The majority of News Corp shareholders – not including the controlling Murdoch family – supported a bid to collapse the publishing and broadcast giant’s dual-class capital structure and make every vote equal.

Activist investor Starboard Value put forward a proposal in September to end a share structure that gives one class of shareholders a vote on company matters and other shareholders none. The Murdoch family – whose patriarch, Rupert, built News Corp over the past 50 years – holds a 14 per cent economic interest but controls 41 per cent of the News Corp vote.