Anyone considering investing in IATV should read this:
THE ENABLERS
Lee Masters, president-CEO of Liberty Digital,
says the mix at his company is roughly 80%
strategic, 20% financial. As usual with a John
Malone-controlled entity, Liberty Digital drills
deep to identify prospects, often looking
past the sexy, high-flyers du jour to
companies still in the background, the
enablers. One recent example is Online Retail
Partners, which helps name-brand retailers build
a Web presence.
While most of Liberty Digital's focus is on
identifying and
investing in businesses seeking to capitalize on
the emerging interactive TV and e-commerce
trends, “Some [investments] are purely
opportunistic, purely financial,” Masters
acknowledges. “We're not above making an
investment just because it's going to make a lot
of money.”
“We happen to believe that when the Holy Grail
of the digital set-top fully arrives, it turns cable
into
one vast intranet,” says Comcast Interactive
Capital's Julian Brodsky.
David Easterly, president-COO of Cox
Enterprises...One new-media investment holds
an honored spot in the
pantheon, says Easterly, referring to @Home.
“We put in $7
million. Today, that's worth about $1.7 billion. All
of the cable guys did as well or better.”
Excerpts from Broadcasting & Cable
They put 7 million into ATHM and got back 1.7 billion. And here we
have Malone putting 100 million into IATV. I think he expects a huge
return on his money and I also think he's going to get it. Translation -
IATV will eventually have a multi-billion dollar market cap. |
