21st Century Fox "declined to table a new offer to protect the editorial independence of Sky News, almost certainly triggering a full inquiry by the British competition authorities" into the U.S. media group's £11.7B ($15.3B) takeover of satellite broadcaster Sky. Last month, U.K. Culture Secretary Karen Bradley told parliament that she set Fox a deadline of 5pm Friday to "come up with fresh undertakings that might remove concerns" the takeover would hand Rupert Murdoch's empire "too much power" over the U.K. media. However, multiple sources confirmed that Fox opted instead to let the matter move to the Competition and Markets Authority for a full "phase 2 inquiry" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 7/13).
Year-to-date viewing on the Eurosport Network is up 14% on the same period last year. The first nine days of the Tour de France saw an average of 669,000 viewers in 10 of Europe's biggest markets, an increase of 4% versus '16. Substantial growth in average viewers was recorded in Germany (+18%), Italy (+31%) and Norway (+347%). There has been a 38% uplift in number of minutes viewed, with 1.5 billion minutes of action watched on Eurosport's channels. A total of 4.4 million visitors to Eurosport's digital platforms contributed to 26.9M page views so far (Eurosport).
