The Board of Westinghouse Electric Corp. ended their meeting
Wednesday without an announcement on a possible takeover bid of
CBS Inc., according to REUTERS. However, one sources close to
the situation said a bid could happen by Friday (Sue Zeidler,
REUTERS/DAILY VARIETY, 7/27). The L.A. TIMES' Bates & Hofmeister
examine Westinghouse's motivation for making a play at CBS: "The
idea is to bulk up the area of greatest profitability and
stability in the television business, which is station ownership,
and perhaps bring in a minority strategic partner after an
acquisition is complete that can make investments in programming
necessary to revive the network." Mentioned as possible
investors: Turner, Seagram's MCA, Sony and Disney, with Sony
perhaps the "most willing" since foreign ownership rules would
dictate a minority share (L.A. TIMES, 7/27). The N.Y. POST's
John Durie writes that CBS Chair Laurence Tisch stands to gain
$1.03B in profit from the deal, which could have been more if CBS
had diversified into cable or other forms of multimedia (N.Y.
POST, 7/27).
STOCK WATCH: Westinghouse was up 1/4 to 13 7/8. CBS closed
at 75 1/4, down 3/8.
OTHER NETWORK NEWS: The FCC is expected to approve tomorrow
an exemption for Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. from foreign
ownership restrictions, formally ending the two-year legal battle
over Fox's TV stations (N.Y. TIMES, 7/27)...NBC "may seek a
stake" in either Hong Kong-based Television Broadcasts Ltd. or
its largest shareholder, Shaw Brothers Ltd, which holds 23.5% of
TVB (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7/27).
