A $19-billion bid by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to take control of British Sky Broadcasting will have to be approved by an independent competition watchdog if it is to move forward.
The British government referred the News Corp. bid to the Competition Commission on Monday, meaning that the deal may be put on hold for several months while it is reviewed.
News Corp. already owns 39 per cent of BSkyB. The company would gain full control of the satellite broadcaster if the bid goes through.
Earlier Monday, Britain's deputy prime minister said Murdoch should reconsider his bid for BSkyB, based on the public outrage stemming from another part of the News Corp. empire -- the newly defunct News of the World tabloid newspaper.
The News of the World had been linked to a series of phone hacking scandals in recent years, but allegations that its journalists possibly interfered in a murder investigation led to the swift closure of the tabloid on the weekend.
Days before its final issue was published on Sunday, it was revealed that News of the World staffers allegedly hacked into the phone of a murdered British teenager in 2002.
The revelation that staff allegedly deleted messages on the murdered girl's phone, giving the family false hope that she might still be alive, left the British public stunned that the journalists could behave in such a heartless manner in pursuit of a newspaper story.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said Monday that Murdoch should "do the decent and sensible thing" and reconsider his multi-billion bid in the wake of the News of the World scandal.
"I would simply say to him, ‘look how people feel about this, look how the country has reacted with revulsion to the revelations,'" Clegg said.
Clegg made his remarks after meeting with the family of Milly Dowler, the slain 13-year-old girl whose phone was allegedly hacked by News of the World journalists in 2002.
Prime Minister David Cameron made a similar comment Monday, saying that News Corp. should be dealing with its internal problems before turning its focus to expanding its business.
"I think that's what people expect," Cameron said. "They want to see this company get to grips with the very, very deep problems there clearly are."
By Monday afternoon, media outlets were reporting leaks from the ongoing police investigation into the News of the World -- and British police said that some of the information coming out "could have a significant impact on the corruption investigation."
The News of the World had been linked to other phone hacking scandals prior to its closure on Sunday, including the jailing of the tabloid's former royal reporter for intercepting messages from members of the royal household.
But none of the prior phone hacking scandals resonated with the public in the same way that the allegations about the Dowler case did.
Ben Chu, a reporter for London's Independent newspaper, said there is "a lot of animosity towards both Rupert Murdoch and his news organizations," with Britons showing little regard for the media mogul's many news and broadcast outlets.
"There's a lot of ill-feeling and there's not much sympathy for the difficulties which Rupert Murdoch's organization finds itself in," Chu told CTV's Canada AM from London on Monday.
With files from The Associated Press
