The Financial Times claims that the commission has given guidance to Sky and ITV about the extent of the curbs it will place on Sky's ownership of the terrestrial broadcaster.
The commission will send its report to the government's Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform tomorrow or on Friday and an official decision is expected in February.
The FT believes that Sky will be given six months from the official decision to reduce its shareholding. If Sky sold enough ITV shares to take its holding down to 7.5%, it would lose £190m at yesterday's ITV share price of 84.8p.
Sky will see this as a price worth paying for having blocked its rival Virgin Media (then NTL) from pursuing the £4.6bn bid it made for ITV in late 2006.
ITV made it clear it regarded Sky's stake as a nuisance when it responded to the Competition Commission's consultation. It said the "only remedy" to the problem of Sky having influence over it was a complete divestment, although it also said reducing the stake to 4.9% would begin to address its concerns.
Sky's response to the commission was to offer to hand over a fifth of its voting rights to an independent trustee, leaving it in direct control of 14.9% of ITV shares.
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