Posted on 04/02/2004 5:55:57 PM PST by rattrap
The Observer has learned that the deal for former Vice President Al Gore and his business partner Joel Hyatt to acquire digital-cable channel Newsworld International (NWI) has hit a major obstacle and may have fallen through in the 11th hour of negotiations.
Sources familiar with the situation said that one of Mr. Gore's crucial investors got cold feet in the last stage of the deal and that Mr. Gore's group and the channel's owner, Vivendi Universal Entertainment, could not agree on a price.
Mr. Gore's group was said to be paying around $70 million for Newsworld.
Reached for comment, and asked if the deal had died, Mr. Hyatt initially said, "No," but then added, "No comment. It's always been no comment. We never talked about this deal, never. When we're at liberty to talk, I very much look forward do doing so."
A spokeswoman for Vivendi Universal said, "Things are still in flux, but it hasn't been officially declared over."
Sources close to Mr. Gore told The Observer that the capital raised by Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt had come from dozens of investors, with a mix of individual, venture capital and investment banking money. It is not clear which investor pulled out of the deal.
If the deal should fall apart completely, NWI would become part of the Universal Entertainment properties currently being sold to NBC, sources said. It's not clear if NBC would be interested in a digital cable property, especially considering that it already owns news channels MSNBC and CNBC.
It could still be possible, in theory, for NBC to sell Newsworld to Mr. Gore 's group once its own deal is cleared. Spokespersons for NBC could not be reached for comment.
NWI has carriage in about 20 million homes, and packages "foreign newscasts originally broadcast in countries such as Germany, Japan, Canada and the European community," according to its Web site. Mr. Gore's group has had plans of transforming the channel into a 24-hour news, documentary and public-affairs channel geared toward kids in their 20's.
The deal for Mr. Gore and Mr. Hyatt to buy Newsworld International has been nearly a year in the making. It was initially stalled in the fall of 2003 by Vivendi Universal's sale of its cable assets to NBC. Later, Barry Diller, former Newsworld owner and chief executive of InterActive Corp., held up the deal while he resolved his own ownership issues. A source close to Mr. Diller told the Observer that Mr. Diller had cleared the way for Mr. Gore to acquire the company about three weeks ago.
LOL. How true. And let's not forget the liberal brainwashing kids get in morally neutral academia. From K-12, then college, the amoral NEA and Planned Parenthood types are in there proseltyzing the liberal line, outfitting the women like prostitutes, dispensing abortions to solve all the (gag) problems, and cleansing young minds of any thoughts of morality.
The real world never intrudes on air-headed liberals. Conservatives----with their two feet planted firmly in reality--- are consigned to clean up the liberal messes.
America has learned to its grief that liberal secular nostrums result in the sordidness of serial school killings, disturbed one-parent kids, and crime waves of titanic proportions. Schools teaching the destructive, morally neutral NEA--PP'hood agenda brings on sexual license, ever younger teen and pre-teen pregnancies, throw-away babies, abortion on demand including infanticide, and the lawless homosexual takeover.
Banjo pickin' on a beaten-up old front porch with about seven dogs lying under it for the shade?
NOMOREGORE!
FYI: Joel Hyatt is Howard Metzenbaum's son-in-law, (former Senator Metzenbaum (D) of Ohio), they are obviously both LIBERALS.
I can see how freepers would be impressed with Daisy's fine mind & politics!!!!
The Dan, Tom, and Peter did their job well. The world is eat up with dumb asses, as someone pointed out. The more removed from 2000, the harder it is to realize that I cast a vote for this bozo. Now, you can take the word of a former dumb ass, though opinion on former is divided, or you could listen to him.
I was a lurker here in 2000. I'm a registered Democrat. My parents were Democrats. I live in a predominantly Democrat area. My parents were elected to local township offices as Democrats. Though I lurked here in 2000, apparently there was not the information that I found in old American Rifleman magazines that I inherited--that Al Gore in all likelihood would have done his utmost to take guns from us.
Somehow, that information was either 1) unavailable here, or 2) though available, I didn't see it.
Posting this here would have been unthinkable for me in 2001 or 2002 or 2003. Why now? Kerry. All indications are he'd be like Gore on guns.
With poll numbers as close as they are, do you or anyone else think that a Democrat visiter here will stay long to find any info about Kerry related to guns? In Michigan, there are 750,000 deer hunters. I don't know what their party affiliation is because at deer camp politics is rarely discussed.
But if Michigan is a swing state or whatever it is that may influence the outcome of an election...what answers are there?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.