Latter Days of BSB

I'm fairly certain that TUPE wouldn't have been valid for the merger. It doesn't apply to takeovers using share capital for example. However there is another reason. Why? Well let's have a look at Companies House records for the companies

Both the original BSB company and the original 1980 Sky TV company are still active and trading. And it turns out the merger didn't happen as people think it did. 


This is Sky Limited, what was until a few years ago Sky Plc, and before that BSkyB Plc, and before that British Satellite Broadcasting or BSB.  As you can see from the recent filings it's worth £872 million, so it's the Sky we all know 

find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk 

So the current Sky is actually the original BSB, and of you look down to the long document filed on 11 Dec 1990 you can see why (not sure if this link will work) 
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk 

This is the merger deal between BSB and Sky, and shows that BSB were the purchaser of Sky Television. Officially BSB bought Sky from News International and in return News International got 50% of the shares of BSB, which was then renamed British Sky Broadcasting. 

The ownership of BSB became 50% News International with the original shareholders of BSB making up the other 50%, hence how News Int had majority control over the new company 

The original Sky Television, founded in 1980 which was the company that BSB bought in 1990 is still in existamce as a subsidiary of Sky Limited 
find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk 

The interesting thing in this context is looking at their accounts from 1993 Sky Television they ran 3 channels: Sky One, Sky News and Sky Movies Plus 
     

So post merger the two companies continued as seperate, one - BSkyB was the former BSB and was the main company, and Sky Television that operated the original Sky channels (minus Eurosport which they had to sell). 

Therefore none (well very few) of the staff changed companies, they all stayed contracted to either Sky TV or BSkyB.

Of course in the resulting rejigging and reorganisation a lot of mostly BSB staff would have been made redundant as surplus to requirements with the merger. After time presumably the original 3 Sky channels and everything else became integrated into the BSkyB (now Sky Ltd) company.


Lots of interesting stuff in the company reports. The merger document is 93 pages and goes into full detail of the deal, signed off by Rupert Murdoch etc. The pre merger accounts of Sky Television show how much they were losing
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I suppose it has to be appreciated that, to the general public, it looked like a Sky takeover of BSB, the “British Sky Broadcasting” full name was used for a time after the takeover but disappeared except for copyright lines on 1st September 1993, when “Sky” became the sole brand. Even with it was used it was more as a subtitle to Sky.

Rupert Murdoch’s close personal identification with the company didn’t help in the portrayal as a takeover - though, as can be seen above, he only really had the control the other shareholders allowed him to have and if they allowed him to run the business his way, it was because he delivered dividends to them. At this point the merged BSkyB could easily still have gone under. It was only the events of a few months later, when Sky unexpectedly won the rights to the Premier League, that totally turned the company’s fortunes around. By 1994 Sky was being floated on the LSE which reduced Murdoch’s shareholding further but he’d remain effectively at the helm for the guts of a quarter of a century afterwards.
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Yes for all intents and purposes it was a takeover of BSB by Sky. News International had the biggest stake in the company, they had control via the board of the company and eventually it was their brand, their satellite space and their building that got used long term. BSB was essentially wiped out.

But it's interesting that the actual company we know now is actually BSB. Why this happened, well I suspect that as Sky TV was owned by just News International doing it that way round was just easier. It might well been because of their IBA franchise.

The only other legacy of BSB (except Memphis Bell) is the BSB uplink site at Chilworth in Hampshire, which is still Sky's uplink site and also handles some of its playout - Sky Box Office came from there.

It's not the only anomoly like this, for example currently every ITV license is held by the company formally known as Anglia TV
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(15-09-2023, 11:05 AM)Stooky Bill Wrote:  Yes for all intents and purposes it was a takeover of BSB by Sky. News International had the biggest stake in the company, they had control via the board of the company and eventually it was their brand, their satellite space and their building that got used long term. BSB was essentially wiped out.

But it's interesting that the actual company we know now is actually BSB. Why this happened, well I suspect that as Sky TV was owned by just News International doing it that way round was just easier. It might well been because of their IBA franchise.

The only other legacy of BSB (except Memphis Bell) is the BSB uplink site at Chilworth in Hampshire, which is still Sky's uplink site and also handles some of its playout - Sky Box Office came from there.

It's not the only anomoly like this, for example currently every ITV license is held by the company formally known as Anglia TV

Similar to the NTL/Telewest merger, but in reality, Telewest acquired NTL, so there wouldn't be any change of ownership legalities involving the UKTV joint-venture between Flextech (Telewest) and the BBC.

Anglia TV was probably chosen to be renamed as ITV Broadcasting Ltd as it was the first alphabetically.

I've noticed Sky Stream has a logo like BSB's Squarial, likely a coincidence (due to the shape of the streaming device), but BSB probably would have used a logo like that today if it was still around.
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