Murdoch May Have To Fight Ally Malone For DirecTV

from the battle-of-the-media-giants dept

When the FCC blocked EchoStar's bid to buy DirecTV, many people assumed that Rupert Murdoch would step in to buy them instead. After all, before the EchoStar deal, Murdoch had spent years and years trying to buy DirecTV from GM, but could never close the deal. However, it sounds like he's now facing a bit more competition than expected. First SBC said that they're interested in the deal, and now John Malone of Liberty Media is making noises that he may make his own bid for DirecTV. That's particularly interesting, because originally Malone and Murdoch were going to do the deal together (as they have on a few other deals). Murdoch recently announced, though, that he could do the deal on his own - but he probably didn't expect to then be competing with his former partner. Of course, the bigger story might be that this mess will allow EchoStar even more time to build up a leadership position. It's now been years since DirecTV was "sold", and you can assume there's a bit of stagnation going on there, while EchoStar blazes forward.

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