21st Century Fox executive chairman Lachlan Murdoch said Wednesday that the company “would never be interested” in buying CNN following reports that his father Rupert Murdoch indicated he was interested in acquiring the network.
Speaking at a Business Insider conference in New York, Lachlan Murdoch cast doubt on whether Fox would even be allowed to purchase CNN, and said that the company had no desire to do so anyway.
“We wouldn’t be allowed to buy CNN, and we would never be interested in buying CNN,” he said, according to Reuters.
{mosads}
While such a deal would likely raise antitrust concerns, there is no law prohibiting a company from owning more than one cable network.
The younger Murdoch’s comments came just weeks after Reuters reported that Rupert Murdoch, who shares the title of executive chairman of Fox, had spoken to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson twice about buying CNN.
AT&T is facing a lawsuit from the Justice Department, which is trying to block its $85 billion merger with Time Warner, the parent company of CNN. The government has argued that the merger would violate antitrust laws and hurt consumers.
Before the Justice Department sued AT&T over the takeover, it had reportedly suggested that the company sell either its DirecTV unit or that Time Warner sell its Turner Broadcasting unit, which includes CNN.
Stephenson denied that the Justice Department wanted CNN sold as a condition for allowing the merger to proceed and said that he also “never offered to sell CNN.”