News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch announced Wednesday during the company's fiscal fourth quarter conference call he plans to sell Dow Jones' Ottaway newspaper group, once the $5.6 billion sale is complete.

“We will be selling the local newspapers fairly quickly,” Murdoch is quoted by Editor & Publisher as saying during the call. “Outside of that, we are keeping everything and developing it.”

Murdoch also said the company will be “in a hiring mode almost immediately,” when asked if other cuts for Dow Jones is planned. By cutting out some corporate functions at Dow Jones, the company also plans to save about $50 million, he said.

As the entire company continues its “digital transition,” Murdoch said News Corp. plans to invest and expand Dow Jones across Europe and Asia, as well as more U.S. news and international news to compete with The New York Times.

Just as The New York Times has decided to end its paid Web service TimesSelect, News Corp. and Dow Jones executives are in talks to decide whether to drop the subscription fee needed to access some WSJ.com material. Although dropping the fee will be expensive in the short term, in the long term it “may be a wonderful thing to do; we are looking at it closely.”