News Corp seals £1.3bn Australian pay-TV deal The deal will double the stake of News Corp's Australian arm in dominant pay-TV operator Foxtel to 50pc and give it 100pc of content provider Fox Sports, increasing its pay-TV exposure at the same time as it cuts costs at its print operations. Consolidated Media said shareholders at a meeting on Wednesday voted 99.9pc in favour of the takeover. Its board had backed the offer. "Foxtel and Fox Sports are going to be two cornerstone assets in the News Corp publishing business after the demerger, and I assume the market will put fairly healthy multiples on those assets," said Citi analyst Justin Diddams. News Corp announced plans in June to split the $60 billion (£37bn) media conglomerate into two publicly traded companies, publishing and entertainment. The split will take about a year to complete. The publishing arm will include Australian newspaper The Australian, UK newspapers The Times and The Sun, The Wall St Journal, book publisher Harper Collins, and pay-TV assets including Fox Sports, Foxtel and Sky TV New Zealand. After the takeover of Consolidated, pay-TV - including affiliates such as Foxtel - would contribute 39pc of News Corp's publishing company revenues in 2014, CLSA analyst Digby Gilmour said in a note to clients last week. Gilmour estimated that Fox Sports would contribute 11pc of publishing group earnings before interest, tax and depreciation in fiscal 2014, while the half-share of Foxtel would contribute 17pc.