The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority has provisionally found that media company 21st Century Fox’s proposed takeover of Sky is not in the public interest, scuppering a second attempt by Rupert Murdoch to seize full control of the European pay-television broadcaster.
The CMA today (Tuesday) said that the deal would give Murdoch “too much control over news providers across all media platforms, and therefore too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda”.
Fox, which already owns 39 per cent of Sky, wanted to secure full control of the company through an £11.7bn (€13bn/$15.5bn) deal.
Sky is a major sports broadcaster in the UK, as well as Austria, Germany, Ireland and Italy. In the UK, Sky is the primary live rights-holder of football’s English Premier League. The takeover has already been approved in the other jurisdictions.
Karen Bradley, the UK’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, referred the proposed takeover to the Competition and Markets Authority in September on the grounds of broadcasting standards and media plurality.
The regulator added that it considered “serious shortcomings” at the News of the World newspaper, which was closed down in the UK by Murdoch after being at the centre of the phone-hacking scandal, as well as sexual harassment allegations at Fox News in the US. However, it did not find undue concerns about both matters in relation to the issue of the proposed transaction.
In spite of the CMA’s provisional findings, the body’s full report will not be finalised until May 1 when it reports to Bradley, who will make the final decision. It will also consider possible remedies for the media plurality concerns.
Additionally, the CMA said that its concerns about media plurality could “fall away” if media company Walt Disney’s takeover of Fox’s entertainment assets is cleared. However, the deal is unlikely to be approved by regulators until well after the review of the Fox-Sky transaction is complete.