Vivendi-NBC deal could mean media merger wave has crested

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Vivendi-NBC deal could mean media merger wave has crested

NYT - Tuesday, September 9, 2003


NBC's preliminary agreement last week to acquire the entertainment businesses of Vivendi Universal is the latest episode in a merger boom in the media business over the past eight years that has delivered control of the film, television and music industries in the United States to a half-dozen conglomerates.
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But the NBC deal could also signal the final stages of that trend. All six U.S. commercial-broadcast networks are tied to their film and television production studios, completing the vertical integration of the broadcast business.

And five companies - Viacom, AOL Time Warner, Walt Disney, News Corp. and General Electric, the parent of the planned NBC Universal venture - have carved up almost the entire broadcast and cable audience.

"You have got about five companies that are controlling music and films," John Sykes, chief executive of the Infinity Broadcasting radio unit of Viacom, said at a presentation this summer. "You have got these businesses pretty darn consolidated. Could two more go together? It is pretty close to one now."

Often obscured by the fanfare around the media megadeals is the gloomy backdrop: the slowing or negligible growth in the demand for movie tickets, recorded music, books, TV programming and even cable-television service in the U.S. market. But mergers have helped companies increase profits by lowering costs....>> MORE

http://www.iht.com/articles/109272.html

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1. In a related matter...

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Gore Ogles Cable in Vivendi Stable as His Media Buy
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/frontpage2.asp