• Multichannel News, Monday, December 11, 2006 11 AM

John Malone is one of cable's fabled cowboys, an entrepreneur, visionary and deal-maker who built up a cable company farsightedly called Tele-Communications Inc. into the largest system operator in the business. Now he is going to use that knowledge and experience to go up against his former colleagues; his Liberty Media is about to gobble up News Corp.'s 39% stake in DirecTV, the nation's largest satellite TV provider.

Malone is likley to use his new asset to maintain--and expand--carriage for his programming, which includes pieces of Discovery Holdings, QVC, Starz and GSN. With that new clout with distributors, he may even buy or launch more networks. The "technically astute" Malone may also help DirecTV figure out how to use broadband access to the Internet to compete with cable companies that offer telephone services and on-demand programming.

His task is to help DirecTV compete with cable's triple play of video, voice and Internet services; and get a leg up in the nascent competition for high-definition TV viewers.

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