News Corporation takeover bid for BSkyB the deal, the proposal was referred to Jeremy Hunt, the Secretary of State for culture, media and sport. Hunt initially elected not to refer to the deal to the Competition Commission, announcing on 3 March 2011 that he intended to accept a series of undertakings given by News Corporation, paving the way for the deal to be approved. The undertakings would have led to Sky News being severed from BSkyB. On 23 June it was reported that News Corp had reached an agreement with Ofcom to approve the takeover, on the basis of Sky News becoming a separate company. By
News media phone hacking scandal of millions of dollars. Rupert Murdoch endorsed Chase Carey as a future chief executive for News Corp. rather than his son James Murdoch, who had been viewed as the favourite to succeed Rupert. James resigned as Chairman of British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB), distancing the company from the scandal at News International. James was harshly criticised by the UK Office of Communications (Ofcom), which concluded that he "repeatedly fell short of the conduct to be expected of as a chief executive and chairman" and that his lack of action in relation to phone hacking was "difficult to comprehend and ill-judged".