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Comcast wins bid for SKY (UK)

Rupert Murdoch loses mega-auction for European Pay TV company.

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Comcast has emerged as the successful bidder for Britain’s largest pay-TV provider SKY, outbidding 21st Century FOX and Disney in a £30B auction ($AU53B).

The bid has already been greenlit by SKY’s independent directors and shareholders now have until 11 October to decide whether to accept the recommended offer.

It brings an end to Rupert Murdoch’s long association with SKY, which he founded in 1989 -FOX already owns 39% of the company.

SKY currently serves 26 million customers across Europe. It has already struck a deal with Netflix to put the service on its set-top boxes and is also celebrating after cutting the amount it pays for Premier League rights.

Buying SKY will make Philadelphia-based Comcast, which owns the NBC network and Universal Pictures, the world’s largest pay-TV operator with around 52 million customers.

“This is a great day for Comcast,” chairman and chief executive Brian Roberts said. “This acquisition will allow us to quickly, efficiently and meaningfully increase our customer base and expand internationally.”

SKY’s chief executive Jeremy Darroch added, “SKY has never stood still, and with Comcast our momentum will only increase.”

Source: The Guardian, Reuters

7 Responses

  1. Does this mean Rupert Murdoch will be paid off for his shares and own none of Sky , and Foxtel will deal directly with Sky also does this also mean Fetch tv will have access to sky channels?

  3. This does look like a recipe for overcapitalised disaster unless you factor in the massive revenue earned from sports broadcasting and movie distribution plus advertising. Europe is a massive market but geo- zoning will no doubt limit content in some areas, as it does now. No doubt the competition will be fierce for content rights unless more money is spent on original productions, as does Netflix who must be wondering what will come next.

  4. At this price it is not cheap. I am waiting for the media bubble to burst where such companies are forced to writedown heavily for their overpaid acquisitions.

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