UK body vetoes Murdoch’s Sky bid
Britain’s competition regulator provisionally ruled on Tuesday that a planned takeover of pan-European satellite TV giant Sky by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox entertainment group was “not in the public interest”.
Britain’s competition regulator provisionally ruled on Tuesday that a planned takeover of pan European satellite TV giant Sky by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox entertainment group was “not in the public interest”.
The government had referred the matter to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for an in-depth probe in September 2017 due to concern about media plurality.
21st Century Fox bid £11.4bn two years ago for the 61% of Sky it does not already own.
“The CMA has provisionally found that Fox taking full control of Sky is not in the public interest due to media plurality concerns, but not because of a lack of a genuine commitment to meeting broadcasting standards in the UK,” the regulator said. “The media plurality concerns identified mean that overall, the CMA provisionally concludes that the proposed transaction is not in the public interest.”
However, in a separate document detailing potential remedies, the CMA indicated that its plurality concerns would “fall away” on completion of Disney’s takeover of 21st Century Fox.
In December, Disney announced a $52.4bn deal to buy 21st Century Fox.
The Fox/Sky takeover has been approved by regulators in Austria, Germany, Ireland and Italy as well as by the EU. But it has not yet been given the nod in Britain, where concerns linger over the strengthening influence of Murdoch.
The watchdog said that the deal would hand Murdoch “too much control” over UK news and therefore too much power in swaying public opinion.
“It would lead to the Murdoch Family Trust, which controls Fox and News Corporation, increasing its control over Sky, so that it would have too much control over news providers in the UK across all media platforms (television, radio, online and newspapers) and therefore too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda.”
The CMA said on Tuesday that Murdoch news outlets were watched, read or heard by almost a third of Britain’s total population — a combined share of public news consumption that was “significantly greater” than all other news providers except the British Broadcasting Corporation and ITN.
“Due to its control of News Corp, the Murdoch family already has significant influence over public opinion, and full ownership of Sky by Fox would strengthen this even further,” it added.