Television in the United Kingdom 4 Corp, according to BARB's viewing figures for January 2018. On 18 January 2011, then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Jeremy Hunt announced his intentions to set up a network of local television stations across the UK. The initial plan was to create a network of local television stations, connected through a national backbone. This plan would create a television network similar to that of the network-affiliate model in the United States and Canada. In June 2011, however, it was announced that the national spine plan would be scrapped, and a 'bottom-up' approach would be followed instead,
Criticisms of Sky UK "features of the [UK pay TV] market, including control over content, ownership of distribution platforms, retail subscriber bases and vertical integration." Sky repeatedly used its lawyers to lodge complaints with the soon-to-be-rival YouView service, considered by some to be a delaying tactic in order to promote its own services, especially considering its failure to complain about other services, such as Google TV. On 13 July 2011, MP Chris Bryant stated to the House of Commons, in the Parliamentary Debate on the Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation Bid for BSkyB that the company was anti-competitive: "The company has lots of technological