The Footsie climbed, as Sky said that James Murdoch will return to the broadcaster as chairman, almost four years after his resignation in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.
It also reported operating profit up 12% to £747 million for the six months to the end of December, while it added 337,000 new customers.
The FTSE 100 Index jumped 72.5 points to 6004.8, buoyed by strong trading on Wall Street and in Asia overnight.
Germany’s DAX was up 0.3% while the Cac 40 in France grew 0.5%.
In stocks, Sky lifted more than 2%, or 21p, to 1062p, amid news of the return of Mr Murdoch. The broadcaster said pre-tax profit fell 2.2% to £524 million, but blamed £223 million of expenses on its purchase of Sky in Germany and Italy.
Oil prices continued to make gains, signalling brighter prospects for world trade.
Brent Crude rose to stand at just below 34 US dollars a barrel.
BP lifted 3p to 371p, although Royal Dutch Shell eased 3p to 1494p.
BT rode high on the back of its confirmed deal with mobile operator EE, with the share price climbing 9p to 475p, a rise of 2%.
The £12 billion mega merger between the two companies was formally completed on Friday, creating a combined business of around 35 million mobile, broadband and TV customers.
It will hand BT 35% of the mobile consumer market and a similar share of the UK’s consumer broadband business.
BT will be able to offer bundles of telecoms, TV, broadband and mobile to its customers to compete better with rivals such as Sky and Virgin Media.
However, the company still awaits a review by regulator Ofcom expected next month into the telecoms sector, as it mulls over whether it should split BT networks business Openreach.
Businesses with significant operations in China also made gains after confident overnight trading on Chinese markets led to hopes of an increase in consumer spending.
Burberry, which has looked to capitalise on the appetite for luxury goods from China’s rising middle class, jumped 14p to 1174p, while banking giant Standard Chartered rose 2p to 461p.