BSkyB prepares to roll the dice again with European expansion

BSkyB's plan to buy Rupert Murdoch's pay-TV assets in Italy and Germany for perhaps as much as 10 billion euros is a bold bet on long-term growth at the expense of short-term profit, but the pioneering British media firm has pulled off such gambles before. Facing the toughest market conditions in its 25-year history, BSkyB has opened talks with Murdoch's 21st Century Fox to acquire Sky Deutschland and Sky Italia to create a European powerhouse with 20 million subscribers. BSkyB, also 39 per cent-owned by the Australian-born media mogul, has set the standard in Britain for technological innovation such as its award-winning Sky+ set-top box, streaming TV app and Europe's first 3D channel. Having seen off a string of challengers to dominate the British pay-TV market, BSkyB, which is in more than 10 million homes in Britain and Ireland, is now betting that the time is right to enter two European markets where pay-TV is not yet as popular or profitable, according to Reuters.