Word: murdoch
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...ANGELES: Rupert Murdoch is reportedly close to a $350 million deal to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers. Although the price is more than double the previous big league record $172 million paid for the Baltimore Orioles in 1993, the Dodgers are a bargain, not least because they own their stadium and draw over three million loyal fans a year. More important, the purchase would give News Corp the ability to control both sides of the sports equation as a team owner and a broadcaster. Murdoch?s Fox network and regional cable channels have played a key role in driving...
...would also help compensate for a big Murdoch deal that seems to be falling apart: his joint venture with EchoStar to create a new satellite TV service called Sky. The service, announced with much fanfare in February, would beam 500 channels of digital programming to small home dishes. Because Murdoch's service would have the ability to deliver local over-the-air stations (which other satellite services cannot do), Sky could take significant numbers of customers away from cable. The prospect so alarmed rival media companies that they flooded Washington with lobbyists to try to stop Murdoch on regulatory grounds...
...while the lobbyists were making their rounds, EchoStar executives abruptly announced that negotiations with Murdoch had stalled, stymied by the media mogul's insistence that EchoStar switch to a Murdoch-approved descrambling technology. Some industry observers contend the technology issue is only a smoke screen for other problems faced by the venture. The deal was thrown further into doubt late last week when Preston Padden, Murdoch's top satellite executive, resigned, reportedly after clashing with EchoStar chairman Charles Ergen over control of the venture. "The EchoStar deal left me without a real job," Padden told TIME. "I have nothing...
...Murdoch is already looking for alternatives to the EchoStar deal. He has held exploratory talks about gaining a share of Primestar, a competing satellite venture owned jointly by several cable companies, including TCI and Time Warner. Last week Murdoch broached the subject in a phone call to Time Warner's vice chairman, Ted Turner (with whom he has been feuding publicly), and had a face-to-face meeting with chairman Gerald Levin. His overtures to link up with Primestar, however, were rebuffed...
Robertson might actually turn out to be a more compatible partner for Murdoch. The two share similar conservative political views. And even though Robertson may be no fan of Fox programming, Murdoch would be unlikely, if he gains control of the Family Channel, to turn it into a clone of Fox. According to those familiar with his thinking, Robertson, the former minister and presidential candidate, now 67, wants to direct his resources to his religious enterprises, including Regent University, the educational institution he founded in Virginia Beach, Va. The News Corp. deal will give him the wherewithal to do that...