K. news networks, including Sky News, also carried the hearings live.
Sky News is owned by BSkyB, which is 39% owned by News Corp.
But
news networks based out of the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Asia
seemed less likely to cover the hearings live. The Arabic language
service BBC Arabic, the Arabic language version of Al Jazeera, the
Iranian government owned news network Press TV, and the Arabic language
version of France 24 were among the networks not carrying live coverage
this morning.
