Media magnate Rupert Murdoch has cancelled a controversial book release and interview with OJ Simpson, in which the former American football star "hypothetically confessed" to the notorious 1994 killing of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
"I and the senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project," Murdoch, chief executive and chairman of News Corp, said in a statement.
News Corp's Fox Network and publisher Regan Books were behind the project.
The decision came after several Fox Network affiliates said they would decline to show the two-part interview, in which the former football star talks in hypothetical terms about his role in the killings.
The interviews were slated to precede the publication on November 30 of a book by Simpson entitled If I Did It, in which he talks in detail about the murder of which he was cleared in a heavily publicised criminal trial.
The Fox affiliates said they would not air the broadcast next week because they are not "in the public interest" while even Bill O'Reilly, the chief pundit of Fox News, called the book and interview a "low point in American culture".
Simpson was expected to earn some $3.5 million from the book and interview deal. Though he was found not guilty in a criminal trial he was found liable in a civil suit and still owes the families of the victims over $20 million.
{{/usCountry}}Simpson was expected to earn some $3.5 million from the book and interview deal. Though he was found not guilty in a criminal trial he was found liable in a civil suit and still owes the families of the victims over $20 million.
{{/usCountry}}The interviews were due to air during the vital ratings sweep season in which viewership levels determine stations' future advertising rates.