The world of commercial telly has just got interesting

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6159780.stm

"Satellite television company BSkyB has bought a 17.9% stake in ITV for
£940m ($1.8bn) - but said it had no plans to make a full bid for the UK
company.
BSkyB bought 696 million shares at 135 pence each, saying ITV had
substantial potential for long-term value creation."

This has lots of potential to get very interesting indeed. No plans for
a full bid - do we believe them children? I certainly don't.

Just as well I don't watch ITV or very much on Sky but the pressure or
opportunities for the BBC might get a tad distracting. The government
will let the regulatory framework catch up with events in about 10 years
time when it's all far too late.

 

Oddly, I was discussing this last night.

Murdoch's got all of The Sun, The Times, News of the World, Sunday Times
(the last two are 'I think') plus BSKYB and now he's taking a
substantial holding in ITV?

Fucking hell. He's not even a UK citizen FFS and the ****'s been
getting involved in our politics with his 'anti-euro' stance.

Bad. V.Bad indeed.

 

I'd have thought so, since they're not allowed by existing regulation to
own more than 20% in ITV. One theory is that they'll try and do a swap
with RTL for Five, but it may simply be a blocking maneuver.