News Corp.’s £7.8 billion bid to buy British Sky Broadcasting won anti-trust approval from the European Commission on Tuesday, clearing a key hurdle on the path to the mega-merger.
The Commission concluded the proposed transaction “would not significantly impede effective competition":
News Corp. and BSkyB are mainly active in different markets in the UK and Ireland and compete with each other only to a limited extent, in the wholesale supply of basic pay-TV channels and in the supply of online and TV advertising space. The Commission found that the proposed transaction would only lead to a small increment on BSkyB's existing share of the market for the supply of basic pay-TV channels in the UK and Ireland.