Word: bertelsmann
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...gossipy literary circles of New York City, the half-life of an industry secret is generally the next lunch. That's why the announcement last week that German media titan Bertelsmann AG was buying Random House was doubly shocking. Hardly anyone knew that the venerable American publishing institution, a supposedly sacrosanct division of Advance Publications, was for sale. The estimated $1.4 billion deal was negotiated surreptitiously over four months. Indeed, many Random House staff members found out about it by reading the morning newspaper...
...sale makes Bertelsmann, based in Gutersloh, Germany, the leader in American publishing. It's just more evidence that in a world of global-media companies, assets don't care what address they call home. Bertelsmann, known for its hands-off reputation with its other U.S. publishing division, Bantam Doubleday Dell (BDD), will maintain the Random House name and keep the editorial operation independent. But the new two-volume division will get much greater leverage with agents, authors and booksellers...
...YORK: Continuing the conglomeration of all things media, German giant Bertelsmann AG snapped up America's largest publishing house Monday. Random House, which hires such pen-pushers as Michael Crichton, Norman Mailer and John Updike, was sold for an undisclosed sum. The big news for web users is that Bertelsmann, the world's third-largest media company (behind Time Warner and Disney), is in the midst of creating BooksOnline, a rival to Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble -- which will be a lot more comfortable with Random House's back catalog...
...over yet. Bertelsmann has also been named as a possible buyer for part of the fragmenting Simon & Schuster, one of the largest remaining American-owned publishers. Tomorrow the world...
...York City, Sept. 4, 1999: in an action that capped a decade of multibillion-dollar takeovers, the world's last two international media conglomerates today announced that they would merge. BMCAA Viafox (created out of Bertelsmann, MCA, CAA, Viacom and Fox) agreed to accept a bid of $638 billion in cash and stock from Disony GETCITWest (formed from a fusion of Disney, Sony, GE, TCI, Time Warner and Westinghouse). The new entity, which now controls all entertainment on film, TV, CD, video, telephone and computer, will be called, simply, Diller...