Sky-ITV: UK Competition Bodies Given Greenlight To Investigate $2.2B Deal By Culture Secretary

The UK Culture Secretary has taken her examination of the £1.6B ($2.1B) Sky–ITV acquisition to the next stage by asking competition bodies Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to formally scrutinize the deal.

Lisa Nandy said she was “minded to intervene” last month and has now told Ofcom and the CMA to report back by January 27. Following these reports, she will decide whether to refer the deal for a more detailed investigation by the CMA. She has for now issued what is called a Public Interest Intervention Notice (PIIN) and will report back to parliament early next year.

Nandy is intervening over areas of concern 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.”

On the latter, she revealed today she will officially bring forward legislation that would update the latter to include streaming. She previously said this was under consideration.

In issuing the PIIN, Nandy has gone a step further than the Paramount-Warner-Skydance deal, for which she said she was “minded to intervene” but then waved the deal through. That deal also steered clear of a full EU regulatory probe and completed in the U.S. last month.

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 via the multi-billion-pound deal.

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 recently she would like to experiment by putting Sky hits like The Day of the Jackal and Brassic free-to-air on ITV.