And no doubt..
....we can expect more slagging off of the BBC and the evils of free-to-air TV from his empire.
British broadcaster and phone service provider Sky is to be bought by Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox for £18.5bn, according to reports. The price reflects a valuation of £10.75 per share, according to Reuters, who, along with the BBC, claimed that some investors were unhappy with the valuation but did not go into specifics …
"Coming soon on Sky TV, a new Blockbuster Australian series "The Joy of Brexit" one hundred sumptuous episodes spelling out the joy that awaits everyone. See the new Victory Gin factories, gasp (literally) with awe at the splendid Victory cigarettes, laugh until you think you will never stop at the antics of traitorous Remainers dangling from a rope and kicking their heels for hours."
"And don't miss our latest Super Soaraway Sunday Entertainment "Celebrity Boob Fights" all your favourite female celebrities stripped to the waist! Whoever lands a knockout blow with either breast gets to take home this week's star prize!"
"It's all in your Super Special Soaraway Sky! For a low, low subscription rate of only £150 a month or, for our poorer viewers, indenturing your children to Sky Corporation for the rest of their lives."
Nonono, what we can see is a 30% increase in prices for Sky to pay for the cost of buying out Sky, THEN you will get Murduck whispering in the PM's ear (post brexit, sans EU safeguards) that the BBC needs to change because of their $20b operation (and you wonder why the Sun was so pro-Brexit) until eventually the licence fee is removed and we're forced to have a dish and pay Sky £450 a month to get the current FTA channels, failing to get said dish and paying £450/month will get you a) flogged and b) sent down for 6 years.
"(and you wonder why the Sun was so pro-Brexit)"
Yes of course! The Sun wanted to leave the EU just to get rid of the BBC!
I'm glad we have people like you to enlighten us as to the deeper motivations of these evil corporations, how could we have been so silly to fall for such a ruse?
THEN you will get Murduck whispering in the PM's ear ... that the BBC needs to change ... until eventually the licence fee is removed and we're forced to have a dish and pay Sky £450 a month to get the current FTA channels
Actually, I expect Sky will try to get the BBC licence fee bundled into it's charges, on the basis that the BBC is just another content provider. what this simple change in the way the licence fee is collected will result in Sky controlling a significant proportion of the BBC's budget and thus give it leverage over the BBC; just as it is using Ofcom to gain leverage over BT whilst at the same time stitching up Virgin.
What no-one mentiones is what owning 100% rather than 40% will give extra to NewsCorp. Through the holding they already have a defacto choice of CEO and a number of relationships between the different parts of the conglomerate. If you're worried about plurality I don't see how this changes anything on the ground
what owning 100% rather than 40% will give extra to NewsCorp
Well, effectively this deal takes Sky private, so from Sky's point of view it enables it to lose profits in internal accounting and offshoring, whilst at the same time continue crying to Ofcom as to just how unfair the UK market is and can they do something about breaking up BT - who must be doing that unfair practice of using internal accounting practices to hide the profits of derived from OpenReach...
If Ofcom had any brains and backbone they would place an infrastructure investment levy on Sky et al. £3bn pa is probably in the right ballpark for fixed line, plus another few billion for mobile...
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Before the Iraq war, Murdoch owned 175 newspapers around the globe. 175 of them came out as explicitly in favour of the Iraq war. I wouldn't care how many newspapers or broadcasters he owned, as long as he didn't treat them as his own personal megaphone, which it seems to me that he does.
who is going to emerge as our Putin?
Imagine Mrs May riding a horse without her shirt on, judo throwing willing victims, and shooting bears.
I quite like that imagery, although absent many native bears, she'll either have to shoot particularly hairy fat people, or Scotsmen.
> That begs the almost deafening question, "WHAT'S THE WESTERN MEDIA's EXCUSE?"
The western media are the tools of their respective western governments? The whole "RT is a tool of the Russian government" thing is a rather public example of the pot calling the kettle black, IMO.
You cannot trust any media to tell you the truth. Personally I read them all, and then use my mental faculties to get an idea of what is actually going on in the world.
Admittedly the use of mental faculties has been going out of fashion in the last few years, with more and more people willing to delegate the task of thinking to machines, or other humans, neither of which may have the persons best intentions in mind.
I get where people are coming from with one man / family / group having so much say in the media.
And it is very bad, no disagreements from me.
Thing is, the mainstream media is dying.. spectacularly!
After all the years of misinformation and down right lying, people are just turning off in their droves.
In fact you could put this 'Fake News' thing as an attempt to 'bail out' the corporate / government media as they are losing (hemorrhaging?) revenue and viewers / readers, hence why no one is believing "The Russians Did It!" nonsense that tptb are trying to pedal to everyone and their dog, because people for the most part have stopped listening to them and if they do take notice, expect actual evidence which as always is in short supply.
So yeah let him buy Sky, let him buy ALL the newspapers and lets hope that they all die a quick death as people turn to the internet and streaming services.
"After all the years of misinformation and down right lying, people are just turning off in their droves"
This hasn't, in general, been coming from the mainstream media that's dying. The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph and the BBC have tended to be accurate.
Unfortunately it's them that are dying whereas The Daily Mail and The Sun are growing.
And if they do go, what are you left with - fake stories made up on Facebook and promoted by Outbrain?
"The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph and the BBC have tended to be accurate."
What?! Like the WMDs that never appeared, the concentration camps in Bosnia that turned out not to exist, the such and such bad guys using chemical weapons on innocent civilians, a number of times only to turn out that it was the side we (as in the UK and or the US government) were supporting. And despite days and days of this propaganda going out it is quietly retracted (as it needs to be by law) at stupid o'clock in the morning or in a small print box in the middle of nowhere between the sheets, so most people dont even see it, hell even the murder of that MP by a nutjob who was reported to of said 'Britain First' despite out of the 3 people who were reported of witnessing the attack, 2 came out publicly to said he didnt say anything of the sort, yet I still see people here thinking that is what happen. - Yeah a complete bastion of accuracy and free from all agenda?!
"And if they do go, what are you left with - fake stories made up on Facebook and promoted by Outbrain?"
Yeah and that's the narrative, just like 'The Russians Did It'.
Thing is have you looked at some of these lists of so-called 'Fake News' site, in there are places like RT - the Russian news organisation that pushes Russian Agenda rather then the US/UK one but is no way no more 'fake' that the US/UK alternatives, and I'm not seeing BBC CNN Fox on any list or being mentioned.
And also 'The Onion'... I mean... WT actual F.
Firstly do people really need to be told what 'The Onion' actually is?
And secondly it just shows the effort put into these lists.. which is why even most of them are again quickly retracted after days of pushing them.. from what I can tell the first lists were made simply by typing 'who made fun of Hillary' into google! - so yeah obviously no agenda there either
"July 14, 2011 - The FBI launches an investigation into the allegations that News Corp. employees or associates hacked into phones of 9/11 victims. "
"July 16 2011 - Rupert Murdoch issues apology for phone hacking via full page ads in seven national newspapers. "
"October 25, 2011 - In a News Corp. shareholders vote Rupert Murdoch's sons, James and Lachlan, lose their Board of Director seats. Murdoch retains his seat, however 14% of the vote was against him."
"December 14, 2011 - Former News of the World lawyer Tom Crone testifies before Parliament that James Murdoch was made aware in June 2008 of the scope of the phone hacking situation. "
At last I have found a few people who realise what Murdoch & Son are really up to when they & their snivelling companions at Talk Talk & Vodafone gripe to Ofcom on about Openreach. BT & therefore Openreach may not be everyone's favourite Telco but can you imagine what would happen if any of those got their sticky little fingers on Openreach. None of them would be prepared to give anyone outside conurbations of any size access to the Internet let alone fibre optic, much too expensive. I am with Sky & to say the service is just about adequate is putting it in a good light. Why do I stay with them I hear you ask, well because I have a sick husband I download a lot to keep him happy. I was one that O2 sold down the river to Sky after years of no problems & a reasonable speed even though some idiot years ago ran the cables though aluminium ducts.