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court tv posts

TWX buys other half of Court TV

Posted May 17th 2006 3:52PM by Anne Metz (RSS feed)
Filed under: Products and Services, Television, Time Warner (TWX)

Last week -- for a mere $735 million --Time Warner bought Liberty Media's 50% stake in Court TV (prior to the buyout, Court TV had been a joint venture for TWX and Liberty Media).

The talking heads are busy pontificating about what this does to the value of Court TV, arguing that this puts the company at about $18 per subscriber.

I, of course, am far more interested in pontificating about what this will do for Court TV. My fears:

Even more Al Roker Investigates
Forensic Files increases its wonkishness tenfold
Court TV's series Parco, P.I. will fight Magnum, P.I. (my all-time second favorite syndicated tv show) to the death

Court TV CEO out as Time Warner takes over

Posted May 4th 2006 9:05PM by Sarah Gilbert (RSS feed)
Filed under: After the Bell, Deals, Management, Insiders, Time Warner (TWX)

Henry Schleiff, Court TV CEO, must have a friend on Wall Street.

Late Tuesday, he learned that he was being shown the door as part of Time Warner's acquisition of the 50% of Court TV owned by Liberty Media. According to Multichannel News, Time Warner COO Jeffrey Bewkes gave him the bad news.

Early the next morning, during a Time Warner earnings conference call and before the news was revealed to Court TV staffers, Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif-Coen asked a leading question about Court TV's management and how they would be "integrated into the organization." Jeff Bewkes said that they were going to keep their strengths (which I took to mean: no major talent would be fired) and perhaps make some cuts in the "back office."

Either Jessica is just really prescient, or Schleiff talked. And either I'm impressed with her good timing, or wowed at the coincidence, or both. Interesting.