Merging PerfecTV and JSkyB into SkyPerfecTV (1998)

The question left over once the competition was folded up

The character of this merger was less a winner taking in a loser than the parties themselves folding up a competition before it started. JSkyB vanished without broadcasting a single hour of its planned 150 channels, and the war of attrition was called off before any number settled it. For the four trading houses the real interest was satellite utilisation; broadcasting was the means of creating that demand. That the motive behind the merger was not conviction about the broadcasting business itself is where the later incoherence of the shareholder register has its seed.

Spreading 11.375% each across five equal partners meant that nobody stood out — and that nobody carried responsibility. News Corporation was watching for early profits, SoftBank for its exit, Fuji Television for terrestrial broadcasting; the trade press of the day records that only Sony was leaning into the business. Eliminating a competitor and creating an owner who will grow the business are two different tasks. The problem this merger left behind was handed on, in changed form, to the DirecTV consolidation two years later and to the integration with the satellite company nine years after that.