It looks as though the Government is about to allow News Corporation (R. Murdoch, prop.) to acquire the 61% of UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB that it doesn't already own. To pave the way, the Murdoch family will spin off Sky News into a separate company, in order to allay fears of excessive concentration in media ownership. Opponents of the deal are already calling it a whitewash and a sellout. One Tweet: "Congratulations to Rupert Murdoch for winning the next few general elections".
I'm no fan of Murdoch, as any regular reader of this blog will know, but I can't get worked up about this. Does anyone really doubt that with its current ownership structure, BSkyB is already entirely under the Murdoch thumb? If Rupert wants to spend something like £10 billion to convert de facto control into de jure ownership, I have to say I'm really not bothered.
Having said that, I don't really see the spinoff of Sky News as much of a sweetener. Sky News will continue to be 39% owned by News Corp and will get almost all of its revenues from providing news services to BSkyB. Doesn't sound very independent to me, regardless of who they put on the Board of Directors. Put it this way, it's still going to be a cold day in Hell before Sky News runs a fearless expose into the Murdoch Empire.
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