The secretary of state for trade and industry, Alastair Darling, has asked Ofcom to review BSkyB’s acquisition of a 17.9% stake in ITV, with reports in the trade press claiming that the review could be widened to include all of Rupert Murdoch’s UK media assets.
The review is to ascertain whether the Sky purchase “raises public interest concerns about the number of different owners of media enterprises”, with Ofcom set to report back to Darling by April 27.
Virgin Media, which has gone head to head with Sky since its rebranding (see Sky’s Profits Could Be Hit By Virgin Channel Row) and was interested in acquiring Sky under its previous guise as NTL (see NTL Pulls Out Of ITV Merger), has complained about the purchase on public interest grounds.
In January the Office of Fair Trading issued a statement asking for interested parties to comment on the Sky/ITV deal (see OFT Asks Interested Parties To Comment On Sky/ITV Deal).
The outcome of these investigations could see a full inquiry launched by the Competition Commission.
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