BizNet OnLine Magazine, What If CBS Bought...NBC?

What If CBS Bought...NBC?

Frasierand Cosby on the same team? The halo types of Touched By an Angel sharing the same commissary as the sex-obsessedFriends?

It could happen in one of the most out-there merger proposals of our merger-manic times: CBS buying NBC.

Mel Karmazin, chief executive of CBS Corp., broached the subject at an advertising industry conference Thursday in New Orleans.

"If Exxon and Mobil can combine, then why can't I buy NBC?," Karmazin asked.

Howard Stern's semi-famed executive-suite ally didn't stop there. "We would overpay for NBC, just like we overpaid for the NFL," Karmazin boasted.

Now back to reality: Current federal law says one TV network can't buy another TV network. It also says that no one broadcast giant can control 35 percent (or more) of the national audience.

Either way you do the math that means the nation's No. 2 network buying the nation's No. 1 network ain't gonna happen.

But...The Federal Communications Commission is looking into easing some of these restrictions. CBS reportedly has been pushing for change for months, saying it wants to own, for lack of a technical term, lots of stuff.

Karmazin doesn't sound too particular about what he snaps up. He said he "would love to buy any of them"--ABC included. He conceded, though, that Disney would be unlikely to sell.

He thinks NBC is another story. The Peacock "does not fit the GE model," he said, referring to General Electric, NBC's parent company.

GE, uh, does not agree. "NBC's strong earnings...make it a perfect fit with GE's business model," a company spokesman told Associated Press.

As for NBC? Well, it's been a rough, post-Seinfeld season for the network, but nobody's leaping at CBS' overtures. A succinct no comment from the Peacock.

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