Virgin Media store in Enfield, London. (Virgin Media)
Will this stop Rupert Murdoch’s tweeting? Britain’s Liberty Group struck a deal to buy cable-television provider Virgin Media for $16 billion in cash—a move that will pose a direct challenge to Rupert Murdoch in Europe’s pay-TV market. The deal puts John Malone's Liberty in a dead heat with Comcast as the world’s biggest cable company—and opens a new competition with Murdoch, whose satellite provider BSkyB is Britain’s largest pay-TV company. Malone made his fortune in the U.S. by consolidating the cable industry into just a few providers, but he still has a way to go before taking over Britain: Virgin Media has just 4.9 million customers, compared with BSkyB’s 10.7 million.
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