Rupert Murdoch Reportedly Selling Sky Assets to Boost Time Warner Bid

[big_dog]

Source: Mediaite.com 12:16 pm, July 21st, 2014

Rupert Murdoch is looking to sell his stakes in the German and Italian arms of Sky News in order to help increase his failed bid to take over the Time Warner corporation.

The deal, which could net Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox around $13.5 billion would give him a lot more to work with after his nearly $80 offer to Time Warner was rejected. He reportedly is close to reaching an agreement to sell his wholly-owned Sky Italia and 57% stake in Sky Deutschland AG to British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc, a deal that was in the works well before news of the Time Warner bid broke last week.

As Bloomberg reports, a potential Fox/Time Warner deal would trump the recently proposed Comcast/Time Warner Cable and AT&T/DirecTV mergers in size, reshaping the cable television landscape as we know it. However, Fox would likely need to sell off Time Warner’s CNN as part of the deal to avoid anti-trust issues. Last week, CBS CEO Les Moonves said he would be interested in acquiring CNN if it becomes available.

Read more: http://www.mediaite.com/online/murdoch-reportedly-selling-sky-assets-to-boost-time-warner-bid/

[Renew Deal]

2. Wouldn't there be regulatory issues with him owning both a cable and satellite company?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Cable in USA, satellite in the UK

He got round having the controlling interest in the sole British satellite broadcaster, and in the best-selling newspaper in the UK, so cross-media ownership in different continents wouldn't be a problem, I'd imagine.

[Renew Deal]

4. Don't they own Direct TV?

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. DirecTV appears to be independent, but A&T want to acquire it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirecTV

[totodeinhere]

6. Thye sold their interest in Directv some time ago. n/t

[Renew Deal]

7. I forgot about that.

[blkmusclmachine]

8. It pays to be a part of "THE FAMILY" (also known as "THE FELLOWSHIP").

[JDPriestly]

9. Remember! Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act over the protests of many

progressives. We cannot afford another corporate president. We cannot afford a Republican Congress. They will permit just a tiny number of very wealthy people to buy all our media and control the internet. I will bet you that some of the money supporting Republican causes is laundered foreign money. Banks and casinos can easily take money from foreign interests, process it and pay it out as campaign donations from ostensibly American citizens. I'm not sayint it has happened because I have no proof.

When corporations are treated as people for purposes of campaign donations, you never know what country is trying to influence your elections through the corporations.