Skip to footer

British Sky Broadcasting deal may revive Fox's attempt to buy Timer Warner

British Sky Broadcasting has agreed to take control of its Italian and German sister companies from Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox. The British Sky Broadcasting deal gives Rupert Murdoch and 21st Century Fox enough cash to possibly buy Time Warner. 

|
Luca Bruno/AP/File
A view of the headquarter of the Italian SKY television broadcast in Milan, Italy, Friday, July 25, 2014. London-based satellite broadcaster BSkyB has agreed to take control of its sister companies in Italy and Germany, creating a European pay TV giant, by buying stakes from 21st Century Fox.
  • By Staff Associated Press

London-based pay TV network British Sky Broadcasting has agreed to take control of its sister companies in Italy and Germany, creating a multinational European broadcaster. The deal could have a wider impact on the media industry, giving Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox a cash boost to potentially revive its attempt to buy Time Warner.

BSkyB said Friday it will buy Sky Italia and 57 percent of Sky Deutschland for 5.35 billion pounds ($9.1 billion) from media giant 21st Century Fox. Besides being chairman and CEO of 21st Century Fox, Murdoch is also BSkyB's largest shareholder with a stake of just over 39 percent.

BSkyB said the deal would create a pay TV provider with 20 million customers across three of Europe's four biggest markets.

Media analyst Claire Enders said the deal shows BSkyB is moving to build business outside its base in Britain and moving beyond direct local competition with BT.

"It's now focused on transporting its technology and its production skills into other markets where there is demand for cutting edge TV," she said. "They believe this phenomenon will come to other countries in Europe, particularly Italy." She said she did not anticipate regulatory obstacles.

James Murdoch, Rupert's son and co-chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox, said the combination of European Sky companies would create "enormous benefits for the combined business and for our shareholders."

Buying Time Warner would add on to Murdoch's media empire. He inherited several regional and local Australian newspapers from his father. Murdoch went on to found and head global media conglomerate News Corporation, which bought several newspapers including the UK's News of the World and the Wall Street Journal. In 1986, he created Fox Broadcasting. 

Shareholders in BSkyB did not seem excited by the details of the deal, however, pushing the company's share price down 5 percent in London.

BSkyB said it was paying 2.45 billion pounds for Sky Italia and 2.9 billion pounds for its stake in Sky Deutschland. 21st Century Fox would receive cash payments of 4.9 billion pounds and BSkyB would also transfer its 21 percent stake in the National Geographic Channel. The company said it would make a voluntary cash offer to Sky Deutschland's minority shareholders at 6.75 euros ($9) per share.

Analysts note 21st Century Fox, which has a strong presence in cable, broadcast, film, pay TV and other fields, could use the cash from the European TV deal to help fund its pursuit of Time Warner after the recent failure of an $80 billion offer.

That bid was partly meant to counter consolidation among US TV distributors like Comcast-Time Warner Cable and AT&T-DirecTV.

Time Warner owns TV channels CNN, TNT and TBS, along with the Warner Bros. movie studio, which includes Batman, Superman and Harry Potter. Fox owns the 20th Century Fox movie studio, the Fox broadcast network and such TV channels as Fox News and FX.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to British Sky Broadcasting deal may revive Fox's attempt to buy Timer Warner
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0725/British-Sky-Broadcasting-deal-may-revive-Fox-s-attempt-to-buy-Timer-Warner
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe