Word: sabans
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After evaluating Kirch's assets for more than a year, Saban, 58, hopped to Germany in January when Kirch's creditors appeared to be near a deal with a German bidder. With a team of advisers, Saban set out to convince creditors, regulators and politicians that he was the best buyer. He knew that another rich American, media mogul John Malone, had tried in 2001 to buy a group of TV networks from Deutsche Telekom, Germany's major cable operator, but had been blocked by regulators in part because he was perceived as arrogant and unbending. Saban played the charmer...
...Kirch executives, however, Saban acted as if he were running the place even before he bought it. When he summoned the bosses of Kirch's TV networks for interviews, he would occasionally address one of his lieutenants in Hebrew, assuming no one else would understand. He was startled when one Kirch honcho shot back, "I know what you're saying." (This account, confirmed by three sources close to the talks, was denied by a spokeswoman for Saban...
With $1 billion in cash, Saban could get the deal done fast. Other potential suitors, including Murdoch and Italian magnate Silvio Berlusconi, were hobbled by concerns that they might use Kirch's networks to forward their political views. German media giant Bertelsmann didn't bid because of antitrust problems. The only other serious bidder, a German publisher, didn't have Saban's TV experience and faced regulatory pressures. By late February, Saban's mostly cash offer was a virtual lock...
...seasoned underdog, Saban grew up so poor that his family shared a communal bathroom with streetwalkers in a Tel Aviv apartment building. After stints playing bass in a rock band and promoting concerts, he moved to Paris in 1975. One day he was watching an English-language TV show and realized the theme music might be popular on French radio. He could buy the foreign rights to such tunes for a pittance, he discovered, and by the early '80s, he was licensing entire shows, mostly for kids...
...Power Rangers became his cash gusher. The Japanese show had been seen as too quirky for foreign audiences. Saban saw it differently and bought the foreign rights in 1985 for just $10,000 an episode. Eight years later he finally found a U.S. buyer in a fledgling children's cable channel owned by Murdoch's Fox Corp. With production and distribution support from Fox, Saban built the Power Rangers into a massive global franchise and in 1996 merged his media company with Murdoch's, eventually forming Fox Family Worldwide. In 2001, when he and Murdoch sold Fox Family to Disney...