Liberty Media open to buying Rainbow Media TV

By Jeff Smith, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 5, 2008 at 9:05 p.m.

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Douglas County-based Liberty Media said it would consider buying Rainbow Media TV networks should it be put up for sale.

Cablevision Systems Corp., the media company controlled by the Dolan family, said Tuesday it may spin off Rainbow, its cable-television business or its Madison Square Garden sports unit.

"Like most opportunities in our space, if Rainbow is put on the market, we will look," Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei said in an e-mail.

Liberty Media has said it wants to build programming assets around DirecTV, in which it now has a controlling stake.

Rainbow operates such assets as the AMC TV networks, the Sundance Channel and the Voom HD networks. It may be worth $3.5 billion to $4 billion, said Chris Marangi, associate manager of the Gabelli Value Fund. The estimate doesn't include the recently acquired Sundance Channel, Marangi said.

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