The long awaited Competition Appeal Tribunal decision on BSkyB's controversial stake in ITV is expected today. As previously reported, Sky has appealed a ruling made by the Competition Commission last year that it is anti-competitive for it to have a 17.9% stake in one of its main competitors, and that it should reduce its shareholding to less than 7.5%.
If Sky is forced to sell some of its stake in ITV, a number of other media firms are said to be interested into buying into the UK's original commercial broadcaster, including German conglom and BMG owner Bertelsmann, who are said to be interested in investing some of the money it is making from selling its half of SonyBMG to Sony Corp into the British TV sector, where it already has an interest through its RTL division, which owns Channel Five. However, other bidders are said to be interested too, which is good news for Sky who feared that a forced share sale would reduce the value of their stake in ITV.