Murdoch's £11.7bn Sky takeover referred to competition regulator

Good

Hopefully, they'll reject his bid altogether. We need LESS of Murdoch's vile influence, not more.

NowTV

Just had a real bad experience with NowTV.

When my first 3 month free pass ran out I paid for one month at £6.99 then bought a box with a 6 month pass. I logged it in the site and got a renewal date in August which was fine. I have now noticed my card has been charged £6.99 every month and all records of the pass have disappeared.

I contacted CS with the proof of purchase and the box serial number but was told a manager would get back to me by email. That was 9 days ago and I'm still waiting. Every time I contact live chat I'm told I will get a response within 24 hours and it never happens. Dealing with Indian online support is about as much fun as dipping your testicles in a bucket of sulphuric acid.

This is a ridiculous situation, and you can't complain as the agent won't escalate to a manager. The first agent today cut me off after 20 minutes of chat so I had to go through it all over again to be told exactly the same thing.

I know it doesn't matter to those in charge as they are hidden away, but treating customers like this is embarrassing at best. Companies like this should go to the wall, not get stronger. Bastards!

Why not just say NO?

How hard can it be, instead of faffing around with endless CC referrals? Dont OFCOM have enough balls to do that ? The rotten walnut face must die and his empire broken up !

I'm sure I can remember the good old days when mergers got referred to the regulators if the combined company would end up with a presence in more than one medium, let alone all of them.

Astonishingly, the implication of this is that they passed the "fit and proper owner" test. The people who presided over the 'phone hacking scandal, with James Murdoch apparently knowing nothing about what was going on in the organization he was running at the time. Still, if pornographer Richard Desmond is fit and proper to own Channel 5, maybe the bar is set pretty low.

Culture secretary Karen Bradley

Shouldn't her title be Secretary of Fun in elReg speak?

I heard he's being consoled by the bosom of Jerry Hall right now.

You won't see that on the front page of The S*n though.

I can't tell you how disappointed I am to hear this. Because I'm not.

Shirley....

there is some legal way that the entire UK Murdoch empire can be seized by the state and put to good use? Perhaps set up an alternative BBC? Commercially funded (as is Sky) but with the same public service objectives as the Beeb, and competing with them with more 'commercial' offerings? (International under-30 female mud-wrestling? Love Ikea Store? Love VW Campervan?) Obviously they might need tightening up, as the Beeb still seem to have a problem with accepting that balanced and impartial does not mean giving equal airtime to a geographer and a flat-earther, or giving Farage the oxygen of publicity.

Given the way the print media in the UK seems to think its job is to back parties and pursue ideological agendas, I don't really see why this merger isn't something to be very worried about.

Who will suffer!

If the British language has not been decimated enough, we offer up a News paper with a reading age of Seven years old I.E: a normal Seven year olds vocabulary would understand the long words, however it's not to say that the Sun does not lean heavily on a farcically limited dialogue it promotes zero copula and hatchet jobs on language too. Now move that to Sky television and the English language is lost altogether. With Sky in the pocket he will have all football, cricket, tennis, golf, F1, darts and more pay per dummy. Normal TV won't be worth the license fee. The world is full of crusty old bstrds like Bernie Ecclestein who are willing to sell their soul for a few bucks and favouritism.

People don't buy into a company for anything other than power, influence and profit. I would not be suppressed if James Murdoch does not run for the American Prez in 5 years.

Currently on a train on a mobile phone, don't blame the lack of English content here.... move along, nothing to see