Sky Group Limited, trading as Sky, is a British media and telecommunications conglomerate owned by Comcast and headquartered in London. It has operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Italy. Sky is Europe's largest media company and pay-TV broadcaster by revenue (as of 2018), with 23 million subscribers and more than 31,000 employees as of 2019. The company is primarily involved in satellite television, producing and broadcasting. The current CEO is Dana Strong.
Formed in 1990 by the equal merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting, BSkyB became the UK's largest pay television company. In 2014, after completing the acquisition of Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland, the merged company changed its name to Sky plc.
Since its founding, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation held 39.14% of Sky Group, and in June 2010 they attempted to buy out the rest of Sky, but the bid was withdrawn in July 2011 following the News International phone hacking scandal that also led to News Corporation splitting into News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, the latter of which continued to hold News' stake in Sky. In December 2016, 21st Century Fox made a bid to acquire the remaining shares of Sky, pending government approval. After The Walt Disney Company announced that they were to acquire Fox, Comcast initially engaged in a bidding war, but dropped out to acquire Sky instead, outbidding Fox with an offer for £17.28 per share; Fox sold their stake in October 2018, followed by the remaining shareholders a month later. Following this, Comcast's film studios and US television businesses and other media assets are held by NBCUniversal, which is also under its control and was formed when Vivendi sold 80% of Universal Pictures to the now-defunct General Electric, NBC's then-owner.
Before the acquisition by Comcast, Sky was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately £18.75 billion (€26.76 billion) in 2018.
Contents
History
BSkyB
British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB) was formed by the merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting on 2 November 1990. Both companies had begun to struggle financially and were suffering financial losses as they competed against each other for viewers. The Guardian later characterised the merger as "effectively a takeover by News Corporation".
The merger was investigated by the Office of Fair Trading and was cleared a month later since many of the represented views were more concerned about contractual arrangements which had nothing to do with competition. The Independent Broadcasting Authority was not consulted about the deal; after approval, the IBA demanded precise details of the merger, and stated they were considering the repercussions of the deal to ultimately determine whether BSB contracts were null and void. On 17 November, the IBA decided to terminate BSB's contract, but not immediately, as it was deemed unfair to 120,000 viewers who had bought BSB devices.
Sam Chisholm was appointed CEO in a bid to reorganise the new company, which continued to make losses of £10 million per week. The defunct BSB's HQ, Marco Polo House, was sold, 39% of the new company's employees were made redundant to leave just under 1000 employees, and many of the new senior BSkyB executive roles were given to Sky personnel. In April, the nine Sky/BSB channels were condensed into five, with EuroSport being dropped soon after the Sky Sports launch. Chisholm also renegotiated the merged company's expensive deals with the Hollywood studios, slashing the minimum guaranteed payments. The defunct Marcopolo I satellite was sold in December 1993 to Sweden's NSAB, and Marcopolo II went to Norway's Telenor in July 1992 after the Independent Television Commission was unable to find new companies to take over the BSB licences and compete with BSkyB. News International received 50%, Pearson PLC 17.5%, Chargeurs 17.5%, Granada 12%, and Reed International 2% of the new shares in the company.
By September 1991, after losses had been reduced to $30M a week, Rupert Murdoch said "there were strong financial marketing and political reason[s] for making the compromise merger instead of letting BSB die. Many of the lessons had been learnt with more than half the running cost of the combined company". Further cuts in losses were a direct result of 313,000 new customers joining during the first half of 1991. By March 1992, BSkyB posted its first operating profits, of £100,000 per week, with £3.8 million weekly from subscriptions and £1 million from advertising, but continued to be burdened with £1.28 billion of debt. Stockbroker firm James Capel forecast BSkyB would still be indebted in 2000.
Sky plc
British Sky Broadcasting Group plc changed its name to Sky plc to reflect the European acquisitions, and the United Kingdom operations were renamed Sky UK Limited. Sky plc bought out the remaining minority shareholders in Sky Deutschland during 2015, using a squeeze-out procedure to obtain the remaining shares and delist Sky Deutschland on 15 September 2015.
On 9 December 2016, 21st Century Fox announced that it had made an offer to acquire the remainder of Sky plc for £11.7 billion at a value of £10.75 per-share. It marked Fox's second attempt to take over Sky, as its previous attempt under News Corporation was affected by the News International scandal. The two companies reached an agreement on the deal on 15 December, subject to regulatory approval.
Ofcom expressed concern that this purchase would give the Murdoch family "material influence over news providers with a significant presence across all key platforms" and "increased influence over the UK news agenda and the political process". However, the regulator did deem that a Fox-owned Sky would be "fit and proper" to hold broadcast licences, despite the recent sexual harassment controversies that had emerged at the US Fox News Channel, as there was no evidence to the contrary. Avaaz opposed Ofcom's opinion, stating that the regulator "made mistake after mistake in deciding to give the Murdochs a clean bill of health to take over more of our media".
The Walt Disney Company announced on 14 December 2017 that it would acquire 21st Century Fox, including its stake in Sky plc but barring specific US assets. Fox stated that this purchase would "not alter [its] full commitment and obligation to conclude our proposed transaction". Analysts suggested that Disney's proposed transaction could ease regulatory concerns over Fox's purchase of Sky, as the company will eventually lose its ties to the Murdoch family. Disney has a narrower scope of media ownership in the country than the Murdoch family. Sky already has a relationship with Disney for its Sky Cinema service, holding pay television rights to its films in the United Kingdom and operating a dedicated Sky Cinema channel devoted to Disney content.
A preliminary report by the Competition and Markets Authority issued January 2018 called for the insulation or outright divestment of Sky News as a condition of the purchase, so that it is editorially independent from the Murdoch family. Sky had threatened to reevaluate the channel's continued operations if they "unduly impeded merger and/or other corporate opportunities available in relation to Sky's broader business". The channel has operated on a loss of at least £40 million per-year. In February 2018, Fox proposed the establishment of an independent editorial board, and committing to fund the network for at least 10 years. This commitment would be inherited by Disney after the completion of its purchase of 21st Century Fox. On 3 April 2018, Fox stated that Disney had "expressed an interest in acquiring Sky News", which would not be conditional on its proposal to acquire 21st Century Fox.
Sky Group Ltd
On 12 October 2018, Comcast announced it would compulsorily acquire the rest of Sky after its bid gained acceptances from 95.3% of the broadcaster's shareholders with the company being delisted by 31 December 2018. Sky was delisted on 7 November 2018 after Comcast acquired all remaining shares.
In August 2021, Sky Group signed a deal with ViacomCBS to launch Paramount+ in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Austria by 2022. On 3 May 2022, it was announced that Paramount+ will launch on 22 June 2022 for Sky customers in Ireland and the United Kingdom.
In June 2025, Sky Group announced their intention to sell its German media broadcasting division Sky Deutschland including its channels and broadcasting rights across Germany, Austria and Switzerland as well as the German streaming service WOW to RTL Group. The purchase price would consist of an initial €150 million in cash and a variable consideration linked to RTL Group's share price performance. In April 2026, the European Commission cleared the sale without imposing any conditions. The transaction closed on June 1, 2026.
In November 2025, it was confirmed by ITV plc that it and Sky Group had entered into discussions to purchase the company's media and entertainment assets (which include the television channels and ITVX, but not ITV Studios) for £1.6 billion.
On 29 June 2026, Comcast announced plans to spin off its media businesses, including both Sky and NBCUniversal, as a separate company, with the remainder of Comcast focusing exclusively on its U.S. telecommunications business.
Management
Executive Chairman: Jeremy Darroch (since January 2021)
Chief Executive: Dana Strong (since January 2021)
List of former chairmen
Rupert Murdoch (1990–2007)
James Murdoch (2007–2012)
Nicholas Ferguson (2012–2016)
James Murdoch (2016–2018); second term
List of former chief executives
Sam Chisholm (1990–1997)
Mark Booth (1997–1999)
Tony Ball (1999–2003)
James Murdoch (2003–2007)
Jeremy Darroch (2007–2021)
The first CEO of BSkyB was Sam Chisholm, who was CEO of Sky TV before the merger. Chisholm served in this position until 1997. He was followed by Mark Booth who was credited with leading the company through the introduction of Sky. Tony Ball was appointed in 1999 and completed the company's analogue to digital conversion. He is also credited with returning the company to profit and bringing subscriber numbers to new heights. In 2003, Ball announced his resignation and James Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch was announced as his successor. This appointment caused allegations of nepotism from shareholders.
On 7 December 2007, it was announced that Rupert Murdoch would be stepping down as BSkyB's non-executive chairman and would be replaced by his son, James. In turn, James stepped down as CEO of BSkyB, to be replaced by Jeremy Darroch. It was estimated that Darroch would earn around £38.2 million from selling Sky to Comcast. He sold his 775,772 shares in Sky worth £13.4 million and would cash in on previously awarded bonus shares.
In January 2021, it was announced that Darroch would be standing down as CEO, and will become executive chairman of Sky for the remainder of 2021, and will then be an advisor to the company. He was succeeded as CEO by Dana Strong in January 2021.
The current company directors are Comcast personnel: Michael J Cavanagh (Comcast senior VP & CFO), Arthur R Block (legal counsel) and David L Cohen (senior VP & CDO).
Financial performance
Financial results have been as shown in the table.
In February 2019, The Economist magazine claimed that Sky enjoys gross margins of 50%.