A lot and very little has happened since. The Leveson section on the bid starts on page 1,299 of the third book in the gripping 2012 tetralogy. Lord Justice Leveson concluded that there needed to be better and more regular measurement of plurality; the levels of influence that should arouse plurality concerns must be lower than for competition; and that the relevant secretary of state should make public thinking behind their decisions for or against referral of such deals to regulators.
Well, the Murdochs did come back for Sky (SKY), in the form of Twenty-First Century Fox (US:FOX), which owns US cable channels Fox News and National Geographic, the near-eponymous film studio, and many other brands (as well as its current Sky stake). This is now a separate company from News Corp (US:NWS), which owns newspapers including The Wall Street Journal, The Times and The Sun, plus other magazines, networks and publishers. The Murdoch family owns just under 40 per cent of the voting shares in each company, according to Bloomberg data.
Fox's acquisition promises to boost and diversify its earnings For Sky, the recommended offer affords the chance to be part of a "global leader in content creation and distribution", in the words of the acquirer, in a world where Netflix (US:NFLX) and Amazon (US:AMZN) are gobbling up market share.
There are a few reasons why this deal is more likely to progress. Firstly, the split in the Murdoch empire arguably dilutes the ownership question, not to mention that there are now two sets of shareholders to deal with. The loss of a shareholder ally at News Corp in 2015 strengthened dissident shareholders who are pushing back against dual share ownership. Fox now has an activist investor, ValueAct, on the board.
Secondly, Ofcom was ultimately happy with the deal last time, subject to undertakings including the spin-off of Sky News into a new company, with "editorial, governance, commercial and financial independence", in which News Corp would have a residual stake. Such an undertaking could be brought back, but might be unnecessary after the prior division.
Thirdly, the news landscape has changed. The original Ofcom analysis of the News Corp/BSkyB deal observed that "online news tends to extend the reach of established news providers". Since then, paywalls have gone up and come down, social media platforms have marched on and more agile digital outlets have grown their audience. Another quantitative survey may discover the impact of the traditional news providers is not quite as strong as it was.
Still, there is no telling how the politics will play out. A Brexit government will want an accommodative press, but there is the live question of how to follow up Leveson part one. This is a tricky backdrop for the bid, campaign group Hacked Off and others quickly called for it to be checked by regulators. At the same time, the context and the corporate set-up is different this time around. Wrangling about the price has also died down a little - already, the current offer is the fourth made by Fox, according to the offer documents.
If the deal succeeds, it may be a reflection of the waning strength of the traditional media, rather than the resolve of policymakers. And it will be yet another example of the trend towards corporate concentration, that continues regardless of the political weather.
