Ofcom and DTI slam Murdoch TV strategy

On Friday, Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading both delivered reports to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) accusing Sky of behaving badly, the same day that Virgin laid down its case against the company. The DTI's report found that Sky's purchase of 17.9 per cent of ITV could be considered anti-competitive and should …

[Anonymous Coward]

Branson the hypocrite

Heh. Great sub-head. Played loudly by Richard "Angelface" Branson. The brave champion of consumers, master of competition, and defender of corporate innovation. Until, that is, someone whips him in a fight over a TV station, when he turns his sad, sincere eyes to the cameras and whines for the government to protect poor wittle him against those bad Yankee bullies. Smarmy hypocrite.

[Rich Bryant]

Re: Branson the hypocrite

Wow, who knew Rupert Murdoch was a Reg reader?

G'day to the Dirty Digger above, and here's hoping Sky start acting in a competitive manner rather than what we've seen since the crushing of BSB all those years ago.

[Kevin Hall]

Re: Branson the hypocrite

Whatever you think about Beardie is irrelevant. The problem here is Murdoch - you can't have any company, let alone a predatory company like his, owning nearly a fifth of its major rival. We all know Murdoch, News Corp, Fox and all the rest is an absolutely rotten mindset where nothing less than the absolute obliteration of any competitor will do. The goal of Murdoch is simple, drive out the competition and the force his tenth-rate sludge down our throats for £40 a month. Once Murdoch prevails he will make the current telly license seem like a utopia.

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm

"protect poor wittle him against those bad Yankee bullies. Smarmy hypocrite."

Ignorance is forgivable. Stupidity is inexcusable.

Murdoch is an Australian meglomaniac who wants control of as much media as possible, scrapping his publications would be a public service and probably increase the national eyeQ by several magnitudes.

Branson is far from perfect, but compared to Murdoch he is a saint an will probably be ordained in the next by the Virgin Church franchise.

[Shaun]

DTI? OFT?

You keep saying DTI, but it shouldn't most of them say OFT?

[Keith Turner]

But Murdoch is a bigger wriggler

Branson maybe moaning that he has been temporarily halted in his takeover of U.K. PLC but Mudroach turned from being a faithful, full-blown Ocker and cricket fan in order to buy Fox.

To renounce being an Aussie and sign on the dotted line to become a member of U.S.A. inc. is surely unforgivable.

At least Branson's been trying to save the word with condoms, how much of Sky's tax goes back to fund 'police actions' around the planet?

[Andy Bright]

I don't think people understand

Having just one or two companies owning all media is much better for the public.

This way the government only has to inform a small number of outlets what the news should be. You wouldn't want the public confused by unapproved news from rogue "independents".

Imagine if a dozen or more private entities owned TV, radio and newspapers. What a mess. There just wouldn't be enough time in the day for government oversight to inform them all what the news is.

No - it really is much better that all media is owned by one or two corporations, and naturally those should be corporations with the closest ties with government.

You know it makes sense - or we'll schedule you for thought re-processing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hot air

I don't think this will go anywhere. The rules on competition are not all that complex and Sky did not break them. Did they spoil the Virgin approach to ITV? Probably. Is that legal? Almost certainly. That's what companies do.

[Big Pete]

Australian megalomaniac, crikey Bruce, that's not right.

"Murdoch is an Australian megalomaniac who wants control of as much media as possible, scrapping his publications would be a public service and probably increase the national eyeQ by several magnitudes."

Get it right, Murdoch is an American megalomaniac, he cashed in his Aussie citizenship years ago. Even us Aussies don't like him.

[kmfw72]

Australo-American megalomaniac

Go Ofcom and DTI! I don't much care for Beardie, but I have even less desire to see Murdoch having the same stranglehold on the media that he does in Australia.

He's done the same kind of thing there, buying a small stake in Fairfax (which owns most of the newspapers in Australia that he doesn't) making the Aussie press even more incestuous than it already was. Thankfully, the UK is better suited to national papers than Australia, because of its size and population density

Until recently, Australia had restrictive foreign media ownership laws, but Murdoch got off because he used to be an Australian, and News Limited used to be based in Australia.

Virgin should launch a direct competitor to Sky on satellite - we can have UK versions of ESPN for sport and HBO for movies.