Word: tbs
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Time Warner would pay off TBS shareholders with a pile of stock valued at about $8.5 billion and, according to the deal's rough outline, make Turner a vice chairman of the combined company with authority over his previous holdings and may be more. Time War ner would get Turner's globe-straddling cable prop erties--CNN and the Cartoon Network, plus three other channels-along with two movie companies, New Line Cinema and Castle Rock, and sports properties that include the potent Atlanta Braves...
...offer of about $35 a share for tbs stock, which had been trading at around $24, was a boon for Turner shareholders, but the potential benefit for the buyer was the more controversial point. "This is an absolutely natural fit for Time Warner,'' says PaineWebber analyst Christopher Dixon, who stresses the success of Turner's programming in foreign markets. Other analysts, including Edward Froelich of Pershing & Co., are less impressed, partly because the heavily indebted Time Warner will be financing the deal by issuing an additional 189 million shares of stock, there by increasing the outstanding shares 50% and threatening...
...fickle as a hemline length. For most of this year, Turner angled desperately to buy a TV network, first nbc in January and cbs until only a few weeks ago. Levin, for his part, had been talking of unloading the company's long-held 19% stake in tbs in order to pay down debt. The game changed when Disney and Cap Cities eloped, raising the ardor and insecurity of moguls everywhere...
...only half the battle. The following week Levin summoned Time Warner president Richard Parsons from his vacation for a trip to Englewood, Colorado, where the two executives made their overture to the other major party in the deal, cable king John Malone, whose Tele-Communications empire owns 21% of tbs and holds three seats on its board...
...industry doesn't lack for well-meaning people. Terri Tingle, the executive producer of TBS's Feed Your Mind!, says, "At Turner Broadcasting, we do more than most industries do. We really feel that serving children is an important part of our job." Geraldine Laybourne, president of Nickelodeon, the innovative children's cable channel, isn't shy about tooting her network's horn: "It would be dishonest of me not to say that I think we helped change the landscape of children's television." True, but the landscape even on Nickelodeon is mixed. Doug is sweet, but Rugrats is frightening...