TV piracy claims heap more pressure on Murdoch empire

Pressure is building in Britain and Australia for fresh probes into Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, already under siege over phone-hacking claims, after allegations that it ran a secret unit that promoted pirating of pay-TV rivals.

Pressure is building in Britain and Australia for fresh probes into Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, already under siege over phone-hacking claims, after allegations that it ran a secret unit that promoted pirating of pay-TV rivals.

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The Australian Financial Review on Wednesday alleged that News Corp had used a special unit, Operational Security, set up in the mid-1990s, to sabotage its competitors, reinforcing claims in a BBC Panorama documentary aired earlier this week.

"These are serious allegations, and any allegations of criminal activity should be referred to the AFP (Australian Federal police) for investigation," a spokeswoman for Australian communications minister Stephen Conroy said.

Operational Security was a unit of News Corp’s secure-encryption subsidiary NDS, which has denied any wrongdoing in relation to the Panorama claims. News Corp, which this month sold NDS to Cisco Systems for $5 billion, said it accepted those assurances.

James Murdoch has also served as an NDS director.