News Corporation's bid for BSkyB faces probe

The Business Secretary, Vince Cable, has ordered Ofcom to investigate News Corporation's plan to take full control of broadcaster BSkyB.

News Corporation has said it wants to buy the 61% of BSkyB it does not own.

The inquiry will look into "media plurality" - the degree to which news outlets are concentrated under one organisation's ownership.

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns News International, which owns the Sun, News of the World, Times and Sunday Times.

These account for a third of the UK's national newspaper circulation, while BSkyB has almost 10 million customers.

In a statement, News Corporation said it believed its plan would be cleared....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11691728

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"You may have heard the phrase, 'The flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil sets off a tornado in Texas.' Well, try this: 'The lies of a newspaper in London can get a bloke's head caved in down an alley in Bradford.' Richard Peppiatt

One of the plotlines in Michael Dobbs' excellent House of Cards trilogy had a Murdoch-esque media baron trying to form a media monopoly very similar to this. He was turned down, much to his chagrin, as "the rest of the media would neither forget, nor forgive". Be interesting to see how this plays out.

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Ten seconds... the pain begins.

Fifteen seconds... you can't breathe.

Twenty seconds... you give up and turn off the Jeremy Vine show.

Tories want to abolish Ofcom. He'll get what he wants.

Cameron will offer Cable a better Ministerial car, or a slightly bigger office, and his objections will disappear like sea mist on a summer's morning.

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Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.

I'm reserving judgement...I didn't think Cable would take it to Ofcom and he has, although of course that could be a mere sop to the protesters to make it look like he's doing something.

I can see this being blocked on the basis of slight grief from Murdoch now being much better than his media empire having much more influence in the future. Sure, the Tories will cosy up to anyone to get into power, but once there they don't like to be told what to do. And much as they dislike the BBC, I suspect they'd not like to be bossed around by Rupes either.

It's basically greed, but in this case Tory greed might mean they deliberately scupper Murdoch's greed to ensure their own greed isn't curtailed or they end up forelock tugging to him later.

I don't have much to add other than A+ to Dacre Bleugh for the pun in the thread title.

Hello, by the way!

And hello to you, my fellow James Bond fan (even though Thunderball puts me to sleep - the book is far better).

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"To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth."
Voltaire

And now Vince Cable's decided that he's going to be on the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special.

If he wants any chance of avoiding the sort of coverage that did for George Galloway and Neil Hamilton, I think that Andy has a point...

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"If the past really is a foreign country, I'm surprised that 'The Daily Mail' would want to live there.” - Roger Quimbly

It could be that Cable has played a blinder on this one.

This particular hot potato is off his desk and on to that of Ofcom so the whole decision making process has nothing to do with him for the time being.

The ambitions of News Corp serve only Murdoch and his companies plus, to an extent, the Conservative party but only while they are still best buddies. They certainly don't serve Associated, Mirror Group, Telegraph or N&S nor the LibDems.

My reading of the situation is that Cameron has to either risk alienating Murdoch - who would need to be on steroids to be able to deliver within four and a half years - or piss off Derry Street, Desmond and the Barclays once and for all.

Looking at them individually, the Mail titles have got nowhere else to run. Their colours are nailed so firmly to the Tory mast that they would lose all credibility with their core constituency (read: revenue base) if they jumped ship. The worst they could do is snipe from the sidelines so as to give Cameron a tough ride but not much more.

Desmond? Who knows? And I doubt if he does either. One thing's for sure, an emboldened Murdoch would certainly leave Five looking like an exhausted actress after a shoot on one on his other specialist television outlets - the only difference being the small matter of 120 million quid. He would be so vulnerable that Dave would be naive (which he arguably isn't now that the clouds of this shit storm are beginning to gather ) to accept one single word of assurance or platitude from Desmond who, as Dave well knows, has form.

As for the Telegraph. Murdoch MacLennan is probably smarter than the lot of them put together. He is an ex-Mail man, before that he was at Trinity Mirror and in his current brief, he presided over the water-torture that was the expenses scandal - he knows his way around and he also knows that he will sell newspapers whoever is in office. Given that his employers' business is, to all intents and purposes off-sure, he is also largely bomb-proof.

The upshot of all this is that both camps have too much to lose yet Cameron can't win. And, he most certainly can't abolish Ofcom in the middle of an investigation like this because, sure as Royal Weddings sell supplements, the rest of Fleet Street would spontaneously combust in to a stirring rendition of the Red Flag.

The best he (DC) can hope for is that Coulson gets his collar felt and that Murdoch withdraws because the heat is just too much.

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Brigate di Transizione

And here we go. Let the flinging of the toys out of the pram begin!

Blocking Sky bid may jeopardise News Corp UK investment, warns James Murdoch

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"If the past really is a foreign country, I'm surprised that 'The Daily Mail' would want to live there.” - Roger Quimbly

What a wonderful world that would be.

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MY COMMENTS ARE FROM THE HORSES MOUTH AND ARE ALL FACTS

I wondered how many people'd consider that a blessing rather than a threat.

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"If the past really is a foreign country, I'm surprised that 'The Daily Mail' would want to live there.” - Roger Quimbly

I just wish I could get the programmes I want to see (and Mrs Armsteen is addicted to UK LIving) any other way. It's a constant, nagging feeling of guilt. Worse than being Catholic.

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Where there is great doubt, there will be great awakening; small doubt, small awakening, no doubt, no awakening.

Well that's that fucked then.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12053656

As for Cable - if you really think the coalition is such a shower why are you in it? Why are you now saying 'yessir, sorrysir' at the decision to hand this over to Jeremy Cunt? Why are you still playing the patsy while your Tory masters look down on you and laugh?

Is because you desperately want to be in power at any cost and no matter what principles you have to give up you spineless shit? Fuck off.

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MY COMMENTS ARE FROM THE HORSES MOUTH AND ARE ALL FACTS