MURDOCH PLANNING PAN-EUROPEAN NETWORK

The telephone-hacking scandal involving Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid News of the World may have derailed his plans to buy the 61 percent of Britain’s BSkyB satellite service that he doesn’t already own — but Murdoch now has an alternate plan. According to Bloomberg News, which cited people familiar with the situation, he’s planning on using his minority stake in BSkyB to combine it with his fully-owned satellite service in Italy, Sky Italia, and his controlling stake in Germany’s Sky Deutschland, into what will likely be called Sky Europe. Bloomberg noted that such a unified set-up would allow it to bid for sports and entertainment rights on a Europe-wide basis. Bloomberg noted that such a unified approach will likely increase speculation that the operation would subsequently use its combined strength to enter France by acquiring Canal Plus.