The Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate. Control is exercised by engineer Dr. John Malone (described by Al Gore as the "Darth Vader of cable"), with a majority of the voting shares.

In May 2006, Liberty shareholders approved the creation of two new tracking stocks:[1]

• Liberty Interactive Group (NASDAQ: LINTA,NASDAQ: LINTB) includes "Liberty's subsidiaries QVC, Inc. and Provide Commerce, and its interests in Expedia, Inc. and IAC/InterActiveCorp."
• Liberty Capital (NASDAQ: LCAPA, NASDAQ: LCAPB) includes Liberty's 20% interest in News Corporation[2], 4.1 percent of Time Warner[3] and Liberty's other private and public assets including Starz!, Encore and GSN (50% stake with Sony Pictures). On May 2006, Liberty Media bought IDT Entertainment from IDT Corporation.

History

It originated as part of TCI, the United States cable television group founded in the mid-1950s and acquired by AT&T ('Ma Bell') in 1999 for $54 billion.

It was spun-off from AT&T in the second half of 2001, subsequently spending $5 billion on nine German regional cable networks. Apart from television distribution it holds major interests in other groups. For example it is the largest shareholder in News Corporation (though the founding Murdoch family owns more voting shares), and has a 4 % stake in Time Warner. As of December 2003 it has never paid a dividend.

In May 2006, Time Warner acquired Liberty Media's 50% stake in Court TV for $735 million.[4]

On May 16, 2006, IDT sold its IDT Entertainment division to Liberty Media for "for all of Liberty Media's interests in IDT, $186 million in cash and the assumption of existing indebtedness."