TO ALL: The following article came from SkyReport. If Murdoch can't find any other alternatives, he may find himself heading back into a deal with Charlie, especially if he is willing to give up some control (he is offering to accept non-voting shares in Primestar):
Personalities Rock the Roll-up: The PrimeStar Feuds Continue
Ignoring a prime business maxim (i.e. DON'T let it get personal),
PrimeStar's feuding partners are at it again, scuttling plans to announce a
roll-up later this week and leaving nobody smiling except maybe DirecTV's
Eddy Hartenstein.
The problems center around Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which has
reportedly agreed to everything the partners could want except...
Time Warner doesn't like Murdoch and appears to be ready to scuttle any
deal at all. This despite the fact that News Corp.'s near desperate offering
includes Murdoch's acquiescence to continually escalating demands that
virtually foreclose future options for the star struck (as in
over-the-head-via-SKY) mogul.
According to three separate sources, Murdoch has agreed to non-voting
stock, forever relinquishing any desire to control the resulting company and no cable
carriage agreements tied to satellite slots or
satellites themselves.
In the face of Time Warner's refusal, the roll-up has, at least, temporarily receded -
and with them the start of a lengthy, complicated (by
location, personnel and planning) process of making PrimeStar a unified, independent
entity under the direction, according to published reports, of a former cable company
president, Viacom Cable's John Goddard.
As of now, that's delayed - perhaps indefinitely.
Meanwhile, the back and forth negotiations among all the players continues with DirecTV
the only immediate beneficiary as it can continue to simply execute its business plan
with relatively little distraction. While it remains a back-up alternative to the
increasingly frustrated Murdoch, it can just watch for now as the so-called "cable
cabal" flips and flops and
EchoStar has to scramble to stay in the game.
SkyREPORT.COM News For 5/21/97 |
