BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union regulators have approved Twenty-First Century Fox's purchase of Britain-based Sky, a key component of Rupert Murdoch's strategy to consolidate his media empire.

Murdoch-controlled Fox already owns 39 percent of Sky, a broadcasting and broadband company with operations throughout Europe, including Austria, Germany, Ireland, Italy and the U.K.

The European Commission said Friday that "the transaction would raise no competition concerns in Europe" and that Fox and Sky are mainly active in "different markets."

It says they "compete with each other only to a limited extent."

An earlier attempt to buy Sky outright was scuttled by the 2011 phone hacking scandal that rocked Murdoch's British newspapers and led to the closing down of the 168-year-old News of the World tabloid.

Anger over phone hacking has since abated.