BSkyB's shares fell off a cliff shortly after Sky News admitted that one of its senior executives authorised a journalist to conduct email hacking on two separate occasions. Gerard Tubb, the broadcaster's northern England correspondent, accessed emails belonging to John Darwin, the "canoe man" accused of faking his own death.
BSkyB is being investigated by Ofcom to determine whether it is a "fit and proper" owner of a broadcast licence.
The shares plunged from 660p to 629p between 1.30pm and 2pm. They have since regained some ground, but BSkyB is still the biggest faller on the FTSE 100 – down 3% at 638p. Over in the US, parent company News Corp was down by 0.3%.
The Dow opened down 0.4% at 13,203 points after signs the US jobs market is improving reinforced the belief there would be no more quantitative easing in the near future. Data out on Thursday showed that jobless claims fell to their lowest level in nearly four years last week.
The index has since climbed back up and is now just 0.03% lower than Wednesday's close. It dropped by almost 1% on Wednesday after the Fed appeared to rule out a third bout of quantitative easing.
