Regulators To Hand Sky Share Reports To DTI Today

Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) will today hand reports to the Department of Trade and Industry giving their views on BSkyB’s purchase of a 17.9% stake in ITV.

This comes two months after secretary of state Alastair Darling issued a special intervention notice. It is expected that Darling will take a month to decide whether to refer the case to the Competition Commission.

Whether or not Darling decides to refer the case to the Commission, the OFT could itself go straight there with its own conclusions, with the Commission then launching an investigation and making a final decision.

Darling asked Ofcom to review the purchase to ascertain whether it raised “public interest concerns about the number of different owners of media enterprises” (see Darling Demands Ofcom Investigate Sky’s Stake In ITV).

Sky purchased the stake in ITV last year for £940 million, prompting Sir Richard Branson to say: “BSkyB’s move is a blatant attempt to distort competition even further by blocking any attempt to create a strong and meaningful competitor.

“BSkyB is positioned to strongly influence ITV’s operations in a manner that favours BSkyB’s long-term plans rather than the interests of the other 82% percent of ITV shareholders who weren’t offered a sweetheart deal on Friday.”

Of course, Branson and Sky have clashed several times since then, most notably over the removal of the basic Sky channels from the Virgin Media platform (see Virgin Media And Sky: The Story So Far).

Office of Fair Trading: www.oft.gov.uk Ofcom: 020 7981 3040 www.ofcom.org.uk Sky: 08702 40 40 40 www.sky.com ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com