Rupert and James Murdoch will attend a parliamentary hearing next Tuesday looking into criminality at one of their newspapers, News Corp said today, after initially turning down the request.
The company announced the father and son would attend after British prime minister David Cameron criticised their original decision.
Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International and editor of the News of the World tabloid at the time much of the phone hacking at the centre of a scandal is alleged to have happened, will also attend.
British police arrested a ninth suspect, named by media as a senior former editor of Mr Murdoch's News of the World, adding weight to a government call for the media regulator to decide whether his business is fit to run British television stations.
Elsewhere, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said it will probe allegations that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp hacked into the phone records of victims of the September 11th 2011, attacks on the United States.
Mr Murdoch has already been forced to close the News of the World and back down on his biggest acquisition plan yet - the takeover of British pay TV operator BSkyB - due to an outcry over allegations reporters accessed private phone messages.
The allegations of phone hacking, which reached a peak as Mr Murdoch's bid came up for approval this month, are now reverberating around the world.
Some US lawmakers called for an investigation to see if the billionaire's News Corp had broken American laws while in Australia, where Mr Murdoch was born, the prime minister said her government may review media laws.
Mr Murdoch, who owns 39 per cent of BSkyB, withdrew his $12 billion bid to take over the rest of it yesterday after British politicians united in a call for him to pull out of the deal.
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg noted media regulator Ofcom was already looking into whether News Corp, whose British newspaper arm News International is at the heart of the scandal, should be allowed to maintain its existing stake in BSkyB.
"Clearly there are big questions about the fitness and properness of News International and that is exactly why Ofcom are now looking at it," Mr Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrat deputy coalition partners, told BBC Radio 4.
"The thing that I think isn't quite clear to me at least is exactly how fit and proper tests are applied," he added.
The catalyst for public disgust over the hacking allegations were reports a News Corp newspaper had hacked into the voicemails of murder victims.
"To see some of the things that have been done to intrude on people's privacy, particularly in moments of grief and stress in the family lives, I've truly been disgusted to see it," Australian prime minister Julia Gillard told Australia's National Press Club.
"I anticipate that we will have a discussion amongst parliamentarians about this, about the best review and way of dealing with all of this," she said.
US-based News Corp has been rocked by a series of scandals alleging journalists and hired investigators working for its flagship News of the World tabloid hacked into the voicemails of thousands of people, from victims of notorious crimes to families of soldiers killed in the war in Afghanistan.
The allegations, which include bribing police officers for information, galvanised British lawmakers across parties to oppose a man long used to being courted by the political elite.
The crisis has also tarnished Mr Cameron, who faces questions about why he appointed a former News of the World editor as his communications chief.
Mr Clegg distanced himself from the decision today.
"We did discuss it. Of course we discussed it. But at the end of the day I make my appointments to my own office and David Cameron makes his own appointments."
Mr Murdoch shut down the News of the World in a move to contain the fallout from the crisis, which included a 15 per cent slide in News Corp shares.
A sale of News International could help Mr Murdoch put the crisis behind him. But that may not be his most immediate concern.
Instead, the media baron is primarily focused on sorting out the immediate political and legal issues faced by his company, family and staff, a source close to the situation said.
Mr Clegg said he believed the phone hacking scandal was symptomatic of wrongdoing that went wider than News International, the UK arm of News Corp.
"It clearly goes beyond News International, it's clearly something much more systemic," he said.
Politicians in the United States are taking notice, too.
Three prominent lawmakers called on federal officials to investigate whether News Corp broke any American laws, meaning Mr Murdoch could potentially be battling investigations on both sides of the Atlantic.
The scandal could contaminate News Corp's Wall Street Journal, one of the most-respected newspapers in the United States, and Mr Murdoch's broader US media business.
Agencies