Comcast beat Rupert Murdoch's Twenty-First Century Fox in the battle for Sky on Saturday after offering £30.6 billion ($40 billion) in a dramatic auction to decide the fate of the pay-television group.

The U.S. cable giant bid £17.28 a share for control of London-listed Sky, bettering a £15.67-a-share offer by Fox, Britain's Takeover Panel said.

Buying Sky will make Philadelphia-based Comcast, which owns the NBC network and Universal Pictures, the world's largest pay-TV operator, with around 52 million customers.