News Corp shareholder protest votes defeated

LOS ANGELES -- News Corp. managed to avoid rowdy protests at its annual shareholders meeting, but that didn't stop stockholders from voicing complaints about the grip founder and CEO Rupert Murdoch and his family have on the company.

Despite the opposition at Tuesday's meeting on the 20th Century Fox movie studio lot in Los Angeles, the News Corp. board said three shareholder proposals to dilute the Murdochs' control were defeated by a majority of voting shares in preliminary balloting.

Only Class B shareholders could vote. The Murdoch family controls nearly 40 percent of them.

The proposals would have mandated that the board chairman be independent, that all shareholder votes be decided by a simple majority, and that the division between voting and non-voting shares be abolished.

All the company's director nominees were approved.