21st Century Fox Inc. is offering to sell Sky News to Walt Disney Co. as it seeks to win over U.K. regulators reviewing its 11.7 billion-pound (US$16.5 billion) bid for broadcaster Sky Plc.

Disney is interested in acquiring Sky News regardless of whether its larger US$52.4 billion takeover of most of Fox goes through, a move that would guarantee the editorial independence of the operation, Fox said in a submission to the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority. Fox could also legally ringfence Sky News, it said.

Rupert Murdoch’s Fox is bolstering efforts to secure the Sky takeover after Comcast Corp. in February made a surprise competing offer for the pay-TV company. Acquiring the 61 percent of Sky that Fox doesn’t own is part of Murdoch’s broader plan to sell Fox’s media businesses to Disney but the European takeover has been held up by additional scrutiny, after allegations of harassment at Fox News in the U.S. and as a 2011 phone-hacking scandal at Murdoch’s newspapers continued to dog the billionaire media tycoon.

U.K. regulators have been worried that a takeover of Sky would give Murdoch -- whose News Corp. owns The Times, The Sunday Times and The Sun newspapers -- too much sway over British media. Fox had previously proposed a separate editorial board to insulate Sky News from Murdoch’s influence and in March sweetened the offer, proposing a 10-year funding guarantee for the U.K.’s oldest 24-hour news service. On Tuesday, Fox’s offer to legally separate Sky News came with an enhanced funding guarantee of 15 years.

“We have proposed a set of solutions that address and resolve any and all questions or concerns that may have been raised by the transaction,” Gerson Zweifach, Fox’s general counsel, said in an emailed statement. “We look forward to concluding this acquisition - finally -- in a timely and expeditious manner.”

The competition watchdog is expected to give its verdict on the Fox’s Sky bid by May 1, leaving the final decision on whether to approve the deal to Culture Secretary Matt Hancock by mid-June.

Comcast’s offer of 12.50 pounds per Sky share exceeds a 10.75-pound offer by Fox. Sky shares rose 1 per cent at 8:14 a.m. in London.