Liberty Media agreed to exchange its 16.3% stake in News Corp for the media giant's 41% holding in DirecTV, which has around 17m subscribers in the US and around 5m in South America.
The John Malone-owned holding company said it had appointed Greg Maffei, chief executive, to the DirecTV board, while Malone would also take the place of another seat previously occupied by a News Corp representative.
The announcement completes a two-year process to acquire DirecTV, having reached an agreement with shareholders to approve the deal in April last year.
News Corp was only able to finalise the sale once the Federal Communications Commission endorsed the deal, which also includes three regional sports cable TV networks and $465m in cash coming under ownership of Liberty Media.
Maffei said: "This transaction is strategically important, financially attractive, and will provide new focus to Liberty Media."
News Corp only acquired DirecTV after a long running battle to buy it at the end of 2003 for $6bn. However, the Federal Communications Commission applied strict conditions to prevent it from acting anti-competitively in the battle for subscribers.
Murdoch first tried to buy DirecTV from General Motors-owned Hughes Electronics in 2001, but was trumped at the last minute by an $18bn bid from smaller firm EchoStar.
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