Rupert Murdoch's sprawling, $75-billion global empire has broken into two separate companies: 21st Century Fox and a much smaller News Corp.

Friday afternoon, just after the close of trading, the company finalized the transaction that had been in the works for more than a year. Beginning Monday, shares of the two companies, both controlled by Murdoch and his family, will trade separately on the NASDAQ stock exchange. 

The 82-year-old media baron has spent the last 60 years building an enormous empire from a single newspaper in his native Australia. Murdoch will serve as executive chairman of...

Shares of U.S. cable companies rose at the end of the week on continued talk that media mogul John Malone is pushing to orchestrate a deal between Charter Communications and Time Warner Cable.

Ever since Malone's Liberty Media acquired a 27% stake in Charter, analysts, investors and financial reporters have speculated that an industry consolidation may be underway, led by the pioneering executive.

PHOTOS: Cable vs. broadcast ratings

But though Wall Street is cheering,...

Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts may not have to worry about scoring tickets to the Oscars anymore.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited Roberts to join the Hollywood power players who vote for the Oscars and get to attend lots of cool parties.

Comcast is the parent of Universal Studios, so the addition of Roberts is not completely out of left field. Universal is already well represented in the Academy: Top executives Ron Meyer, Adam Fogelson and Donna Langley are members.

FULL COVERAGE: Oscars 2013

Roberts isn't the only high-profile executive the academy has...

The wails of an infant haunt much of the 13-minute YouTube clip.

On the Internet's dominant video site, recordings of laughing babies, talking twin babies, roller-skating babies long have made for amusing, sure-fire click bait. This case of a crying newborn represents something entirely different: It's an attempt at groundbreaking original programming from the site.

"Susanna" is a 12-part series starring "True Blood's" Anna Paquin as a new mother who develops acute postpartum depression and her struggles in caring for her child. The Web series, which saw the last of its videos posted on June...

After the coffee. Before considering a new air conditioner. 

The Skinny: After writing the words News Corp. for my entire career, I now have to start writing 21st Century Fox when describing the company that houses Rupert Murdoch's entertainment assets. How many times do you think I'll screw up until I get that one down pat? Friday's headlines include the weekend box office preview and a review of "The Heat."

Daily Dose:Aereo, the startup company that offers customers broadcast signals via the Internet, said it will debut in Chicago next. Aereo has been met with lawsuits from the big...

Netflix has unveiled a talking, human-like interface named “Max,” who greets subscribers with a game-show host’s exuberance and invites them to play irreverent games, such as “Max’s Mystery Call” and “Celebrity Mood Ring.” It seeks to inject humor into the analytical process of offering viewing suggestions — and to further differentiate the service from competitors such...

After already launching applications for smartphones, tablets and Roku's set-top boxes, Time Warner Cable has made an agreement with Microsoft Corp. to bring its TV app to the tech giant's Xbox 360 devices. 

The TWC TV app, which will launch as early as next month, gives the cable company's subscribers access to live TV through the popular gaming console. TWC will bring video-on-demand to the device through the app later this year.

“With the tens of millions of boxes out there with our customers already, this is a pretty exciting development for us,” said Mike Angus, senior vice...

Current and former staffers who have worked for embattled Food Network star Paula Deen are taking to social media to defend her and attack the media for its coverage of the scandal around her admitted use of a racial epithet in the past.

"I can say with certainty that I have never witnessed her say or do anything that could be construed as racist or bigoted," wrote Brianna Beaudry Blagg, who worked as a producer for Deen. "Paula has proved herself to be a warm, caring, compassionate person, with close friends of all races and sexual orientations."

Blagg acknowledged Deen is flawed, but added...

In "White House Down," aspiring Secret Service agent Channing Tatum is tasked with saving the free world -- but he may not fare as well in rescuing the summer box office fortunes of the action movie's distributor, Sony Pictures Entertainment.

In what would be a mild upset and Sony's second expensive summer disappointment, "White House Down" is expected to finish behind the weekend's other new release, action comedy "The Heat." Both films are likely to cede the No. 1 spot to the Walt Disney Co. animated holdover "Monsters University."

20th Century Fox's "The Heat" will probably have a domestic...

This post has been corrected. See below for updates. 

Script-writing isn't for everyone, so Amazon.com Inc.'s movie and TV production arm is now encouraging filmmakers to submit "concept videos" that could be developed into features.

Amazon, which is in a race with more established players like Netflix to develop original content, launched Amazon Studios in 2010 and has been accepting script submissions for movies. It has received 1,400 movie scripts to date.

But now, people have the option to upload a two- to 15-minute video instead. Just like with the scripts, Amazon has 45 days after...

William J. Bratton, former Los Angeles Police Department chief and former police commissioner of New York and Boston, has joined NBC News as an analyst specializing in police counterterrorism efforts, domestic intelligence gathering and criminal justice.

The Comcast-owned network said Thursday that Bratton -- already a familiar face on TV in the aftermath of such high-profile events as the Boston Marathon bombing and the Christopher Dorner shooting rampage in Southern California -- would regularly appear on NBC News programs as well as on the company's cable news channel MSNBC.

PHOTOS: Cable...