NEW YORK (AP) — After a firestorm of criticism, News Corp. said it has cancelled the O.J. Simpson book and television special “If I Did It” about the murders of his wife and her friend.“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” said Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman. “We are sorry for any pain that his has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”

A dozen Fox affiliates had already said they would not air the two-part special, planned for next week before publication of the book Nov. 30. It was being published by ReganBooks, a HarperCollins imprint owned, like the Fox network, by News Corp.

Publisher Judith Regan said she considered the book to be Simpson’s confession.

In the projects, Simpson speaks in hypothetical terms about how he would have committed the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Goldman.

Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of murder in a case that became its own television drama, one in which much of America reacted along racial lines. Simpson is black, and the victims were white. The former football star and announcer was later found liable for the deaths in a wrongful-death civil lawsuit filed by the Goldman family.

Relatives of the victims had strongly criticised the publication and broadcast plans that were announced last week.

“He destroyed my son and took from my family Ron’s future and life. And for that I’ll hate him always and find him despicable,” Fred Goldman told ABC.

The industry trade publication Broadcasting & Cable editorialised against the show Monday, saying “Fox should cancel this evil sweeps stunt.”

For the publishing industry, the cancellation of “If I Did It” was an astonishing end to a story like no other. Numerous books have been withdrawn over the years because of possible plagiarism, most recently Kaavya Viswanathan’s “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life,” but a book’s removal simply for objectionable content is virtually unheard of.

Sales had been strong, but not sensational. “If I Did It” cracked the top 20 of book seller Web site Amazon.com last weekend, but by Monday afternoon, at the time its cancellation had been announced, the book had fallen to No. 51.