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Talk of the bay

HSN boss offers pointed reply to buyout rumors

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published September 26, 2005

In what has become a routine dimension of being part of wheeler-dealer Barry Diller's empire, TV shopping network HSN is once again fending off published speculation that it is going to be sold - this time to larger rival QVC.

The word came from a Forbes cover profile of Diller and his recently reshaped e-commerce dominion. No sources again. Just "many Diller watchers" who "believe he is about to complete his transformation from TV titan to Web mogul."

Some of the logic is based on QVC being owned by John Malone's Liberty Media, which has been among the biggest shareholders of Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp. Liberty hand-picked and backed Diller when he took control of HSN from Liberty a decade ago.

There was no mention, however, that TV shopping is becoming a big Web business or that Diller has repeatedly said he considers HSN a core asset.

Confronted with the report at a recent trade event in Las Vegas, Diller said he had not heard the speculation about selling HSN.

"He replied (perhaps half-jokingly) that he'd like to buy QVC," said Mark Mahaney, an analyst with Citigroup who was in the audience. "He also said that it's tough competing against a very good competitor like QVC and that it will take more investment to remain competitive."

Diller, who has joined the search engine battle with Google and Yahoo after buying Ask Jeeves, did drop a few sharp opinions o n Web content.

He blasted most of today's blogs as dispensing drivel and labeled online comparison shopping sites as boring and too pricey to be an IAC acquisition target.

[Last modified September 23, 2005, 20:38:03]