Embattled US media giants AOL Time Warner and Walt Disney have been in talks over a possible merger of their Cable News Network and ABC news operations to form a new news titan, reports said yesterday.
The Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal quoted sources close to the talks as saying that discussions had been intermittently under way for the past 18 months but had picked up momentum in recent weeks.
Under the proposed scheme, which reportedly won a "lukewarm" reception at an AOL Time Warner board meeting last week, the giant US network ABC, whose news anchors boast some of the highest salaries in the industry, would take a back seat as a minority partner in the deal.
AOL Time Warner would control between two-thirds and three-fourths of the new company, while operational control of the news venture might be more evenly divided, the Los Angeles Times quoted ABC sources as saying.
AOL and Disney officials were not immediately available for comment on the reported negotiations.
The Los Angeles Times said the deal was the closest that AOL-owned cable news giant CNN had come to striking an alliance with a competitor in a bid to cut costs amid a bitter war for ratings between CNN and rivals Fox News and MSNBC.
The proposal also comes as both Disney and AOL come under intense pressure from shareholders amid flagging financial results in the US economic slowdown.The new pooled news operation would allow the firms slash up to $300 million (€305 million) in annual expenses. - (AFP)
