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| The Guardian view on Rupert Murdoch’s Sky bid: the fox is in the henhouse again | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Set aside the personalities, the politics and the policy issues and it might just be possible to see the £11.2bn bid by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox to take control of James Murdoch’s Sky as just a smart piece of business timing. Rupert Murdoch, after all, has always wanted to buy the 61% of Sky that he does not already own. He only stepped back from doing so in 2011 because the phone-hacking scandal, and the setting up of the Leveson inquiry forced him to. With the Sky share price at its lowest in four years, an EU-enforced challenge from BT Group in the pay TV sports market, and a sharp drop in the value of sterling, it didn’t take a genius to see Fox would soon be ready to pounce. | Set aside the personalities, the politics and the policy issues and it might just be possible to see the £11.2bn bid by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox to take control of James Murdoch’s Sky as just a smart piece of business timing. Rupert Murdoch, after all, has always wanted to buy the 61% of Sky that he does not already own. He only stepped back from doing so in 2011 because the phone-hacking scandal, and the setting up of the Leveson inquiry forced him to. With the Sky share price at its lowest in four years, an EU-enforced challenge from BT Group in the pay TV sports market, and a sharp drop in the value of sterling, it didn’t take a genius to see Fox would soon be ready to pounce. |
| Mr Murdoch Sr will also hope opposition will be confined to the hard core of usual suspects. He may be right. Media ecology has moved on since 2011. With the further rise of digital platforms such as Google and Facebook, television and newspapers no longer command the world as they did. So some will see a Fox-Sky merger as just another big merger of the sort that is common across the world, from AT&T and Time Warner down, as media have come under siege financially. | Mr Murdoch Sr will also hope opposition will be confined to the hard core of usual suspects. He may be right. Media ecology has moved on since 2011. With the further rise of digital platforms such as Google and Facebook, television and newspapers no longer command the world as they did. So some will see a Fox-Sky merger as just another big merger of the sort that is common across the world, from AT&T and Time Warner down, as media have come under siege financially. |
| Politics have changed too. The coalition and David Cameron are history. Labour is in eclipse, Leveson wilfully forgotten, and there is no Milly Dowler scandal to shame the press. News Corp has been split in two, and the media is freshly confident of its post-Brexit power. The old fox may sniff a good time to re-enter the media hen house. | Politics have changed too. The coalition and David Cameron are history. Labour is in eclipse, Leveson wilfully forgotten, and there is no Milly Dowler scandal to shame the press. News Corp has been split in two, and the media is freshly confident of its post-Brexit power. The old fox may sniff a good time to re-enter the media hen house. |
| The problem with every bit of this, though, is that you can’t set aside the personalities of the Murdochs, the politics that their consolidation in full control of Sky would raise, and the policy and public interest issues around regulation, plurality, business practices and standards – especially post-Brexit. Sky is headed by the same James Murdoch whom Ofcom criticised in 2012 for repeatedly falling short of its standards of governance. And Fox is run by the same Rupert Murdoch who, when asked why he was so opposed to the EU, is said to have replied: “When I go into Downing Street, they do what I say; when I go to Brussels, they take no notice.” Though the media world has changed and is changing – and regulatory systems ought to do more to catch up with it, not least in relation to the personal data implications of such mergers – some things never change at all. On the steps of Downing Street in July, Theresa May told the just-about-managing that “The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours.” Two months later, Mrs May took time out in New York to meet Rupert Murdoch privately. | The problem with every bit of this, though, is that you can’t set aside the personalities of the Murdochs, the politics that their consolidation in full control of Sky would raise, and the policy and public interest issues around regulation, plurality, business practices and standards – especially post-Brexit. Sky is headed by the same James Murdoch whom Ofcom criticised in 2012 for repeatedly falling short of its standards of governance. And Fox is run by the same Rupert Murdoch who, when asked why he was so opposed to the EU, is said to have replied: “When I go into Downing Street, they do what I say; when I go to Brussels, they take no notice.” Though the media world has changed and is changing – and regulatory systems ought to do more to catch up with it, not least in relation to the personal data implications of such mergers – some things never change at all. On the steps of Downing Street in July, Theresa May told the just-about-managing that “The government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours.” Two months later, Mrs May took time out in New York to meet Rupert Murdoch privately. |
| On Monday Labour was quick to raise the Sky bid in the Commons. The government tasked Matt Hancock, minister at the DCMS, to play for time, saying no formal notice of the bid has yet been received. That will presumably change soon. When it does, culture secretary Karen Bradley should refer the bid to Ofcom, as in 2010. But that is not enough. | On Monday Labour was quick to raise the Sky bid in the Commons. The government tasked Matt Hancock, minister at the DCMS, to play for time, saying no formal notice of the bid has yet been received. That will presumably change soon. When it does, culture secretary Karen Bradley should refer the bid to Ofcom, as in 2010. But that is not enough. |
| The absolute minimum need in this case is for cast-iron safeguards. Sky should be bound in perpetuity to the same standards of impartiality and fairness as the BBC and ITV. There should be no overlap of personnel between Fox and Sky at executive and board level. James Murdoch, still the subject of phone-hacking claims, should confine his role to one part of the business. There should be an independent editorial board at Sky. There should be no cross promotion between broadcast and newspaper interests. | The absolute minimum need in this case is for cast-iron safeguards. Sky should be bound in perpetuity to the same standards of impartiality and fairness as the BBC and ITV. There should be no overlap of personnel between Fox and Sky at executive and board level. James Murdoch, still the subject of phone-hacking claims, should confine his role to one part of the business. There should be an independent editorial board at Sky. There should be no cross promotion between broadcast and newspaper interests. |
| All this should be enforceable by Ofcom. Britain needs more media plurality, not less. It is parliament’s high responsibility to set the strongest terms to nourish its future. | All this should be enforceable by Ofcom. Britain needs more media plurality, not less. It is parliament’s high responsibility to set the strongest terms to nourish its future. |