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RiseStar · February 28th, 2008, 04:58 PM

The deal allowing Liberty Media LLC to acquire control of DirecTV Group Inc., the leading U.S. direct to home satellite company was closed this week.

Liberty and News Corp. entered an agreement in December 2006 to trade Liberty’s 16 percent ownership of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for News Corp.’s 39 percent controlling interest in the El Segundo, California-based Directv.

Earlier this week, the deal was approved by the FCC, which was the final hurdle needed to make it a reality. In its decision, the FCC required that business relationships between Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico and Directv be severed within a year.

For Liberty Media’s founder John Malone, the agreement creates a domestic television empire not seen since his TCI cable conglomerate was purchased by AT&T Inc. TCI is remembered by many for running very aggressive anti-satellite ads nationwide in the mid 1990's while fighting for subscribers which were flocking to the new satellite broadcasters Echostar's Dish Network and DirecTV.

In addition to the stock swap, worth a estimated $12.5 Billion, News Corp. injected $160 million into DirecTV and transferred the Fox Sports regional sports channels in Denver, Seattle and Pittsburgh to Liberty, which will become part of a new Liberty spinoff called Liberty Sports Group.

DirecTV is the U.S.’s largest satellite broadcaster with over 16 million subscribers.

Alcomma09 · December 5th, 2009, 07:55 AM

its the first part of the week... Wheres that review huuuuuuhhhhhh??? lol