The plan comes after the company's board, chaired by Rupert Murdoch, met Wednesday night to discuss the matter. Murdoch offered the following statement on Thursday:
"There is much work to be done, but our board and I believe that this new corporate structure we are pursuing would accelerate News Corporation's businesses to grow to new heights, and enable each company and its divisions to recognize their full potential - and unlock even greater long-term shareholder value."
The bisection would result in one company composed of entertainment properties like 20th Century Fox, Fox broadcast network and Fox News and another that will include publishing assets like The WSJ, The New York Post and HarperCollins book publishing.
Though newspapers are near and dear to Murdoch, who got his start running the Adelaide News in Australia, they contributed just 10% to revenues in the company's most-recent quarter. The publishing unit has also produced bad press for News Corp., culminating in the News of the World phone-hacking scandal last summer, which led to the shuttering of that 168-year-old publication.