Rupert Murdoch's plan to takeover BSkyB looks set to go ahead, now that culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has OK'd News Corporation's plan to spin off Sky News.
The news subsidiary will be spun off into a new publicly listed company called Newco. That would then allow the proposed £8bn purchase of the 61% of BSkyB it does not already ownNews Corporation is to license the Sky News brand to the operation for seven years, providing an incentive to renew a second funding deal. buy up the rest of BSkyB - he presently controls 39.1% of the company which is increasingly dominating British broadcasting.
Earlier this year, a memo signed by a coalition of British media companies, including the Guardian, asked then Business secretary Vince Cable to refer the proposed takeover to Ofcom. Cable later had to resign.
So, just how powerful would Murdoch become in the UK? According to a confidential report from respected media analyst Claire Enders to Vince Cable - subsequently leaked to media site BeehiveCity - it would substantially change the British media landscape.
As Dan Sabbagh writes on BeehiveCity:
Allowing the deal to go through would amount to Britain's 'Berlusconi moment'
You can download the leaked report at the site and it includes tonnes of data and a damning final verdict on the proposed takeover.
The key points are, according to Enders:
Products currently separately offered by BSkyB and News Corp titles may be combined in bundles… Strategic initiatives of this nature could lead to a much more rapid decline in competitor newspaper circulations than we have assumed, boosting News Corp's newspaper market share above 40% by 2014…
…Stories from Sky News (especially video) will presumably be carried more and more frequently on News Corp websites … Progressively, News International papers and BSkyB channels, particularly Sky News, may merge into one stream of fact and opinion. If this occurred, plurality would decline, even if the combined organisation continued to maintain newsrooms that are nominally separate…
…The loss of the independent BSkyB shareholders will allow News Corp greater opportunity to influence, tacitly or otherwise, the editorial coverage of Sky News and other BSkyB channels…
The final point is perhaps the most serious:
We believe … that there is a risk of a reduction in media plurality to an unacceptably low level
We've extracted the key data from the report for you below - plus a list (probably not exhaustive) of News Corporations' operations, from the group's website. We've visualised it above (click on the image to get the graphic).
What can you do with the data?
Data summary
| Company (mostly 2009 figs) | Total revenues (BT is BT retail only), £bn | Type of group |
|---|---|---|
| BT Retail | 8.4 | Multi |
| BSkyB & News Corp | 6.4 | Multi |
| BSkyB only | 5.4 | Multi |
| Virgin Media | 3.8 | Multi |
| BBC | 3.6 | Broadcast |
| Daily Mail & GT | 2.1 | Newspapers |
| ITV | 1.9 | Broadcast |
| News International | 1 | Newspapers |
| Channel 4 | 0.8 | Broadcast |
| Trinity Mirror | 0.8 | Newspapers |
| Johnston Press | 0.4 | Newspapers |
| Northern & Shell | 0.4 | Newspapers |
| Five | 0.3 | Broadcast |
| Telegraph Media Group | 0.3 | Newspapers |
| Guardian Media Group | 0.3 | Newspapers |
|
SOURCE: ENDERS |
||
| Company | Wholly-owned or equity? | Includes | Countries | Sector |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SKY Italia | Satellite pay-TV | Italy | 4m subscribers | Wholly owned |
| BSkyB | Satellite pay-TV | UK | Sky1, Sky Arts, Sky Sports, Sky News | Equity |
| Foxtel | Satellite pay-TV | Australia | 1.63m households, 6m subscribers | Equity |
| Sky Deutschland | Satellite pay-TV | Germany | Equity | |
| Tata Sky | Satellite pay-TV | India | Equity | |
| Fox Broadcasting Company | TV | US | Wholly owned | |
| Fox Sports | TV | US | Wholly owned | |
| Fox Sports Australia | TV | Australia | Wholly owned | |
| Fox Interactive Media | Online | World, based in US | MySpace, IGN Entertainment, FOXSports.com, RottenTomatoes, AskMen, AmericanIdol.com | Wholly owned |
| Fox TV Stations | TV | US | 27 Network stations: New York (WNYW / WWOR); Los Angeles (KTTV / KCOP); Chicago (WFLD / WPWR); Philadelphia (WTXF); Dallas (KDFW / KDFI); Boston (WFXT); Atlanta (WAGA); Washington DC (WTTG / WDCA); Houston (KRIV / KTXH); Detroit (WJBK); Phoenix (KSAZ / KUTP); Tampa (WTVT); Minneapolis (KMSP / WFTC); Orlando (WOFL / WRBW); Baltimore (WUTB); Memphis (WHBQ) Austin (KTBC); Gainesville (WOGX) | Wholly owned |
| MyNetworkTV | TV | US | Entertainment channel for 18-49s | Wholly owned |
| Twnetieth Television | TV | US | Wholly owned | |
| Fox Business Network | Cable TV | US | Wholly owned | |
| Fox News | Cable TV | US | Wholly owned | |
| Fox Cable networks | Cable TV | US | FX, FX HD, National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Channel HD, Nat Geo WILD, SPEED, SPEED HD, Big Ten Network, Big Ten Network HD, Fox Reality Channel, FSN, 19 owned-and-operated regional sports networks, FUEL TV, Fox Movie Channel, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Soccer Plus, Fox Sports en Español/FOX Deportes, FOX College Sports (Atlantic, Central, Pacific), | Wholly owned |
| Fox International Channels | Cable TV | Europe, Africa, Latin America, and Asia | FOX, FOX HD, FOX Life, FOX Life HD, FOX Crime, FX, FOX History & Entertainment, FOX Movies, FOX Next, FOX Sports, Speed Channel, Cult, Next HD, National Geographic Channel, National Geographic Channel HD, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Adventure, Nat Geo Music, Nat Geo Junior, Voyage, The History Channel, Baby TV, Real Estate TV, , Extension Networks:, My Fox, Fox Mobile, Fox One Mobile, FX Mobile, National Geographic Mobile, National Geographic VOD, Speed VOD, Baby TV VOD, www.puntofox.com, www.mundofox.com, www.floptv.tv, www.biensimple.com | Wholly owned |
| FSN | Cable TV | US | FOX Sports Arizona, FOX Sports Carolinas, FOX Sports Detroit, FOX Sports Florida, FOX Sports Houston, FOX Sports Indiana, FOX Sports Kansas City, FOX Sports Midwest, FOX Sports North, FOX Sports Ohio, FOX Sports Oklahoma, FOX Sports South, FOX Sports Southwest, FOX Sports Tennessee, FOX Sports West, FOX Sports Wisconsin, PRIME Ticket, SportSouth, and Sun Sports | Wholly owned |
| FX Networks | Cable TV | US | Wholly owned | |
| National Geographic Channel | Cable TV | US | Wholly owned | |
| Star | Cable TV | India and China, mainly but rest of world too | DTH operator Tata Sky, Cable system Hathway, channel distributor STAR Den, news channel operator MCCS, the south Indian broadcast business of Asianet channels and STAR Vijay, film producer and distributor Fox STAR Studios India and STAR CJ Home Shopping. In Greater China, STAR broadcasts six Chinese language channels and owns the world's largest contemporary Chinese film library | Wholly owned |
| ESPN Star | Cable TV | Asia | STAR Sports Asia, STAR Sports Hong Kong, STAR Sports India, STAR Sports Malaysia, STAR Sports SEA 2, STAR Sports SEA, STAR Sports Taiwan, STAR Cricket, ESPN SEA, ESPN China, ESPN Hong Kong, ESPN India, ESPN Malaysia, ESPN Philippines, ESPN SEA 2, ESPN Taiwan, MBC-ESPN (Korea) | Equity |
| National Geographic Channel Asia | Cable TV | Asia | Wholly owned | |
| Phoenix Satellite TV Holdings | Cable TV | Asia | Wholly owned | |
| Fox Studios Australia | Films | Australia | Studio development | Wholly owned |
| Fox TV Studios | Films | US | Wholly owned | |
| Twentieth Century Fox Film | Films | US | Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment | Wholly owned |
| Twentieth Century Fox Licensing And Merchandising | Films | US | Wholly owned | |
| Twentieth Century Fox TV | TV | US | Wholly owned | |
| News America Marketing | Marketing | US | Wholly owned | |
| New York Post | Newspapers/data | US | PageSix, The Best Sports in Town and nypost.com | Wholly owned |
| News International | Newspapers/data | UK | The Times and The Sunday Times, Times Literary Supplement and News Group Newspapers Ltd. publishes The Sun and The News of the World | Wholly owned |
| News Limited | Newspapers/data | Australia | 100 metropolitan, regional and suburban titles, including the national daily, The Australian. News Limited is also developing a range of new businesses, including online and data services (News Digital Media), pay-television (Foxtel), film and television production (Fox Studios Australia), magazine publishing (News Magazines), music and sports entertainment (National Rugby League; FoxSports Australia) | Wholly owned |
| Dow Jones | Newspapers/data | US | The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Barron's and MarketWatch | Wholly owned |
| Harper Collins | Book publishing | US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India | HarperCollins General Books Group, HarperCollins Children's Books Group, Zondervan, HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins Canada, HarperCollins Australia/New Zealand and HarperCollins India | Wholly owned |
| Hulu | Online | US | Online video service | Equity |
| NDS Group | TV hardware | UK | Set top box developers: centres in China, Denmark, France, India, Israel, Korea, UK and US | Equity |
|
SOURCE: NEWSCORP |
||||
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