The parent company of Fox News announced on Tuesday that it will no longer air its programs in the United Kingdom via Sky News, a move that comes just as the British government weighs whether to allow a merger between 21st Century Fox and Sky News. In a statement, Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox ( fox ) said it had decided it was no longer in its commercial interest to provide Fox News in Britain, where only a few thousand viewers watch it. The decision comes as Karen Bradley, the culture secretary, is set to return her verdict on whether to ask the competition regulator to launch an investigation into the Murdochs’ adherence to broadcasting standards in the UK as part of a probe into Fox’s £11.7bn takeover bid of Sky. “We have concluded that it is not in our commercial interest to continue providing Fox News in the UK.”

A Sky spokesperson responded to Quartz with a simple statement: “21st Century Fox has decided they will no longer broadcast Fox News in the UK. “Fox News is focused on the US market and designed for a US audience and, accordingly, it averages only a few thousand viewers across the day in the UK,” said 21st Century Fox in a statement. It’s the opinion of Labour Leader Tom Watson that “21st Century Fox clearly thought it was easier to pull it from the UK altogether than to clean up its act.”

Ed Miliband, who used to hold Watson’s position in the Labour party, put the Murdochs’ dilemma in even starker terms:

“This decision shows the Murdochs panicking about their bid for Sky.
Sky UK stops broadcasting Fox News in the United Kingdom after 15 years due to low audience figures.