Originally posted by CyberKnight:
Yep (well, technically it's owned by News Corp, which in turn is owned by Murdoch). Sky and FOX are sister stations.
Which raises an interesting question. In the highly unlikely event Sky were to take over production (a very unlikely event, not to get anyone's hopes up), are the rights applied to FOX or to the News Corp?
Even though they're all part of the same megacorp overall, each division is treated as a separate company (for tax reasons as much as anything, I understand). This also applies to accounting - if Sky wants something from FOX, or vice versa, they have to pay for it so that the books are balanced - even though all that's happening is News Corp is moving money from one part of itself to another!
(IIRC, incidentally, David Duchovny sued FOX for selling The X Files to FX - also a News Corp subsidiary - at a much lower than normal syndication rate, which meant he was being bilked out of residuals based on the amount paid per episode. Maybe Matt can sue FOX for denial of earnings or something...)
This system reaches the heights of insanity in (physical) TV and film production. F'rinstance, Enterprise - entirely owned by Paramount, financed by Paramount, broadcast on a Paramount channel and filmed at Paramount Studios - has to pay the studio to rent soundstages, build props and sets, etc, out of its per-episode budget, even though all production and management is based at the very same studios with the same name and the same owners! It's a madhouse, a madhouse!