Comcast has made a £22 billion bid for Sky, raising the prospect of a bidding war for the European pay-TV business.
The US cable giant and owner of NBC has made an offer of £12.50 per share, representing a premium of 16 per cent on the Sky bid.
“We think Sky is an outstanding company. It has 23 million customers and leading positions in the UK, Italy, and Germany. Sky has been a consistent innovator in its use of technology to deliver a fantastic viewing experience and has a proud record of investment in news and programming. It has great people and a very strong and capable management team,” said Brian L. Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Comcast Corporation.
Comcast would maintain Sky’s London headquarters where NBC already has a presence.
Paolo Pescatore, Vice President, Multiplay and Media at CCS Insight, who has followed the Fox bid for Sky said: “This puts a real spanner in the works. We’ve always said that Comcast has been sniffing around Europe. The bid offers plentiful opportunities for growth beyond the US and we’ve yet to see the same level of consolidation seen in this market. It is unsurprising that there is significant interest in Sky as it owns a wealth of content and has done a great job of moving into IP distribution. We strongly expect to see a bidding war for Sky. It has all the assets to compete with the web giants.”
The Fox bid for Sky is currently before the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) following concerns over plurality and the hold that the Murdoch family would have over British media.
An offer by Fox to maintain and fund an independently run Sky News was last week extended to 10 years.
If successful, the bid would take Comcast’s international revenues from 9 per cent to 25 per cent. It operates a string of on demand services for brands including Hayu, E!, Universal Channel, and Syfy.
Hayu, a standalone all-reality subscription OTT service, launched in the UK, Ireland, and Australia in 2016, and has now been rolled out in the Nordics.
