Sky has said it will review the future of Sky News if 21st Century Fox’s £11.7bn bid to take full control of the broadcaster is blocked on the grounds of media plurality.
Fox’s bid for Sky is currently being investigated by the Competition Markets Authority with particular reference to the Murdochs’ commitment to broadcasting standards, and the deal’s impact on media plurality.
The CMA has said in its issues statement that if the deal is blocked its assumption is that Sky News will continue to compete against rival news organisations including the BBC, ITV and Channel 4.
Sky responded to the statement, which set out the scope of the CMA’s six-month investigation, by saying: “The CMA should not simply assume the ‘continued provision of Sky News’ and its current contribution to plurality, ‘absent the transaction’.
“Sky would likely be prompted to review the position in the event that the continued provision of Sky News in its current form unduly impeded merger and/or other corporate opportunities available in relation to Sky’s broader business,”
Sky said in a five-page submission to the CMA published on Tuesday.
The CMA must evaluate whether Fox’s bid to take full control of Sky – leading to the Murdochs’ controlling the Times, Sunday Times, Sun, Wall Street Journal and Sky News – would result in a reduction in the plurality of news available to UK consumers.
Karen Bradley, the culture secretary, referred the proposed takeover to the CMA in September.
The media regulator, Ofcom, had already raised “significant concerns” over the two options for solving media plurality issues, known as behaviourial and structural remedies.
In June, Ofcom said a full structural spinoff of Sky News, which was accepted as a remedy at the time of the last bid in 2011, would not solve the issue this time.
The media regulator was concerned that the loss-making Sky News was likely to become a smaller operation if run as a separate business, and could therefore make the situation worse.
Ofcom also rejected Fox’s proposal of a behavioural remedy: the appointment of independent board members at Sky News and a five-year funding guarantee.
But the regulator gave Fox a potential fix by suggesting it could strengthen its initial proposal by extending the funding offer – the aborted 2011 deal came with a 10-year funding guarantee that was accepted by ministers – and beefing up its plans for board independence.
The CMA is due to publish the provisional findings of its investigation in December.
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