The UK culture secretary is “minded to intervene” over the £1.6B ($2.1B) Sky–ITV deal.
Lisa Nandy issued her notice over “public interest considerations” including “the need for free expression of opinion in news media,” “the need for a sufficient plurality of views in news media in each market” and “the need for the availability throughout the United Kingdom of a wide range of broadcasting, on-demand programmes or both.”
Notably, Nandy is also considering bringing forward legislation that would update the latter to include streaming. She said this legislation “was drafted at a time where viewing was largely via broadcast linear channels.” This reared its head during the Paramount-Warner-Skydance deal stage, for which Nandy similarly said she was “minded to intervene” and the deal was subsequently waved through. It completed in the U.S. last week.
Nandy stressed that she has not made a final decision and both Sky and ITV have five days to respond to her notice.
Her next step would be to potentially issue an intervention notice, which would mean Ofcom assessing and reporting on public interest considerations, and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) assessing and report on whether a relevant merger situation has been created that would damage competition. Nandy could then refer Sky-ITV for a more detailed investigation by the CMA.
Nandy said she will update parliament shortly.
The Sky-ITV merger shocked the world of broadcasting when it was announced late last year, bringing together the UK’s pay-TV giant and oldest commercial broadcaster. Sky was previously owned by Comcast but was spun out earlier this year under the NBCUniversal umbrella. Thoughts have already turned to the newly-merged entity, which won’t include producer-distributor ITV Studios. Sky Studios boss Cécile Frot-Coutaz said last month she would like to experiment by putting Sky hits like The Day of the Jackal and Brassic free-to-air on ITV.