The chief executive of Virgin Media says the sale of much of 21st Century Fox is a deal unique to Rupert Murdoch.
Tom Mockridge spent 20 years working for News Corp before his resignation in 2012.
“Our industry has been a consolidation story from the very beginnings in the United States when John Malone in particular and other great entrepreneurs cabled rural industries. In the United Kingdom and Ireland our burden is from 600 local franchises.
“Rupert is a particular individual. I see him as someone who has created his business with his own hands in the true sense of the word. And he’s made a decision that he’s keeping a piece of it, which looks like it did 30 years ago, and each of his kids is going to get second prize of 3 billion dollars each.”
Mockridge said he didn’t see Comcast’s counterbid for the 21CF assets coming and therefore would not comment further.
Closer to home he noted the transformation of TiVo in recent years and the company considers taking itself private. Virgin will continue to use TiVo’s services, but Mockridge confirmed it was going ahead with plans to phase out the advanced television software in the UK market.
“It’s no secret that Liberty Global has its own Horizon UI at the moment and you can expect that we will transition to that on the V6 box and we’ll do that in co-operation with TiVo. They are very understanding of our desire to do that and will help us do that.
“They’re a very capable company, more so than even two years ago.”
