Critics of News Corp's BSkyB takeover are missing the point

[Hopeless Romantic]

Rupert Murdoch's opponents are wrong in their analysis – and risk the loss of both Sky News and billions in tax for the UK

Rupert Murdoch arouses strong feelings. Vince Cable, in claiming to be at war with Murdoch, probably spoke for a majority of MPs, who dislike his influence, fear his disfavour and would love to break up his newspaper empire – and I refer not just to Labour and Lib Dem MPs, but many Conservatives, too.

Although most other newspaper proprietors in the UK are billionaires – whether the Barclays or Viscount Rothermere – they are nervous of Murdoch's financial clout, commercial acumen and aggressive competitiveness. Most of them have joined with Trinity Mirror, Guardian Media Group, the BBC and Channel 4 in writing to Cable and Ofcom asking for them to block Murdoch's proposal to buy the shares in BSkyB not already owned by News Corp.

Fair enough. Why not use whatever leverage you might have to disadvantage so unpopular a rival? The difficulty is this: however much many – if not most – people might wish that News Corp's share of UK national newspaper readership could be reduced below the present 37%, we simply have no mechanism to achieve this, apart from changing our newspaper buying habits.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2011/jan/05/news-corp-bskyb-david-elstein?