The European Commission is this week expected to give the all clear to News Corporation’s proposed purchase of the 61% of BSkyB that it does not already own.
A self-imposed deadline of December 22 has been set by the Commission, though the final decision is yet to be taken.
The inquiry has focused largely on competition issues; in addition to BSkyB, which operates both the UK’s most popular pay-TV operation and many of the channels that run on pay-TV operations as a whole, News Corp already has control of four national newspapers, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World.
In November business secretary Vince Cable ordered the communications regulator Ofcom to investigate the proposals on the grounds of media plurality.