UK Opens Formal Probe Into Sky-ITV's $2.1B Merger

Lisa Nandy has formally handed the £1.6B ($2.1B) Sky–ITV tie-up to Britain's competition watchdogs. The Culture Secretary issued a Public Interest Intervention Notice, telling Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority to dig in and report back by January 27.

Once those reports land, Nandy decides whether the merger gets a deeper CMA investigation. She'll take it to parliament early next year.

Her concerns land in three places: free expression of opinion in news media, a sufficient plurality of views in each market, and a wide range of broadcasting and on-demand programming across the UK. On that last point, she confirmed she'll bring forward legislation to fold streaming into the rules — something she'd flagged as under consideration.

She's gone further than she did on Paramount-Warner-Skydance, a deal she said she was 'minded to intervene' in before waving it through. That one dodged a full EU regulatory probe and wrapped in the US last month.

The Sky-ITV merger jolted the broadcasting world when it was announced late last year, pairing the UK's pay-TV giant with its oldest commercial broadcaster. Sky had been owned by Comcast before being spun out earlier this year under the NBCUniversal umbrella.

Attention is already swinging to the combined company — which won't include producer-distributor ITV Studios. Sky Studios boss Cécile Frot-Coutaz recently said she'd like to experiment by putting Sky hits like The Day of the Jackal and Brassic free-to-air on ITV.