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
Criticisms of Sky UK to open up more national sporting events to bids from BSkyB and move them away from the BBC, to open up the cable and satellite infrastructure market, and to reduce the power of their regulator, Ofcom. I rejected those policies." As a result of the furore over phone hacking – including all main parties in the UK Parliament agreeing on a motion to block the bid and the deal being referred to the Competition Commission – the News Corporation takeover proposal for BSkyB was dropped on 13 July 2011. In light of the phone hacking revelations, the UK media regulator