Sky Threatens to Shut News Channel for 21st Century Fox Deal

The British satellite broadcaster Sky warned that it may shut down its 24-hour news channel if the property becomes an obstacle to the company’s effort to sell itself to Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox.  In a regulatory filing with the Competition Markets Authority in Britain, Sky wrote that the regulator should not “simply assume the ‘continued provision of Sky News’” if ownership of the channel posed a problem for the $15 billion transaction. The threat is an aggressive move by Sky to win approval of the transaction, which has been under review by the British government for nearly a year. In September, Britain’s culture minister, Karen Bradley, said that she intended to refer the proposed deal to the competition regulator.