From IMDB:
At a meeting in New York last week NBC chief Bob Wright told Vivendi Universal chief Jean René Fourtou that NBC was interested in acquiring the company's entertainment assets, including Universal Studios, the USA and Sci-Fi cable channels and Studio USA, according to the newsletter Mermigas on Media, published by Electronic Media magazine. (No mention was made in the article of Universal's recording and theme park businesses.) The newsletter quoted a source as saying that NBC was interested in creating an alliance that would put it on equal footing with Viacom, Fox and Disney. However, another source told the newsletter, "NBC's not overly driven by this. It's really got to be very attractive for NBC and GE to want to do this, and it's not yet clear that it is." A deal with NBC could prove attractive to Barry Diller, who has made numerous unsuccessful attempts to grab a television network. However, in a speech to a hotel industry conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Diller insisted that he expected to be paid $2.5 billion by Vivendi Universal if the company sells off the entertainment units that he now heads. Vivendi shares rose nearly 3 percent Wednesday following a Wall Street Journal report that the company is considering a merger of its entertainment units with MGM.
At a meeting in New York last week NBC chief Bob Wright told Vivendi Universal chief Jean René Fourtou that NBC was interested in acquiring the company's entertainment assets, including Universal Studios, the USA and Sci-Fi cable channels and Studio USA, according to the newsletter Mermigas on Media, published by Electronic Media magazine. (No mention was made in the article of Universal's recording and theme park businesses.) The newsletter quoted a source as saying that NBC was interested in creating an alliance that would put it on equal footing with Viacom, Fox and Disney. However, another source told the newsletter, "NBC's not overly driven by this. It's really got to be very attractive for NBC and GE to want to do this, and it's not yet clear that it is." A deal with NBC could prove attractive to Barry Diller, who has made numerous unsuccessful attempts to grab a television network. However, in a speech to a hotel industry conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Diller insisted that he expected to be paid $2.5 billion by Vivendi Universal if the company sells off the entertainment units that he now heads. Vivendi shares rose nearly 3 percent Wednesday following a Wall Street Journal report that the company is considering a merger of its entertainment units with MGM.
