News Corp. drops bid for DirecTV

As of late Saturday, Reuters was reporting that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was withdrawing its proposal to merge Hughes Electronics Corp.'s DirecTV satellite television service with its own global network of satellite services.

Hughes parent company, General Motors, had apparently failed to choose a buyer for the service in a daylong series of meetings.

News Corp. was in competition with a proposal by EchoStar Communications
Corp., which offered $26 billion in stock and at least $4 billion in cash, sources familiar with the matter said.