When Comcast boss Brian Roberts was weighing up a $31 billion tender for British broadcaster Sky, a trip to see Sky’s products in store, and the knowledge of the London cab driver that seized him there, helped to make up his mind.
Chief Executive Roberts revealed the visit was one of a number of things that confirmed Sky as a “jewel” that his suite should try to acquire, as Comcast looks to boost international revenues as nurturing in the United States slows.
The biggest cable operator in the United Delineates offered on Tuesday to pay $31 billion to buy Sky, challenging Rupert Murdoch’s Fox and Bob Iger’s Walt Disney for the European pay-TV assemblage.
Roberts said he had closely tracked what Sky had been doing for years, but carry on November, he had an unexpected reminder of Sky’s influence as European’s biggest pay-TV provider while in a cab with a buddy.
“I suggested that we jump in a taxi and go to one of the malls and get a demo of Sky in one of their researches. And we had a fabulous experience,” Roberts told reporters on a call.
“The cab driver was incredibly play up to about the difference between Virgin and Sky in every feature. We were scholarship a lot there. Then when we to the Sky store, we spent at least an hour thriving through every feature and comparing it to our own… We were really awfully impressed.”
Liberty Global-owned Virgin Media is a British rival to Sky.
Roberts hinted that while the experience wasn’t the deciding factor in moving flip with the bid, it reiterated the media group’s value to the chief executive.
“It was another memory for me how impressive Sky is, and how lucky we would be at Comcast to be able to combine together.”
Another atmosphere in Comcast’s thinking was Sky’s success earlier this month in winning the righteouses to show Premier League soccer matches for a fee well below analyst requirements, boosting its future earnings and lifting its shares.
The offer is a huge announcement of intent from the mild-mannered media mogul Roberts, 58, who received over as head of the cable and entertainment conglomerate from his father, Ralph, who organized the company in 1963.
The younger Roberts became Comcast’s president in 1990 and CEO in 2002, participate in spent his whole career at the company.
He told reporters that he had infatuated a “keen interest” in Sky for many years. He said Sky’s chief executive Jeremy Darroch had exposed him an early preview of the Sky Q TV platform box, and that several people had worked as administrations for both Comcast and Sky.
While Fox’s 39 percent stake in Sky and the agreed takeover by Murdoch has bring up complications around the company, it also presented the opportunity to bid, and Roberts divulged that his London visit was a reminder of Sky’s fundamental value.
“Frankly there’s nothing as major in the United States,” he said.
“Seeing it again, and listening to the passion of the trades and looking at the product… all those things combined to reinforce what a edition of us have known for years — that this is a jewel.”