MUMBAI: BBC director general Mark Thompson continues his tirade against News Corp-promoter Rupert Murdoch‘s bid for BSkyB.
In an interview with US television PBS’s Charlie Rose, Thompson has warned against potential "abuse of power" by Murdoch-owned media conglomerate if it acquires the remaining 61 per cent of UK-pay TV, BSkyB.
Murdoch is expected to give details of the deal during his inaugural Baroness Thatcher lecture in London on 21 October.
In his interview, Thompson said, "We‘re not saying there‘s been a crime committed here. What we‘re saying is there is - given the scale of the potential ownership in UK media - a strong case for looking at it systemically and deciding whether or not anything needs to be done to address the issue."
"If the two (News Corp and Sky) were combined, there might be a significant loss of plurality in our media market," Thompson was quoted by The UK Guardian.
Thomson warned that there is a potential "of an abuse of power." He, however, maintained that “Cable (business secretary Vince Cable), the relevant minister, will decide whether he wants to refer this. It‘s not that they‘ve done anything wrong.”
Meanwhile, he remained short of asking the UK government to block the deal, but hinted that it would make News Corp a dominant media player in the country.
Murdoch will notify the European Commission of its bid for the pay-TV channel within 15 days.
Thompson has been warning against the consequences of the deal for some months. He had, in his keynote at James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture in August, warned against the concentration of power the deal would represent.
