BSkyB has been told it must sell over 10% of its stake in ITV after losing its appeal to a previous Competition Commission ruling.
As previously reported, BSkyB appealed the earlier Commission ruling that it must reduce its 17.9% stake in the terrestrial commercial broadcaster to less than 7.5% after it was ruled that Sky having such a big stake in one of its main competitors, while not in breach of media ownership rules, was, nevertheless, anti-competitive.
The Appeal Tribunal found it favour of the original Commission ruling yesterday. Not only that, but it expressed sympathy to claims from Sky's rival Virgin Media that even a 7.5% stake may be too much, and requested the Commission reconsider the question of whether Sky should have a stake at all in ITV, in particular focusing on points Virgin argue the Commission failed to consider first time round.
Some reckon Sky will appeal again, though cynics argue that the satellite broadcaster is now resigned to the fact it will have to give up its ITV stake, but that they want to delay the share sale as long as possible because the commercial telly firm's share price is currently a lot lower than when they bought into the company, and even if they start a bidding war for their ITV stake (and several buyers are known to be interested) they would lose millions on what they paid back in 2006.
Sky said in a statement yesterday: "We will review the judgement carefully and decide on next steps in due course".