Comcast has cleared a major hurdle in their pursuit to merge with Sky, the leading TV provider in several European countries. This approval comes shortly after the European Commission approved Fox’s bid for Sky. In a statement issued earlier today, the commission said, “The Commission found that the proposed transaction would lead to only a limited increase in Sky’s existing share of the markets for the acquisition of TV content, as well as in the market for the wholesale supply of TV channels in the relevant Member States.” The commission also added, “Based on the results of its market investigation, the Commission concluded that the proposed transaction would raise no competition concerns.” The bid is currently proposed to cost the corporate giant nearly $29 billion if it were to go through in the near future.
The approval of the bid comes less than forty-eight hours after Comcast countered Disney’s multi-billion dollar bid for Fox. Comcast is going all in on it’s quest to become the next major media and technology company in the world. As Def Pen’s Asad Shifique writes, “The battle for Twenty-First Century Fox comes as traditional entertainment companies try to amass more content to compete better with technology companies such as Amazon and Netflix for viewers’ attention — and dollars.”
With major mergers between the likes of AT&T and Time Warner and the proposed acquisition of 21st Century Fox, it will be interesting to see where the next step in media and technology business takes us.
