Barry Diller's HSN Inc., parent to Home Shopping
Network, said Tuesday it would acquire a 47.5% stake in
Ticketmaster from Paul Allen "in stock swap worth about"
$209M, according to Hoffmeister & Helm of the L.A. TIMES.
HSN will "acquire additional shares of Ticketmaster on the
open market to give it a controlling stake." The move by
Diller is an "attempt to plant his Home Shopping Network's
flag squarely in the emerging field of electronic commerce."
The TIMES' Hoffmeister & Helm note that sources close to
Allen "say he has grown frustrated with Ticketmaster's slow
entry into the online business and saw a greater potential
by combining with HSN. Since it began marketing online six
months ago, Ticketmaster has sold as many as 3 million
tickets a month on the Internet" (L.A. TIMES, 5/21). In
N.Y., Paul Tharp writes that "some analysts said they aren't
sure what Diller has in mind with Ticketmaster," but Diller
says that "both companies have huge data bases of customers
... creating the backbone for a huge electronic shopping and
entertainment mall of the future" (N.Y. POST, 5/21).
