That Richard Branson is still mightily pissed off that Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB scuppered NTL/Virgin Media's plans to enter into merger talks with ITV. As previously reported, BSkyB bought a 17.9% stake in ITV just as NTL were putting merger proposals forward to the commercial broadcaster. Although ITV claim their subsequent knock-back of those proposals had nothing to do with BSkyB's share purchase, Branson isn't convinced.
Talking to BBC One's This Week programme Branson said political types should "take a step back and decide if they need to break up the News Corporation 'empire'". He continued: "What I fear is that some of the worst aspects of America could be imported into Britain, particularly if we have one press baron that controls the bulk of British media".
Branson claims that Sky will use their suddenly acquired stake in ITV to strengthen their hold on British broadcasting. He continued: "They've [Sky and ITV] been talking about film rights. They've been talking about football rights. As the biggest shareholder, [Murdoch] will have enormous influence over ITV. The reason that NTL wanted to buy ITV was to try to have a balance. Murdoch can go out and bid for football rights. It will be very difficult for us to compete."