The Office of Fair Trading has given the green light to Sky's takeover of Virgin Media Television (VMTV), now called the Living TV Group, because of the "relatively limited" contribution this operation would give to Sky Media's market share. In June, BSkyB and Virgin Media reached an agreement on the sale, with the former paying up to £160 million to acquire the channels, and the transaction was completed on 13 July. Subsequently, the OFT stepped in to investigate whether or not the merger would have a negative effect on the market. After conducting a review into this matter, the regulatory body did not think the merger had resulted, or may be expected to result, in a "substantial lessening of competition" within a market or markets in the UK and so should not be referred to the Competition Commission. While the OFT did not accept Sky's suggestion that Internet advertising is becoming an increasingly relevant substitute for TV advertising and should be taken into account, it did not find that Sky and the VMtv channels were particularly "close" competitors. On 15 September, Sky announced its intention to close the pay-TV channel Bravo and free-to-air channel Channel One: this would cause the loss of around 50 jobs.

L'articolo è estratto dall'ultimo numero di Turning Digital, la newsletter quindicinale focalizzata sui temi della TV digitale e dei broadband content ed è parte dell'offerta multiclient di ITMedia Consulting.

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