Liberty Media

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Please improve this article if you can. (January 2007)

The Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate and the control is exercised by engineer Dr. John Malone, with a majority of the voting shares. In May 2006, Liberty shareholders approved the creation of four new tracking stocks, two classes for each of Liberty's two businesses:[1] Its offices are located at Meridian, Colorado.

Liberty Interactive Group (NASDAQ: LINTA,NASDAQ: LINTB)
Liberty Capital (NASDAQ: LCAPA, NASDAQ: LCAPB)

1 Liberty Interactive Group
2 Liberty Capital
- 2.1 Former assets
3 History
4 Governance
5 Atlanta Braves
6 External links

[edit] Liberty Interactive Group

Attributed to Liberty Interactive Group are:

QVC, Inc.
Provide Commerce

and Liberty's interests in:

[edit] Liberty Capital

Attributed to Liberty Capital are:

Liberty's 39.5% interest in The DirecTV Group (swapping stakes with News Corporation) and also majority interest in DirecTV
2.6 percent of Time Warner [2]
89 percent of TruePosition [3]

Liberty's other private and public assets include

Starz, LLC (including Starz!, Starz Media, and Encore);
GSN: 50% stake with Sony Pictures;
Atlanta Braves: after purchased from Time Warner in a complex deal, in which $1 billion cash & the Braves (valued at approximately $450 million) were exchanged for 60 million Time Warner stock shares.
Starz Media: In May 2006, Liberty Media bought IDT Entertainment from IDT Corp. and renamed it Starz Media.
Overture Films

[edit] 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. [4]

[edit] History

On August 4, 1994 Liberty Media Corp. merged with TCI, an American cable television group. Before this, Liberty had been known as Liberty Communications Inc.

On March 9, 1999 TCI merged with AT&T for approximately $54 billion. It was spun-off from AT&T on August 10, 2001, subsequently spending $5 billion on nine German regional cable networks. Apart from television distribution it holds major interests in other groups. For example it is the largest shareholder in News Corporation (though the founding Murdoch family owns more voting shares), and has a 4 % stake in Time Warner. As of December 2003 it has never paid a dividend.

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 "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. [5]

Liberty is in the process of considering asset swaps with News Corp. and Time Warner that would give it control of DirecTV and the Atlanta Braves baseball team. [6] 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). [7] 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. [8]

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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.