BSkyB loses ITV appeal

The competition commission has made a decision which will mean that BSkyB will have to sell part of its stake in the broadcaster ITV.

The decision means that BSkyB will need to cut its stake in the terrestrial TV company from 17.9% to under 7.5%.

The reason for this decision is that the competition commission believes that BSkyB holding a large stake in a rival broadcaster could prevent competition, because of the unfair advantage that they could have over ITV.

The problems started when BSkyB bought the stake in order to prevent Virgin Media (NTL) from taking over ITV.

This in turn sparked off a number of complaints from consumer groups, Ofcom and rival broadcasters.

BSkyB will now study the decision, before making a further move.