 The defunct "Marcopolo I" satellite was sold in December 1993 to Sweden's "NSAB", and "Marcopolo II" went to Norway's "Telenor" in July 1992 after the ITC was unable to find new companies to take over the BSB licences and compete with BSkyB.News International received 50%, Pearson PLC 17.5%, Chargeurs 17.5%, Granada 12%, Reed International 2% of the new shares in the company.By September 1991, the weekly losses had been reduced to £1.5M a week, Rupert Murdoch said "there were strong financial marketing and political reason[s] for making the compromise merger instead of letting BSB die.