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LONDON- from www.reuters.com – – In a breathtaking response to a scandal engulfing his media empire, Rupert Murdoch moved on Thursday to close down the News of the World, Britain’s biggest selling Sunday newspaper.

As allegations multiplied that its journalists hacked the voicemails of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of Britain’s war dead, the tabloid had hemorrhaged advertising, alienated millions of readers and posed a growing threat to Murdoch’s hopes of buying broadcaster BSkyB .

Yet no one, least of all the 168-year-old paper’s 200 staff, was prepared for the drama of a single sentence that will surely go down as one of the most startling turns in the 80-year-old Australian-born press baron’s long and controversial career.

“News International today announces that this Sunday, 10 July 2011, will be the last issue of the News of the World,” read the preamble to a statement from Murdoch’s son James, who chairs the British newspaper arm of News Corp .

It seemed a bold gamble, sacrificing a historic title that is suffering from the long-term decline of print newspapers to stave off a threat to plans to expand in television — “Talk about a nuclear option,” said a “gobsmacked” Steven Barnett, professor of communications at Westminster University.

But some analysts said Murdoch would still face pressure to remove his close confidante and top British newspaper executive Rebekah Brooks, a friend of Prime Minister David Cameron. Her editorship of the News of the World a decade ago is at the heart of some of the gravest accusations.

Praising a fine muck-raking tradition at the paper, which his father bought in 1969, James Murdoch wrote in a statement to stunned staff that the explosion of a long-running scandal over phone hacking by journalists had made the paper unviable:

“The good things the News of the World does … have been sullied by behavior that was wrong. Indeed, if recent allegations are true, it was inhuman and has no place in our company. The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed when it came to itself.”

It was unclear whether the company would produce a replacement title for the lucrative Sunday market, in which, despite difficult times for newspaper circulations, the News of the World is still selling 2.6 million copies a week.

One option, analysts said, might be for its daily sister paper the Sun to extend its coverage to a seventh day.

Stephen Adams, a fund manager at Aegon asset management, which is one of the biggest shareholders in BSkyB, told Reuters:

“We see it as something to restore or remedy a tarnished reputation for the News Corp group. But we also critically see it as a reflection of News Corp’s desire to progress the BSkyB bid and have full ownership of the company.”

Cameron’s government had already given an informal blessing to the takeover, despite criticism on the left that it gave Murdoch too much media power. But the storm of outrage at the News of the World had turned attention on Cameron’s own links to the paper — he made another former editor his spokesman — and so had fostered concerns among investors that there could be snags in securing final approval for the $14-billion bid.

In his statement, James Murdoch said: “This Sunday will be the last issue of the News of the World.

“In addition, I have decided that all of the News of the World’s revenue this weekend will go to good causes … We will run no commercial advertisements this weekend.”

Journalists said that an emotional editor Colin Myler had read out the announcement at the east London newsroom where Murdoch changed the face of British journalism in the 1980s by breaking the power of the printing unions.

Myler, journalists said, had asked Brooks to leave the room, adding that many were angry that some 200 people were losing jobs in what they saw as a move to shield the former editor.

James Murdoch made clear Brooks remained in place as chief executive, telling Sky News he was satisfied that Brooks knew nothing of the crimes allegedly committed when he was editor.

One employee of the doomed paper told Reuters: “We didn’t expect it at all. We had no indication. The last week has been tough. None of us have done anything wrong. We thought we were going to weather the storm.”

One source at News International said the decision had been taken and acted upon with little delay.

The journalists’ trade union said it was Brooks, not they, who should be fired: “It is the people at the top who need to be punished, not ordinary working journalists,” the union said.

The leader of the opposition Labour party Ed Miliband also said Brooks should go. “What I’m interested in is not closing down newspapers, I’m interested in those who were responsible being brought to justice and those who have responsibility for the running of that newspaper taking their responsibility and I don’t think those two things have happened today.”

Ian Hargreaves of the Cardiff School of Journalism called closing the paper “an astonishing and unprecedented act”: “It is appropriate to the moral horror that the owners of the newspaper faced but…killing the paper does not kill the story.”

Tom Watson, a Labour member of parliament who had campaigned for a reckoning from the paper over the phone hacking scandal, said: “This is a victory for decent people up and down the land.

“I say good riddance to the News of the World.”

WAR DEAD

The scandal had deepened on Thursday with claims News of the World hacked the phones of relatives of British soldiers killed in action in Iraq and Afghanistan. Britain’s military veterans’ association broke off a joint lobbying campaign with the paper and said it might join major brands in pulling its advertising.

The British Legion said it could not campaign with the News of the World on behalf of the families of soldiers “while it stands accused of preying on these same families in the lowest depths of their misery”.

Signalling how far the racy, flag-waving title has alienated a core readership already horrified by suggestions its reporters accessed the voicemails not only of celebrities and politicians, but also of missing children and crime victims, an online boycott petition garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures.

News Corp wants to buy out the 61 percent of BSkyB it does not already own. The government has said the News of the World case should not affect that. But U.S. shares in News Corp fell over 5 percent on Wednesday, though they recovered somewhat in a stronger general market on Thursday.

Formal approval for the deal had been expected within weeks after the government gave its blessing in principle. But it now seems unlikely for months, although officials denied suggestions that they were delaying a decision because of the scandal.

“The Secretary of State has always been clear that he will take as long as is needed to reach a decision. There is no ‘delay’ since there has been no set timetable for a further announcement,” a government spokesman said. Some British media reported that a decision was now expected in September.

The main accusations are that journalists, or their hired investigators, took advantage of often limited security on mobile phone voicemail boxes to listen in to messages left for celebrities, politicians or people involved in major stories.

Disclosure that the practice involved victims of crime came when police said a private detective working for