Why Disney's takeover of Fox's entertainment assets could be bad for Britain

The $60bn (£45bn) acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s entertainment assets that Disney is closing in on is perhaps the best Christmas present the Competition & Markets Authority and the Department for Culture Media & Sport could have wished for.

The reverse is probably true for Sky News, and its talented corps of journalists and production staff.

So far as the former pair are concerned, some of the objections to the takeover of Sky that the Murdoch family have for years been trying to secure will likely fall away if the deal completes.

It is reputedly an all-share transaction, so Rupert Murdoch and his family aren’t going away. There may or may not be a position for Fox CEO James Murdoch at Disney too. But they will no longer be in control, torpedoing the argument that Sky’s takeover by Fox hands them too much sway over the UK media given the Murdoch-controlled News Corp’s ownership of a string of UK newspapers and websites.

The willingness of a Government dominated by bellicose nationalists to tamely acquiesce to the sale of prime British corporate real estate to anyone rocking up with a PayPal account still leaves the deal open to criticism.

But when has that ever stopped a transaction on these shores from going ahead?

The political and regulatory establishments have had their wishes granted by Disney’s fairy godmother. If she takes the bogeyman out of the picture they can choose the easy option by clearing the gobbling up of Britain’s monopoly satellite broadcaster. This is one instance where buck-passing, dithering and delay appear to have worked. Not the best of messages to be sending to the authorities in this country.

Which brings us to the troubling questions a Sky takeover by Disney raise over Sky News. The loss-making enterprise could easily find itself on the end of the dark side of Disney’s force. It has produced award-winning journalism, and as such served as a something of a PR fig leaf for the Murdochs, who were willing to live with its losses because they helped counteract the hits to their reputation on this side of the Atlantic, and beyond, delivered by Fox News.

That commercial powerhouse, which will remain with the rump of the business – with its blatant bias of the latter towards the extreme end of American conservatism, and more recently the ugly string of sexual harassment allegations tabled by female staff – have served as telling weapons for the family’s critics. Disney doesn’t need any sort of shield to deploy against them.

The company could easily sustain Sky News’s losses with just the extra revenues from fanboys seeing Star Wars: The Last Jedi twice if it’s as good as the early buzz suggests it is. And then there’s bringing Marvel’s X Men, whose movie rights are owned by Fox, into Disney’s Marvel cinematic universe. Cha-ching!

However, while Disney’s family-friendly fare plays heavily on sentimentality, its executives are Sith lords, one and all. It wouldn’t have become the powerhouse it is today were they otherwise.

This they underlined in April when they swung the axe at an ESPN reeling from the changing viewing habits that are upending its industry, stripping “the Worldwide Leader in Sports” of some of its best-known talent in the process. Another round of layoffs, primarily affecting behind the scenes workers, have just been announced.

So there is good cause to feel concerned about Sky News, the loss of which would deprive the UK of a voice at a time when the BBC, its main rival, has sometimes shown signs of being cowed by the political climate.

This is not me, as a progressive commentator, lamenting a possible loss for our side. Sky isn’t renowned as a bastion of progressive thought.

No, it because Sky has sometimes covered stories, and highlighted issues, that the BBC, its main rival, has passed over. That is why it would be a great pity were it to become one of the Disney deal’s casualties.