diller

AUSTIN, Texas--Barry Diller knew full well that the TV broadcasters would go to battle to stop Aereo, a streaming service that's scheduled to go live in New York City on Thursday. And he couldn't care less.

Speaking at SXSW, Diller explained why he loves the service, and then said, ""Another reason I love it. It's going to be a great fight."

Indeed.

The service, as explained in detail here by my colleague Greg Sandoval, was slammed with two complaints early this month, one from NBC, ABC, and CBS (parent company of CNET) and the … Read more

Ordinarily, I would write that Aereo, the Internet video company slammed yesterday by lawsuits from nearly every major TV broadcaster in New York, is doomed.

I would write that Aereo is headed for the same gloomy ending as ivi.TV and Zediva. These were goofy, legal-loophole plays that were shut down by the courts faster than you can say permanent injunction.

But hold up.

Aereo is supported by some very smart people. Barry Diller, one of the savviest media tycoons around, is an investor and is on the board. There's no doubt that he and the company anticipated a … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--Is there a little bit of madness to the sky-high tech company valuations that are all over the place right now? Yes, says IAC founder and former entertainment mogul Barry Diller, who gave a talk at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSW) this morning to provide a bit of blunt, curmudgeonly insight for a conference best-known as a hub of the young, wide-eyed, and exuberant.

It was one of Diller's first high-profile appearances since he stepped down as the CEO of IAC in December; he remains chairman.

So is there a tech bubble, as evidenced by the … Read more

Barry Diller, the former entertainment mogul who set out to reinvent himself as a digital-media baron in the past decade with his New York-based IAC/InterActiveCorp conglomerate, has stepped down from his post as CEO of the holdings company.

In addition, one of IAC's largest shareholders, cable company Liberty Media, has fully bought out of the conglomerate, giving up its shares of IAC in return for $220 million in cash and the IAC subsidiary that includes Gifts.com and Evite. The transaction was completed yesterday.

Diller will remain chairman and senior executive of IAC, while the current CEO of … Read more

Ask.com could be on the block, judging by the comments of the CEO of its parent company.

Reuters reported on IAC's third-quarter earnings conference call Tuesday, where CEO Barry Diller all but opened the bidding for the struggling search engine. Despite a novel promotional deal with Nascar, Ask.com has failed to make much headway against the great powers of search in Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.

"We've been asked a lot whether we're open to consolidating transactions in the area of search. The answer is yes," Diller was quoted by Reuters as saying. "… Read more

In Barry Diller's paleontological view of the Internet, we're still just coming out of the primordial ooze and slouching toward the "click to buy" button.

The IAC/InterActiveCorp CEO and self-professed opportunist, rather impatiently told CBS News' Katie Couric earlier this week that the day is coming when people will regularly pay for content. As he has before, he trotted out the example of Apple, which has managed turn its iTunes store into a "multimillion-dollar business" based on the once-heretical notion of asking people to spend money on digital music and video.

"We'… Read more

PASADENA, Calif.--InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller says he ended up with a huge Internet conglomerate, but said that was never really his goal.

"I don't really believe in synergies," Diller said Friday, speaking at Fortune's Brainstorm: Tech conference here.

In the past few years, IAC has already spun off Home Shopping Network, Expedia, LendingTree, and Ticketmaster. He'd eventually like to see the Ask.com search and Citysearch local businesses stand alone as well.

"They are in formation, he said. "They are not sufficiently landed. I'm hopeful that they will be."

Fortune … Read more

NEW YORK--Barry Diller doesn't want to predict the future.

"I'm not a great predictor of these things," the IAC/InterActiveCorp CEO said onstage at his Wednesday keynote for the Advertising 2.0 conference, when interviewer and BusinessWeek reporter Jon Fine asked him when he thought the depressing economic news would finally end. (His personal belief is that it won't get much worse.) "Not that, by the way, anybody's predictions are worth very much to anybody." And he was particularly wary of commenting on the macro economy. "Oh, you certainly don't … Read more

Update at 8:12 a.m. PST: Analyst comments and stock price added.

InterActiveCorp turned a profit in the fourth quarter but took a 7 percent revenue hit, amid a sharp downturn in its advertising and media business, the company said Tuesday.

Barry Diller's media conglomerate reported revenue of $351 million in the quarter, down from $378.9 million in the same quarter a year earlier. That performance missed Wall Street expectations of $368 million, analyst Imran Khan of J.P. Morgan said in a note.

The company, however, posted a profit of $227.4 million, or $1.57 … Read more