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It's Official: News Corp to Buy DirecTV
Guppy06 writes "According to this Washington Post article, the heads at both News Corporation (owners of Fox) and DirecTV have agreed to a $6.6 billion deal to secure the purchase of DirecTV by News, with GM getting a little less than half of that total in cash. All that remains now is the actual exchange. For the record, EchoStar was going to pay $30 billion before the FCC shot them down."
Except for CNN and MSNBC mysteriously vanishing in favor of fox news
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
"For the record, EchoStar was going to pay $30 billion before the FCC shot them down."
The article neglects to mention that Murdoch has offered more (much more) in the past
He had planned a more than $20 billion offer for the company in 2001, and an even larger, $30 billion-plus offer in 2000.
I found the above info in a google search. We do contract work for DTV and I remember kind of scratching our heards when the Echostar bid was the one accepted. Directv accepted the offer from Echostar, even though iirc Newscorp offerd more. No one was confident that the Echostar deal would get approved. The rumor was that the management at Directv was scared that if Murdoch bought the business they were all out of work.
Now Murdoch gets Directv at a much better rate.
"Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
We're heading for a one world government that's not going to be feared but loved by the public because the media monopoly tells it that everything's just great.
BOO! TERRO
It's fair and balanced. They say so themselves. Why is everything a conspiracy with you liberals?
I couldn't help thinkin of the Simpsons on this one:
Lisa: It's wonderful to think for ourselves again.
Bart: You said it, sister!
TV: You are watching Fox.
All: [Zombie-like] We are watching Fox.
Johnkoerner.com
What liberal media?
;-)
Fox, CNN, NBC etc. are all run by corporations and have a strong conservative bias, which can be proven by the number of conservative 'specialists' they bring on their shows, and thus they don't offend their conservative owners/contributors. Works out nicely for Bush, since he's rarely criticized on TV, unlike Clinton.
What's disturbing to me about this is that there's actually a company called 'News Corp'. Talk about population control *shiver*. I'm stickin' with PBS. At least they consider all things
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
It's great to hear that the world-wide media industry is getting more and more efficient over time. With only a few large players in the industry, billing can be consolidated and redundancy of equipment and programming can be minimized, saving globs of cash.
In the end, this is sure this will bring higher quality service and programming at significantly lower prices!
Alas, the savings and increase in quality will happen only over an extended period of time.
And with inflation and government regulations, we customers might perceive lower quality and higher prices.
But no... it'll be much better than it would've been... just look how radio has improved in the past 20 years!
Of course. Obviously holders of conservative veiwpoints can't be allowed to excercise free speech or press.
Do you somehow think that HBO will come off as "more conservative" over the satellite if Rupert Murdoch owns DirecTV? Will it Janine Garafollo suddenly stop in the middle of a Comedy Special and launch into a Pro-Bush, Pro-War propeganda dialog on the "DirectTV" version of the broadcast?
How about the News... oh wait he already owns FoxNews.
How exactly will this change things again?
I'm not a big fan of the guy, but aren't we being just a wee bit paranoid here?
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
Does this mean that there is less choice in the US over who supplies the news? If it is, it's got to be a bad thing.
You only have to look at the past few months, with camera men being sacked for editing photos for publication in major news papers, and footage of the Iraqi war to show that news groups need to be more honest - and have competition to measure their views.
Views on the push by the US forces ranged from "Hurrah, the people are free", to "Look how the Americans allow people to loot" - with all the channels showing the same footage. One side said it was the whole city rising up, with another saying only a few hundred were celebrating.
So far this morning, the BBC have said both!
I find modern news channels being more political than ever before, and views on the same thing seem to contradict each other.
It all makes it harder to find out the real facts - especially if a company wants to be classed as friends of a political group to get more information - would they really state the facts if it was going to hurt a 'friendly' political group?
Ian.
You are all beneath my contempt..., unless you bribe well
No, I disagree - DirecTV should have gone to a small, independent outfit like Clear Channel Communications...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
O.K. - for the people who aren't in the states here is the breakdown: There are 5 major and 1 minor (based on Nielsen ratings) television news outlets in the states. This is in no particular order of importance, preference, or popularity.... 1. American Broadcasting Company - ABC - Owned by the Disney Corporation 2. National Broadcasting Company - NBC - Owned by General Electric 3. CBS - Owned by Viacom 4. Cable News Network - CNN - Owned by AOL Time Warner 5. Fox News - Owned by News Corporation The one minor player is the Public Broadcasting Service and is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the annual support of viewers like you. Thank you. ;)
Funny how Murdock is the Republican party's largest donator, Fox is promoting the war 24/7 in the typical fashion of "all the way with GWB", and who would have guessed it, regulators "suddenly" allow the buy out with no questions asked.
Funny how on one hand we have GWB scream about the terrible and corrupt regeme of Iraq, yet, something like this just slips through and worst still, the US isn't like most countries. Most countries have a publicly funded television network that allows a voice of opinion to be broadcasted that isn't always "politically acceptable". Just look at Fox and the pro-war stance and the number of suckers sucked into the vacuum.
What the US needs first is a publicly funded broadcasting corporation that is at an arms length of government and receives no funding from the private sector. This is the only way to ensure media independence as the number of "media outlets" strink.
You're missing the point if you think the purpose of News Corp is to advance any political position
Politics comes a distant second to business in News Corporation. In the UK, Murdoch is seen as the very definition of a dangerous monopolist, controlling all satellite TV (which is more popular than cable) as well as several of the most popular newspapers (The Sun, The News of the World, The Times, The Sunday Times). The Murdoch media are generally populist right-wing, but they pretty soon slotted in behind Blair when they saw which way the wind was blowing. They are populist right-wing because it sells, that's all.
Uh...Do you have any evidence to back that up? A link to a survey? An exit poll? Anything? I know plenty of conservative journalists... (Having been, at one point, a journalism student in the state of Indiana.)
Sorry, but you must have been asleep during those controversies. There was widespread press criticism of the president in that scandal. Also, the "focus" on cigars and stained dresses should be traced back to a witch-hunt launched by Clinton's political adversaries. Is it a coincidence that the first democrat to be elected and serve TWO FULL TERMS (since...what, FDR?) was "investigated" endlessly by conservative political appointees who, after many years and $40 million of tax money could only "get" him on the technicality that he didn't wish to disclose an extra-marital affair when the investigation was supposedly focused on a real estate deal?
The biggest white elephant ever from the conservatives is the "liberal media" one. If the widespread "liberal" bias really existed, I would expect to see widespread outright opposition to President Bush's policies, since he is a Republican.
Yet the opposite is true. The networks are giving us non-stop, nearly pornographic (positive) coverage of this war and there are very few dissenting voices on the airwaves right now.
Again, you'd think if the media was so "liberal" they would show civillian casualty numbers which (once again) it appears will end up in the multiple thousands. I haven't heard even ONE PEEP on American television about civillian casualties... Except for when they hit a busload of civiliians with a missile, we heard about THAT "accident." But after the bombing of a residential area where potentially hundreds of civilians could have been affected... nothing. Not one peep.
Who did what now?
What the US needs first is a publicly funded broadcasting corporation
I agree. We need something like Iraq TV. Baghdad Bob, come back, we need you for the 5 O'Clock Eyewitness News.
Freedom Is Universal
Linux-Universe
As a DirecTV customer, I'm very happy to see this happening. Any media service owned by News Corp. is one not owned by Microsoft. This is not a troll/flamebait -- I was truly worried about someday having to either switch or cancel because a company I refuse to give my money to takes over a service I use. It would be better if there were room for lots of small players, but at least the big players keep each other in check. It's best when they hate each other, too -- when they don't, they start cooperating, and that tends to screw any small/free players that are still around.
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