News Corp. Bows Out of Vox
Frankfurt, Germany -- European TV group CLT-UFA last month
paid 650 million deutsche marks ($337 million) for News Corp.'s 49.9 percent stake in
general-interest channel Vox, giving it 74.8 percent of the network.
CLT-UFA, Europe's largest commercial-TV group, is also
in talks to buy the remaining 25.2 percent of Vox owned by France's Canal Plus S.A.
News Corp.'s sale of its Vox stake reverses the
company's earlier comments that it intended to increase its ownership in the channel.
Analysts now wonder if News Corp. will retain its 67
percent stake in TM3, a small general-interest channel in Germany. They questioned the
logic of owning a stand-alone, ad-supported network.
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