Sony is in negotiations to purchase MGM Studios for $5 Billion

Sony-led group reported in talks to buy MGM
Andrew Ross Sorkin and Geraldine Fabrikant NYT April 22, 2004
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A consortium led by the Sony Corporation of America is in talks to acquire Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the Hollywood studio famous for "The Wizard of Oz," James Bond and the Pink Panther, for as much as $5 billion, executives close to the negotiations said yesterday.
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The consortium, which includes the buyout firms Texas Pacific Group and Providence Equity Partners, is discussing a complex arrangement in which the group would buy MGM from the billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian for about $20 a share, shut down most of the movie studio operation, and then have Sony license and distribute MGM's most valuable asset, its film library, the executives said.
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Under the proposed deal, only the studio's best-known film series like James Bond would continue to be produced under the MGM brand. But analysts said it was a changing movie business, in which revenue from DVD sales and rentals has surpassed the box-office take, and that makes the deal so tantalizing for the consortium. MGM's library has thousands of old movies waiting to be repackaged in DVD form.
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"Originally retailers were just buying the hits, but in the past 12 months, they are trying to buy entire libraries, at an accelerated pace," said Robert Routh, who follows entertainment for Natexis Bleichroeder. "They want any DVD they can get their hands on because it drives sales of other products at stores like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. That makes companies such as MGM with its large library - it has 4,000 titles - very appealing."
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In addition, MGM makes money from signing rebroadcast agreements with cable and satellite television channels looking for content.
....cont'd

http://www.iht.com/articles/516365.html

new songs, songs that are still playing on MTV, have been ending up in the trailers for new movies? This kind of stuff is why.

That never used to happen, you know.

On edit: I mean, songs that aren't in the soundtrack for the movie, of course...Like Outkast's "Hey Ya" was in the trailer for the Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore movie...not part of the soundtrack, but somehow made it into the commercials....

Fuck media consolidation.

Sorry, kids.

You know which one I mean.

The media companies are making connections between each other that they didn't used to be able to make. They're monopolizing and homogenizing, deliberately. Flooding the market with crap, recycling it, brainwashing us with it.

It's gotten ridiculous.. For a country that claims to value...choices..we are sure getting fewer and fewer..

Mergers are just another way to price fix. It allows them to sell a lesser quality product, for more, with LESS choice- SINCE we have less choice.

Breaking up these corporate bastards, in particular the media companies, should be one of our top three priorities, IMO.

though I'm not sure getting bigger is the answer.

{Sarcasm on}with a foreign company buying MGM all their employees will now work for a foreign company in the US and Shrub can point to the increases in employees that are insourced. It's called insourcing by outsourcing of US based companies. It makes perfect sense. {Sarcarsm off}

I suppose they can even add the "Made in Hollywood U.S.A." tag at the end of their credits, even though they'd be back in Culver City like the good ol' days.

How amusing...