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Technology Stocks : IATV-ACTV Digital Convergence Software-HyperTV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: art slott who wrote (4231)	5/26/1999 11:24:00 AM
From: art slott	Respond to of 13157

Liberty Might Back DSL, AOL by: Playfuller (23/F/Flint, MI) 14889 of 14895 Liberty Might Back DSL, AOL By H. KIM & M. FARRELL May 24, 1999 New York -- As Liberty Media Group chairman John Malone looks around for investments, some might not necessarily be in cable's best interests. Flexing his financial independence with control of the AT&T Corp. subsidiary, Malone told investors at a conference here last week that his interests in interactivity and high-speed data might lead to deals with America Online Inc. or digital-subscriber-line carriers. "Right now, [America Online is] on the outs with the AT&T guys, but we'd love to do something with them," Malone said. "I wouldn't be surprised if we could work out something in Internet TV with them." DSL -- a way to send data at high speeds over phone lines -- is inferior to cable, but it could also be worth a look-see, the former Tele-Communications Inc. chairman and CEO said. "I'm a big believer that everybody wants high-speed Internet," Malone added. "Any business that gets you there in an effective way is worth looking at." Any opportunity to gauge where Malone is thinking about directing some of Liberty's $29 billion in investment capital is intriguing. But the headline news from last week's session -- the first since AT&T bought TCI and Liberty -- was the announcement that Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks would buy several assets from Liberty-controlled TCI Music, including interactive-music-video network The Box Music Network and Web sites SonicNet, Addicted to Noise and Streamland. Liberty -- which recently transferred a batch of Internet-related assets into TCI Music -- would get a 10 percent stake in MTVN's online-music ventures, including what MTVN officials said would be a new unit spun off into a separate, publicly traded vehicle at a later date. "First and foremost, this is a deal about the Internet," MTVN president and chief operating officer Mark Rosenthal said last week. "This deal expands our attractive position as the No. 1 music-content provider." The two companies also agreed to combine wits to launch an interactive commerce-oriented music channel for advanced digital set-top boxes, which should be available to cable operators by the end of the year. The deal consolidates MTVN's music-video power base by adding The Box, which claims around 24 million subscribers. But it was unclear how The Box fits into MTVN's interactive-music plans. "The Box remains The Box for now," Rosenthal said. "We've admired their core competencies of pay-per-view and localism that we haven't had at MTV." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: 05/26/99, 11:07AM EDT as a reply to: Msg 14888 by disklxik_kurts Related Links Quote & News Profile Research Insider