UK regulator rules against Murdoch takeover of Sky

The UK's Competition and Markets Authority decided that Rupert Murdoch’s £11.7 billion bid to take full control of Sky would concentrate too much power in the media mogul’s hands, giving the Murdoch family “too much control over news providers across all media platforms, and therefore too much influence over public opinion and the political agenda”.  Walt Disney will have to decide whether to take full control of Sky when it completes its proposed $66 billion takeover of the entertainment assets owned by Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox group. That deal, which must be cleared by regulators in the US and Europe, includes Fox’s 39 percent of Sky — and would have included 100 percent of Sky had Murdoch’s second attempt to buy Sky been approved by the CMA. But the regulator said Fox taking full control of Sky was “not in the public interest due to media plurality concerns”.