Rivals say Hunt must ignore News Corp offers
January 21, 2011
Rival media owners have told Jeremy Hunt, the UK culture secretary, he must ignore offers from News Corp to separate off Sky News. Reacting to reports the company has said it will separate or even sell Sky News the newspaper groups wrote to Hunt warning this pre-condition offer should not stop him referring the bid to the Competition Commission.
The letter says to be meaningful the offer would have to guarantee selling off Sky News completely – and as it loses £30million+ (€35.5m) a year there wouldn’t be any buyers. It says the issues are complex and the only logical way of proceeding is to refer the matter to the commission.