The European Commission has approved the acquisition of pay-television broadcasters Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia by UK pay-television company BSkyB.
In July, BSkyB announced a deal to acquire media company 21st Century Fox’s 100-per-cent stake in Sky Italia and 57.4-per-cent interest in Sky Deutschland, bringing together the leading pay-television businesses in three of Europe’s four biggest markets.
“The Commission concluded that the transaction would not raise competition concerns, since the activities of the three companies are geographically complementary,” the EC said. “The Commission found that the transaction would not lead to any material overlaps in the parties' activities, as they are mainly active in different national markets.”
The EC added: “The Commission found that it was unlikely that the merged company would be able to impose a change from current licensing practices, which are focused on national territories or language areas, towards the joint purchase or simultaneous negotiations for premium content across several countries… The Commission notes that although there are already a number of broadcasters that operate across various territories in the European economic area, rights holders have not accepted the practice of multi-territorial licensing to any meaningful extent.”
The total consideration for the acquisition of Sky Italia is £2.45bn (€3.07bn/$4.19bn) with approximately £2.07bn to be paid in cash and the balance to be satisfied through the transfer of BSkyB’s 21-per-cent stake in National Geographic Channel International to 21st Century Fox at a value of £382m.