According to the media sources, wiretaps scandal frightened the heads of News International, the British division of News Corporation, which, originally, wanted to launch the new tabloid The Sun on Sunday in August, but postponed the initiative until fall, when football season starts.
Last week, James Murdoch said for a parliamentary committee, which investigates the wiretaps scandal, that there are no immediate plans to replace the News of the World.
However, according to sources, a Sunday tabloid is on the agenda of executives from News Corp. and, if such a title will not be launched this fall, it will certainly start next year.
News International bought the www.sunonsunday.co.uk domain name.
Company chiefs believe that the new newspaper that will replace News of the World should be released after the wiretaps scandal will be forgotten.
A spokesman for News International said that there are no immediate plans to launch a new Sunday tabloid.
According to British police, News of the World would have intercepted conversations of about 4,000 people, including families of murdered teenagers. These revelations have raised the entire political class in Britain against Rupert Murdoch.
The closing of newspaper News of the World, with a history of 168 years, which managed to reach the place of one of the most popular newspapers in Britain, but did not end the scandal of illegal wiretaps.
The case of interception, dating from the early 2000s, was already marked by the arrest of several journalists, detaining of a correspondent to the Royal House and a private detective, and several resignations, including that of Andy Coulson, director of communication of David Cameron, who was editor of NOTW. In recent weeks, British police operated more arrests, among them being Coulson, and Rebekah Brooks, former director of News International – the UK News Corp. division and – ex-editor of NOTW, but most were released on bail.
It’s known that the phones of hundreds, even thousands of personalities – the royal family, politicians, movie stars and sports – were intercepted by journalists.
American tycoon Rupert Murdoch, aged 80 years, denied that he would be responsible for phone interception by newspaper News of the World, part of his trust, on hearing at the Commission for Media of the British Parliament.