Government approves BSkyB deal

The Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has given his approval for News Corporation to own all shares in BSkyB, despite Ofcom saying the decision should be made by the competition commission, in a move which the BBC business editor says will “generate revenues that would dwarf all rivals, even the BBC”.

Example of a bad empire

I actually quite like empires. Sure, sometimes they become bureaucratic – the Death Star out of Star Wars, which was essentially just one big laser canon, seemed to have a lot of redundant office space for what it was. And yeah, they might tend towards evil sometimes – like, say, the Evil Empire out of Star Wars. But if Star Wars has taught me anything (and everything I know about empires I learned from Star Wars, so clearly it did), it’s that empires always prevail (nb I have only seen up to The Empire Strikes Back, NO spoilers please). That’s why I’m over the moon about the Tory Culture Secretary making News Corporation an even more colossal media empire than it already was (it owns a third of the British newspaper market).

It’s unlikely News Corp will be surprised by the decision – presumably they've been hacking Jeremy Hunt’s phone for ages. But also because, as his website puts it, Hunt believes Murdoch “has probably done more to create variety and choice in British TV than any other single person”, and that we “wouldn’t be saying that British TV is the envy of the world if it hadn’t been for him”. That’s right. A quick look at what’s on Sky tonight will show why British TV is the envy of the world – The Simpsons, America’s Next Top Model and old episodes of Hawaii Five-0. All independent, grassroots British projects that Murdoch gave life to, like a big, friendly right-wing hen.

And the non-Murdoch rebels are forgetting the huge concessions News Corp has made: namely, to spin off Sky News into an independent company. The term ‘spin off’ suggests the relationship between News Corp and Sky News will be minimal, like that between Cheers and Frasier – although, since News Corp will still retain exactly the same percentage of shares in Sky News, it’ll be more like if Frasier was set in Boston. In a bar. With the all the same characters as Cheers. And called Cheers.

Now this deal is settled, we can look forward to this media Reich lasting a thousand years – and if there’s talk of ‘pro-Tory bias’ in News Corp influencing this decision, I say GROW UP and remember the front cover of News Corp-owned The Sun on election day 2010.

Either they were comparing Cameron to an inspiring, left wing, and internationally renowned US politician or to the abstract concept of hope itself.  I’d agree with either, but I’d stress The Sun didn’t pick that cover because of any bias in News Corp. They literally just typed ‘hope’ into Google and David Cameron’s face came up, and they were so startled by this little-known meaning of the word they made it front page news.

The LAST thing anyone wants is a plurality of opinion and voices in the media. After all, when I said I heard lots of voices in my head, they called me MAD. This government has made the same decision I made – pick one of those voices and follow it. Let’s just hope things turn out better for them than they did for me, that fateful winter morning…