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UK: Fox promises Sky News independence

By  |  February 12, 2018

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox has pledged to ensure the independence of Sky News as it seeks to overcome issues surrounding its plans to takeover Sky.

The company said it would commit to maintain Sky News for at least five years and would establish a fully independent board for the channel. Fox has been trying to buy the 61% of Sky that it does not currently own.

But last month, the British antitrust regulator said a Fox-Sky deal was not in the public interest on grounds of media plurality. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) provisionally found that if the deal went ahead as planned, it would give the Murdoch family too much control over news providers in the UK.

Britain’s competition regulator said last month that Fox’s US$15.7 billion deal to buy the 61% of Sky it does not already own should be blocked unless a way is found to prevent Murdoch influencing Sky’s news output..

Full Content: Business Insider

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