Welcome to the Media Melee
What is it about the media business that evokes the schoolyard? Disputes and ego clashes are common in business, but rarely are they as public or as colorful as they are in media. The war of words and lawsuits between John Malone and Barry Diller is the latest media dust-up. Here are some others:
'Is He Nuts?'
When Time Warner decided not to carry the new Fox News Channel on its New York City cable system in 1996, the dispute soon went into the courts and the political backrooms. But it also ended up on the front page. After Ted Turner, who had once vowed to ''squash Rupert Murdoch like a bug,'' compared the News Corp. C.E.O. to Hitler, the New York Post, owned by Murdoch, responded with: "Ted Turner: Is He Nuts?"
Le Divorce
It was a marriage of convenience. A $10.3 billion deal in 2001 merged the TV and film units of Vivendi Universal with Diller's USA Networks. Jean-Marie Messier had turned Vivendi from a water company into an entertainment giant. But two media moguls was one too many; Diller once referred to comments by Messier as "just noise." The next year, Messier was ousted and the assets were later sold to NBC.
Surprise!
Allies and friends for two decades, John Malone surprised Rupert Murdoch in 2004 by buying shares that doubled his voting stake in News Corp., to 18 percent. The investment "certainly gained Rupert's attention," Malone said. News Corp. quickly adopted a "poison pill" to prevent Malone from raising his stake further. A peace agreement was reached by swapping Malone's stake for News Corp.'s stake in DirecTV.
The Raider
When Carl Icahn pushed for changes at Time Warner, he made his attack personal by focusing on its chief executive, Richard Parsons. Icahn said Parsons was more concerned with Time Warner's new headquarters than with its stock price. C.E.O.'s, Parsons said in a speech, were often "morons" who were impossible to dislodge. But Icahn could not win a seat on the board, and a truce was reached in 2006.
