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Liberty Media
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The Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate and the control is exercised by engineer Dr. John C. Malone, with a majority of the voting shares.
The company is divided into three tracking stocks:
ibuted to Liberty Interactive Group are:
and Liberty's interests in:
ibuted to Liberty Entertainment are:
On September 3, 2008 Liberty Media decided to initiate the process of spinning off Liberty Entertainment to Liberty Media shareholders (leaving Malone with a majority ownership of the new company).
ibuted to Liberty Capital are:
rty Media Corp.
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Encyclopedia
The Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate and the control is exercised by engineer Dr. John C. Malone, with a majority of the voting shares.
The company is divided into three tracking stocks:
- Liberty Interactive Group ()
- Liberty Capital ()
- Liberty Entertainment ()
Liberty Interactive Group
Attributed to Liberty Interactive Group are:
- QVC, Inc.
- Provide Commerce (operator of proflowers.com)
- Bodybuilding.com
- BuySeasons (operator of buycostumes.com)
and Liberty's interests in:
Liberty Entertainment
Attributed to Liberty Entertainment are:
On September 3, 2008 Liberty Media decided to initiate the process of spinning off Liberty Entertainment to Liberty Media shareholders (leaving Malone with a majority ownership of the new company).
Liberty Capital
Attributed to Liberty Capital are:
Former assets
- Court TV (now truTV) (50% stake with Time Warner). On May 12, 2006, Time Warner bought the other 50% of Court TV for $735 million.
History
Liberty Media Corp. began in 1991 as a spin-off of TCI, an American cable television group. Peter Barton served as president until retiring in April 1997 to start an investment firm and spend time with his family. TCI president John C. Malone had hired Barton, who called himself the company's "Jimmy Olsen" because he just did whatever was needed, fresh from Harvard Business School. Malone had a playful side and even kept toys in his Liberty Media office, and a gorilla costume to represent his status as "second banana" to Malone. Yet he had a reputation as "a shrewd and sometimes vicious negotiator."
Liberty Media took over TCI assets considered to have little value, but Barton completed "a deal every ten days for six years" and made the company a big success. Liberty was merged back into TCI in the mid-1990s.
On March 13, 1998, Liberty Media Group and TCI Group announced the merger of Encore and STARZ! into a single company--Encore Media Group, owned by Liberty. Encore was taking advantage of the growth of digital cable, while TCI, which had previously owned 20 percent of Encore, was more interested in traditional cable.
After United States Department of Justice approval that required TCI to sell its 23.5 percent interest in Sprint Corporation PSC, TCI merged with AT&T on March 9, 1999 for approximately $48 billion. Liberty Media merged with TCI Ventures Group LLC (TCIVA), TCI's telephone and Internet businesses, and the resulting company became part of AT&T, giving Liberty Media $5.5 billion for use to repurchase stock or buy other companies. Liberty Media also could borrow $6 billion without lowering AT&T's debt rating.
AT&T bought the other TCI businesses--@Home Corp., National Digital Television Center and Western Tele-Communications Inc.--for $2.5 billion in cash. TCI chairman Malone, who became head of the new company, said buyers would not want all of TCI, but they would be interested in Liberty Media. Malone wanted to start a finance unit similar to GE Capital, which could start new cable or Internet services. TCI had already planned digital cable set-top boxes.
On September 28, 1998, Liberty Media announced the formation of Liberty Interactive, a company which would take advantage of new technologies such as set-top boxes to develop interactive programming. The company would own 86 percent of TCI Music Inc. (NASDAQ symbol: TUNE/TUNEP). As of January 1, 1999, E! Entertainment President and CEO Lee Masters would become the new company's CEO, and Bruce Ravenel would be Chief Technology Officer.
On September 10, 1999, Liberty Media Group renamed TCI Music to Liberty Digital Inc. (NASDAQ symbol: LDIG), with the new company trading on NASDAQ's National Market tier, after Liberty Media traded most of its Internet content, interactive television assets, and rights to provide AT&T's cable systems with interactive services, plus cash and notes valued at $150 million, for TCI Music stock. Masters, who became Liberty Digital's CEO, told The Wall Street Journal that the new company had a value of $1 billion, $650 million of that from the interactive unit of Liberty Media, which had also used the name Liberty Digital. Liberty Digital lost $244 million with revenue of $66 million in 1999, thanks to investments in struggling Internet businesses homegrocer.com, drugstore.com, TiVo and iVillage. The company bought half of Game Show Network because of its interactive features.
On December 17, 1999, TCI Satellite Entertainment Inc. (TSAT), based in Englewood, Colorado, announced that Liberty Media was trading its interest in Sprint PCS for $300 million in TCI Satellite preferred stock. A new company, 90 percent owned by Liberty Media and 10 percent owned by TCI Satellite, would combine the satellite-related businesses and take advantage of the growing area of Internet content. Liberty Media president and CEO Robert R. Bennett said the deal would benefit stockholders of both companies.
Another new company was Liberty Livewire, formed from Todd-AO and two other companies by Liberty Media, which provided audio and video post-production services. David Beddow of TCI became CEO.
Liberty Media's Discovery Channel, News Corporation and QVC continued to do well, but the company's newer projects had problems, and the company's stock price dropped by half. Malone no longer had the "Malone halo" he once did. Among the companies that were not doing well after the end of the technology boom: ICG, Priceline.com, Cendant, Emmis Communications, and Teligent. If AT&T agreed to spin off Liberty Media, new deals such as a possible News Corp. purchase of DirecTV would be easier because AT&T would no longer require federal approval to complete such deals.
Liberty Media was spun-off from AT&T on August 10, 2001. This was one of three possible actions to ensure federal approval of AT&T's $54 billion acquisition of MediaOne Group--the others were selling its 25.5% share of Time Warner Entertainment and dropping 11.8 million cable customers subsequently spending $5 billion on nine German regional cable networks. Apart from television distribution it holds major interests in other groups. For example it was the largest shareholder in News Corporation (though the founding Murdoch family owns more voting shares), and had a 4% stake in Time Warner. As of December 2003 it had never paid a dividend.
Also in 2001, Liberty Media acquired the remainder of Liberty Digital and Liberty Satellite & Technology (formerly TCI Satellite). Both companies were independent spinoffs of TCI, though Liberty already owned 90 percent of both companies after the exchange for Sprint PCS stock. Being independent increased their asset values, but the stock prices of both dropped, negating any benefits.
In May 2006, Time Warner acquired Liberty Media's 50% stake in Court TV for $735 million.
On May 16, 2006, IDT sold its IDT Entertainment division to Liberty Media "for all of Liberty Media's interests in IDT, $186 million in cash and the assumption of existing indebtedness." IDT Entertainment's assets and Starz Entertainment Group's popular line of premium TV channels will combine to produce content for all distribution platforms .
Liberty negotiated an asset swap with News Corp. and Time Warner that would give it control of DirecTV and the Atlanta Braves baseball team. On February 12, 2007, the deal was completed with Time Warner wherein Liberty would receive the Atlanta Braves, a group of craft magazines and $1 billion in cash in exchange for 60 million shares of Time Warner stock (valued at $1.27 billion as of market close on February 12, 2007). The deal was approved by Major League Baseball on May 15, 2007.
Liberty has also purchased Green Bay, Wisconsin, television station WFRV-TV and its sister station in Escanaba, Michigan, WJMN-TV, from CBS estimated at about $234 million. CBS will swap the stations and $170 million in cash for 7.59 million shares of CBS common stock held by Liberty Media. The purchase was announced February 13, 2007. The sale was completed on April 18, 2007.
Governance
Members of the board of Liberty Media are: Robert R. Bennett, Donne Fisher, Paul Gould, Greg Maffei, John Malone, David Rapley, LaVoy Robison, and Larry Romrell.
Atlanta Braves
Liberty Media agreed to buy the Atlanta Braves from Time Warner in February 2007 for US$1 billion.
The deal needed 75% of owners and Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig for the deal to go through. The purchase was made official on May 16, 2007.
Sirius XM Radio Deal
On February 17, 2009 Liberty announced that it would invest $530 million into the struggling Sirius XM Radio Inc., in a structured deal that would help the satellite radio provider avoid filing bankruptcy protection by meeting its obligations. The deal also provides for two Board seats for Liberty Media, and provides cash for operations and development, with a maturity date of December 2012.
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