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Technology Stocks : America On-Line (AOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sonny McWilliams who wrote (6513)	3/12/1999 4:55:00 PM
From: Jenne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 41369

AOL Paxson Shares Rise on Joint-Venture, Takeover Speculation West Palm Beach, Florida, March 12 (Bloomberg) -- Paxson Communications Corp., owner of the Pax TV broadcast network, rose as much as 21 percent on speculation that it may announce a joint venture or an outright purchase by another media company. The shares rose 1 to 9 3/16 in midafternoon trading of 408,600, more than four times their three-month daily average. Earlier, the shares touched 9 15/16. Paxson told analysts on a conference call Wednesday that a number of companies had expressed an interest in partnerships using Pax's 72 owned and operated television stations. The New York Post today reported increased speculation that Paxson has been approached by buyers, including America Online Inc., General Electric Co.'s NBC network and Time Warner Inc. ''It's about the third time in six months that the acquisition rumors have come up,'' said William Trent, a J.W. Genesis Capital Markets analyst who has a ''strong buy'' rating on Paxson. ''It's an on-again, off-again rumor.'' A sale is unlikely this year unless Lowell ''Bud'' Paxson, the company's founder and controlling shareholder, receives an offer that is several times the stock's current price, Trent said. ''It needs to be an awful sweet offer for him to take it,'' Trent said, explaining that Paxson turned down an offer $16 a share in 1997 as he was forming the broadcast network. The West Palm Beach, Florida-based company's conference call included a discussion of its conversion of TV stations to digital from analog formats, as well as how it will use the added channel capacity it gets from the conversion. Trent said the company mentioned on the conference call that it had ''significant interest'' from a number of companies in using the added capacity. This could include splitting the extra frequencies for cellular, Internet or other programming services, he said.