Media continues to oppose Murdoch’s BSkyB takeover move

Continuing their months-old battle against the proposed buyout of British broadcaster BSkyB by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, media groups said on Monday it would be "fanciful" to expect the influential Sky News to remain independent from Murdoch's interference.

Writing on behalf of the companies that own the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Mail and the Guardian – normally competing publications that have united against the BSkyB takeover – their lawyers said that a proposal to split off Sky News would not be enough to address fears that Murdoch would dominate British media once his NewsCorp bought all of the satellite broadcaster.

The joint submission – also supported by BT – said that NewsCorp's offer would "make Sky News almost entirely dependent on News Corporation" and that "it would be fanciful to expect that Sky News will enjoy any meaningful independence" that would allow it to contribute to diversity in news provision in the future.

As a result, law firm Slaughter and May said, it would be "clearly unrealistic" to expect that Sky News would "rigorously investigate" if, for example, another News of the World phone hacking scandal emerged.

The lawyers also questioned whether, if all Murdoch's newspapers supported one political party in a future election campaign, it would be "realistic to expect that Sky News would rigorously investigate and report on a major scandal affecting that party".

Earlier this month, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, said that in principle, he would allow NewsCorp's bid for BSkyB to go through if Rupert Murdoch were to agree to the spinning-off of Sky News. NewsCorp's holding in Sky News would be capped at 39.1 per cent – equivalent to its current ownership of BSkyB – for at least 10 years.