SYDNEY, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp ( NWSA )

said it may sell Australian cable TV and streaming unit

Foxtel after receiving an approach, a deal that would end its

involvement in a high-overhead asset that has struggled to adapt

to the Netflix ( NFLX ) era.

News Corp ( NWSA ) said it was considering the deal in a trading

update in which the division posted a 5% profit decline for the

June quarter. Overall profit at News Corp ( NWSA ), which split from

Murdoch's Fox Corp ( FOXA ) in 2013, rose 11% in the period, led

by its real estate listings business.

A review of the News Corp ( NWSA ) business units had "coincided

recently with third-party interest in a potential transaction

involving the Foxtel", CEO Robert Thomson said in a statement.

"We are evaluating options ... with our advisors in light of

that external interest."

A sale of Foxtel would relieve News Corp ( NWSA ), which holds

most of the Murdoch family's print mastheads like the Wall

Street Journal and book publisher HarperCollins, of a business

that looms large on the Australian media landscape but has faced

disruption from cheap, narrow-margin streaming rivals.

With its physical set-top boxes installed alongside

people's televisions, Foxtel once dominated Australian pay TV

but it has shed subscribers who pay about A$100 ($66) a month

for that service since Netflix ( NFLX ), Disney ( DIS ) and Amazon ( AMZN )

began rushing out streaming offers for a fraction of

the price.

Foxtel, of which dominant Australian telco Telstra ( TTRAF )

owns 35%, started its own streaming service in 2020,

alongside the set-top boxes. That has offset a decline in

higher-paying traditional subscriber numbers but not in

subscriber revenue, which was up 1% in the June quarter.

Still, News Corp's ( NWSA ) Australia-listed shares

jumped 8% by mid-session as investors cheered a

better-than-expected result and the prospect of a resolution to

questions about Foxtel's future ownership.

News Corp ( NWSA ) didn't put a valuation on a sale of Foxtel.

Telstra ( TTRAF ) was not immediately available for comment.

"Investors are getting frustrated how long it's taking

to make a formal announcement about the company getting

simplified, but while that process is going on, the financials

continue to come in well with both revenue and margins better

than expected," said Craig Huber, analyst at Huber Research

Partners.

($1 = 1.5168 Australian dollars)