Is Malone Planning To Launch A Premium Pay TV Channel On Liberty's Cable Networks?

[Horizon]

Today John Malone has swapped some of his shareholding in premium US cable channel Starz for a stake in Lionsgate, the successful US TV and film production outfit. It is being speculated that this may be a prelude to a merger of the two companies with the aim of international expansion.

Starz, which used to be fully owned by John Malone's Liberty Media company and is still controlled by him, is one of the main competitors in the US to HBO and shows stuff like Black Sails as well as the Spartacus trilogy of series'.

Lionsgate is the producer of shows like Orange Is The New Black which is currently shown on Netflix, as well as shows such as Nashville, Mad Men, Anger Management and Weeds.

So, as the title, is he plotting a worldwide launch of Starz beefed up with Lionsgate stuff, or is this just US only? Perhaps he intends it to merge it with ITV in the future....

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/0...0VL45P20150211

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/li...rd-1201430973/

[tvtimes]

Reading between the lines there mate. I would hope though that Virgin will go back to being a broadcaster and not just a platform in the near future. They're held to ransom by the likes of Sky, ITV etc. Virgin need to have their own bargaining power.

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

Virgin need to have their own bargaining power.

Like they did when they lost Sky Basics?

[tvtimes]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

Like they did when they lost Sky Basics?

They could quite easily have removed Living tv, Bravo etc if they had, had the balls to do so, but chickened out.

Originally Posted by tvtimes

They could quite easily have removed Living tv, Bravo etc if they had, had the balls to do so, but chickened out.

Unless, of course, they had a legally binding contract, where, if they 'had the balls to break it', it would have cost them millions of pounds in breach of contract, and no potential future business partner would have ever trusted / entered into a contract with them again....

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

They could quite easily have removed Living tv, Bravo etc if they had, had the balls to do so, but chickened out.

And how would that benefit anyone? Look at how Sky and BT withhold sport content from each other. Is that good for their users?

The only place to get all the sport is the place that doesn't own any. Odd, eh?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

Reading between the lines there mate. I would hope though that Virgin will go back to being a broadcaster and not just a platform in the near future. They're held to ransom by the likes of Sky, ITV etc. Virgin need to have their own bargaining power.

really?

whilst BT & Sky are having a dick waving competition over the premier league, spending billions that doesn't really improve the customer experience but buys average European and African players new Bentleys.

VM are instead spending billions improving and expanding their network whilst broadcasting both of the willie wavers goods.

[Horizon]

.....lets not forget it's not just all about networks. Malone has a sway of his own content under his control:

Discovery
QVC
Starz & Encore premium cable tv channels
Eurosport

All3Media - Uk's largest "independent" production company whose programmes include the BBC's Wolf Hall, Grange Hill and Saturday Kitchen, Ch4's Shameless, Ramsey's Kitchen Nighmares, Brookside & Wife Swap, ITV's The Cube & Weekend, ITV2's The Only Way Is Essex, Ch5's The Gadget Show, to name a few.

and:

ITV shareholding
minority shareholdings in Viacom and Time Warner
shareholdings in European tv channels

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

And how would that benefit anyone? Look at how Sky and BT withhold sport content from each other. Is that good for their users?

The only place to get all the sport is the place that doesn't own any. Odd, eh?

In fairness, you can get all the sport on the Sky platform too; you just need to subscribe to Sky and to BT but that's not particularly hard.

[Media Boy UK]

Originally Posted by Horizon

All3Media - Uk's largest "independent" production company whose programmes include the BBC's Wolf Hall, Grange Hill and Saturday Kitchen, Ch4's Shameless, Ramsey's Kitchen Nighmares, Brookside & Wife Swap, ITV's The Cube & Weekend, ITV2's The Only Way Is Essex, Ch5's The Gadget Show, to name a few.

Here is the story on "All3Media" from May 2014 as seen on Media Boy Blog.

http://mediaboyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2...discovery.html

[Horizon]

Further to my earlier posts, Broadcast reported on Thursday that Discovery is to move into sports, natural history and factual entertainment (aka reality) programming.

Discovery's new programming boss wants closer ties with the production outfits that Malone owns and has commissioned programming from them.

I posted in the formula 1 thread recently that Liberty Global and Discovery have taken minority stakes in the new Formula E racing championships.

Not quite the premium offering I mentioned in my first post, but Malone is starting to link his various assets up.

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by tvtimes

Reading between the lines there mate.

I think things are becoming even more obvious with the latest news.

In the US, it was announced today that Charter Communications, which is part owned by John Malone's Liberty Media, is to buy Bright House House Networks to form the second largest cableco in the US.

Bright House's largest shareholders are another media mogul family called the Newhouse's who own Advance Publications, they also own a large chunk of Discovery along with Malone. Almost seems they're working in tandem with each other...

I think things are becoming clear:

Malone has bought loads of cablecos in Europe to become the world's largest cableco.

He is buying up cablecos in America again. He once owned the largest cableco there and he is recreating his empire again.

He has bought loads of tv production companies/assets.

I reckon he is going to recreate in America the same sort of situation that we have here in the UK with quad play operators all offering tv, phone, broadband and mobile. I doubt there will be more than 4-5 companies once all the mergers are done.

I believe he intends to create one massive cableco in America and if he's not allowed to that, he'll settle for two. He'll then merge that with one of the 4 big mobile companies over there.

Next, he'll buy more tv companies such as AMC (makers of Breaking bad) and Scripps (who do the Food Network) and merge that with his existing portfolio of Discovery, QVC, ITV (should he fully buy it) and his other stuff like the Starz and Lionsgate companies.

Finally, he'll merge his US cable/media company with Liberty Global creating a gigantic worldwide media/telecoms company all under one name. Perhaps it'll stay as a separate company or perhaps he'll see if someone like Viacom or Time Warner want to buy it. It depends whether he can merge his US cableco with Comcast or not.

Who said retirement is boring!

You heard it here first.

[Horizon]

.....well, the story continues.

The Comcast-Time Warner (TWC) massive cableco merger is off in the US. American regulators were luke warm on the idea at best and the companies have now called it off. Thus, in steps John Malone to fill the gap...

Malone's Charter cableco put in a bid yesterday for TWC just hours after the TWC-Comcast merger collapsed. Media speculation is that this time it will be successful.

Malone will then own a giant US cableco and a giant European cableco. It's a matter of when, not if, Liberty Global merges with the TWC/Charter cableco.

Oh Hell you make him sound like another Murdoch..

[Ignitionnet]

Just as a point Liberty does not own all of Charter, it owns 26%.

I am pretty intrigued to see how Liberty Broadband, market cap $5.5 billion, acquire Time Warner Cable, market cap $41.79 billion, even with help from Liberty Global, market cap across all share classes $45.26 billion, and leveraging Charter Communications whose market cap is $20.82 billion.

I suspect a whole bunch of debt secured on the new entity alongside paying largely in shares would be the plan. It'd end up more of a merger than a full on acquisition.

Talk about having to throw the kitchen sink at the deal - Comcast is as of now valued at $150.76 billion so could've relatively comfortably assimilated TWC.