The British Competition Commission concluded in its four-month study tha BSkyB's acquistion of a 17.9 percent stake in ITV would diminish competition and wasn't in the public interest.
The commission said in a statement: "The CC has concluded that BSkyB's shareholding in ITV would be likely to lead a substantial lessening of competition by giving it the ability to influence ITV's strategy."
In other areas the "Commission" was investigating, they found competition concerns weren't connected to advertising or detrimental to editorial independence.
Most of this has come about from Richard Branson talking about buying out ITV through NTL, which is now Virgin Media. When BSkyB made the acquisition, NTL dropped out of the talks.
According to the commission, their major concern was ITV being a key rival to BSkyB, where "BSkyB would therefore have both the ability an incentive to take advantage of opportunities to weaken ITV or prevent it from taking actions that would threaten BSkyB's interests."
The final report will be presented to John Hutton, the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform secretary ahead of the January 2 deadline.
At that time Hutton will make a decision based on the Commission's recommendations. It could lead to BSkyB being forced to divest of its stake in ITV.
The Story as it Unfolded:
Richard Branson Trying to get ITV
BSkyB Shocks ITV by buying a 17.9% Stake in the Network
Richard Branson Blasts Murdoch and BSkyB
Virgin Media, Richard Branson Ready if BSkyB Forced to Divest
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