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RUPERT UNPLUGGED: AFFILS WON'T BE ASKED TO AID NASCAR DEAL

          News Corp. Chair Rupert Murdoch told the Fox News
     Channel yesterday that GE has offered to sell its NBC TV
     network to Time Warner for $25B, according to Jill Goldsmith
     of DAILY VARIETY.  Murdoch: "I understand ... one or two
     people on the board are very much in favor of buying it and
     the rest are very much opposed to it."  A GE spokesperson
     said there was "no truth" to Murdoch's comments: "We don't
     usually comment on the musings of other people, but in this
     case we're giving a flat-out denial."  In other news,
     Murdoch said that Fox will not ask its affils to help pay
     the cost of its recent $200M-plus annual NASCAR TV rights
     deal.  Murdoch: "If we had outbid CBS on college basketball,
     we may have had to pass around the begging cup."  Murdoch
     said that CBS topped Fox's NCAA bid by more than $100M when
     it agreed to pay $6.2B over the 11-year deal.  Murdoch:
     "Maybe they have some secret."  Murdoch also called the now
     wholly owned Fox Sport Net a "potent competitor to the
     established ESPN franchise" (DAILY VARIETY, 11/24).  Murdoch
     gave a "conservative outlook" for the NASCAR deal: "We're
     not going to make a fortune."  But he is expecting profits
     from the investment.  Murdoch is also thinking about going
     public with some of the company's Internet holdings.  A Web
     IPO would likely include online content from Fox Sports, Fox
     Kids and other parts of the company, in addition to Fox.com
     (N.Y. POST, 11/24).  Meanwhile, Murdoch said he is not
     interested in boosting ratings to Fox's primetime schedule
     by adding wrestling to its lineup: "I tried to watch it the
     other night.  It's such crap" (USA TODAY, 11/24). 

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