News Corp is expected to announce as early as this week that it will purchase SportsTime Ohio, a TV channel owned by the Cleveland Indians baseball team, for around $230 million, sources told Reuters, marking its second acquisition of a regional sports channel since late last month. The deal would give News Corp's Fox Sports unit the rights to broadcast the Major League Baseball team's games, according to two sources with knowledge of the negotiations. That would add to the games that its Fox Sports Ohio channel carries from basketball's Cleveland Cavaliers, the Cincinnati Reds baseball team and others.The move underscores a push by media companies to target regional sports channels as broadcast rights for many major sporting events are already sewn up for years. Such channels show games from local colleges and professional teams that heavyweight ESPN, owned by Walt Disney Co, or other national channels do not carry.Last month, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp said it would buy a 49 percent stake in the YES network, a sports channel controlled by the New York Yankees baseball team, in a deal that sources said was valued at $3 billion. Fox is also negotiating a 25-year extension of its existing agreement to carry Los Angeles Dodgers baseball games, said one of the people, and could pay as much as $6 billion for those rights.New York-based News Corp has been stepping up its efforts to control the rights to key sports teams in response to Time Warner Cable Inc's deal in February 2011 to pay $3 billion to carry the Los Angeles Lakers basketball games for its Time Warner SportsNet Channel.
The Walt Disney Company, together with its subsidiaries, is a diversified worldwide entertainment company. Shares of DIS fell by 0.75% or $-0.37/share to $49.29. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $34.51 and as high as $53.40. On average, 8867710 shares of DIS exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 8395402.
News Corporation is a diversified global media company. Shares of NWSA fell by 0.45% or $-0.11/share to $24.53. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $13.55 and as high as $24.04. On average, 19309000 shares of NWSA exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 11968087.
Time Warner Inc. (Time Warner) is a media and entertainment company. Shares of TWX fell by 1.06% or $-0.5/share to $46.80. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $33.41 and as high as $47.64. On average, 6513090 shares of TWX exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 6641295.
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