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,
News Corporation takeover bid for BSkyB in full, and also published on 21 December. Following this revelation Cable had his responsibility for media affairs – including ruling on Murdoch's takeover plans – withdrawn from his role as business secretary that same day. In July 2011 a firm of private investigators hired by the "Telegraph" to track the source of the leak concluded "strong suspicion" that two former Telegraph employees who had moved to News International, one of them Will Lewis, had gained access to the transcript and audio files and leaked them to Peston. After the business secretary Vince Cable was stripped of his jurisdiction over