Carl Icahn is a reporter's dream. When things get a little slow, the 74-year old dealmaker always does something to spice it up. Which is what he did today when he said he was launching a tender offer for shares of Lionsgate(LGF)in a bid to give him a 30% stake in the company that makes the Saw and Tyler Perry movies.

So why is Icahn making his move on Lionsgate now, nearly a year after he last tried to win control of the company through a failed tender offer to buy the studio's convertible bonds? Among the reasons is this tasty little morsel: in 2009, when the company mounted a successful defense against Icahn, it went out of its way to remind investors that if Icahn got enough of the convertible notes he could be considered to control more than 20% of the company. That would trigger a bank covenant and "could result in a cross-default and acceleration of Lionsgate's payment obligations," the company said back then in a press release. Translation: the company might have to cough up a chunk of cash to pay off its $340 million revolving line of credit to its banks.

Well, that defense doesn't seem to be very potent right now. While no one was looking - no one except Icahn, it appears - Lionsgate but paid down that line of credit. As of Dec. 31, it said in its most recent financial filings, it had drawn only $12 million. So, if Icahn triggered the 20% threshold, it would only cost Lionsgate $12 million to pay off the line, not much for a company that had revenues of nearly $1.2 billion in the nine months that ended Dec. 31.

Neither Icahn not Lionsgate would comment. But Icahn is apparently worried that Lionsgate was keeping its powder dry so that it could use that credit line to make an acquisition, and both MGM and Disney's (DIS)Miramax library are on the market right now. He worried that they might overpay, I am told by sources who understand Carl Icahn's thinking on this issue. And without that line of credit, Lionsgate might not have the money to mount a bid at all, or at least that's what Icahn may be thinking.

Then again, the credit line is cheap money, priced at 2.5% above "adjusted LIBOR" or 2.73% as of Dec. 31, the company's filing says.. That's super cheap money that Lionsgate would no longer have at its disposal. And don't you think for a minute that Lionsgate's management won't make that point to shareholders in an effort to dissuade them from tendering their shares of Icahn.

Yup, here comes Lionsgate-Icahn, the sequel.

For most of the last five years, it seems, Hollywood’s favorite game has been handicap when – not if – Ryan Kavanaugh would come crashing down. Kavanaugh, who runs Relativity Media, is the 35-year old wunderkind who raised more than $8 billion from private equity investors since arriving on the scene in 2005. His company finances most of the movies made by Universal Pictures (GE) and several by Sony Pictures (SNE) as well.
But Relativity has also been quietly becoming a production studio in its own right, and this weekend seems to have hit the big time. Its romantic drama Dear John scored big at the box office, generating a larger than expected $32.4 million opening weekend that made it the first film in nearly two months to knock Jim Cameron’s 3D space epic Avatar from the top rung of box office performers.

For Ryan Kavanaugh critics, and Hollywood is crawling with them, this can’t be good news. The whisper campaign has been that Kavanaugh is all show and now go, that he has used smoke and mirrors to make his numbers look good, and that investors would soon be lining up to sue the financier.
Well, folks, is doesn’t look like that’s going to happen anytime soon. His slate deals with Universal and Sony have had both winners (Universal’s It’s Complicated) and losers (Sony’s The International) but no more or less than any other fund in town. But what Ryan Kavanaugh has right now is a bone fide hit. And, whether he’s saying it or not, odds are that he’s plenty happy to make some people eat their words.

Dear John, which stars young actors Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfriend in a young love tear-jerker of a couple who find one another before an army soldier ships out, is among a group of films that Relativity is making on its own. (It’s a separate business from its financing of so-called “slate deals� with Universal and Sony.) And Dear John proved to be a huge hit with young women under 21, according to exit polls. Better yet, it was made for around $20 million, meaning that Kavanaugh and his investors will see some heady profits from the flick.

The rub on Jeff Zucker, who heads NBC, has always been that no one could ever figure out what he did to get to the top. The 44-year old was a creature of General Electric. He rose from nowhere, starting as a researcher for the 1988 Olympics, and then as Katie Couric’s producer at The Today Show.

Using a combination of moxie and managing upward he jumped to run The Today Show, then sit atop NBC’s entertainment operations, and finally to run the entire NBC operation when Bob Wright retired in early 2007.

Well, Jeff, it looks like your luck has run out. The Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien mess will be your undoing, if not within the next few months then when Comcast takes over controlling interest in NBC Universal in the next year or so.

Your aim might have been laudable – to fix the wobbly network TV business model by cutting programming costs -- but by putting Leno in the 10 pm prime time slot you’ve accelerated all of the business’ ailments. Menacing cable channels have picked off Leno defectors, NBC’s TV affiliates are steaming mad, and now NBC is at the mercy of just about every agent in Hollywood. If NBC wants a hot new David Kelly show (as it recently said it does) the network is going to pay through the nose for it.

The irony is that Zucker rose to the top at NBC on the basis of a prime time schedule that frankly stunk. The numbers of new shows that were created while he headed the prime time unit is few – in fact, I can think of just one, The Office, and that one was a British import.

Somehow Zucker never got tarred with the failure. Instead, he got the top job, and got out while the getting was good. (Of course, he did hire Ben Silverman before moving upstairs, and Silverman never really found his way to a hit, either).

The General Electric folks loved Zucker, it seemed, because he gets the credit for pushing NBC into the brave new world of cable channels. And under him NBC enjoyed steep ratings growth at its Bravo, USA and SyFy (formerly the Sci-Fi) Channel.

But nothing rivets the viewers’ attention like the happenings at a major network. You can bet that, as the Leno and Conan sagas play out, the guys at Comcast are glued to their sets.

Announcements don’t get much more dramatic than the one NBC made today about yanking The Jay Leno show from its 10 o’clock time period just three months after the former host of The Tonight Show began his one-hour comedy, skit show.

Yes, NBC TV honcho Jeff Gaspin told an overflow gathering of reporters on Sunday’s TV Critics Tour in Pasadena, Calif., NBC’s 200-odd affiliates had forced the change because prime time ratings tanked. The reason? Their 11 pm news programs, a nice little profit center for most stations, was suddenly hemorrhaging through no fault of their own.

But what Gaspin didn’t say – at least not so boldly – was that NBC had also made an abrupt u-turn on its plans to remake a broken business model for making TV shows. Prime time pilots are made for $10 million, shows for $3 million or so, and viewing audiences are going south. Gaspin’s predecessor, Jeff Zucker, had made the fateful decision to bring in Leno, and to shuttle Law and Order and other 10 pm shows out of their time slots, by arguing that ratings would go down but so would costs.

So much for that idea. Coupled with the announcement that Leno was taking his $500,000 a week show off the air at 10 pm., was the announcement that NBC was going back to the good old ways that networks have always operated. Namely, big producers, big stars, and cross your fingers the shows work. How about these for some biggies to whom NBC said it is throwing its bucks the next few weeks in hopes of finding TV lightning in a bottle – Jerry Bruckheimer, David E. Kelly and J.J. Abrams, who will direct a pilot called “Undercovers� about CIA agents. The last time Abrams directed a pilot, it only cost $13 million.

Of course, that pilot was Lost, which was an immediate and big (although not terribly long lasting) hit on ABC. Clearly, that’s what NBC is hoping Abrams will bring to NBC as well. Then again, they’re hoping the same thing for a remake of “The Rockford Files� that they’ve also ordered for what’s going to be a pricey sum. We all know how their last retread effort -- i.e. “Knight Rider� -- turned out.

Was there ever any doubt that News Corp. and Time Warner would come to an agreement that would allow Time Warner’s cable unit to continue showing News Corp’s cable or broadcast properties on its system? The announcement on Jan. 1 that the two sides had averted a showdown that would have kept the BCS football game on the sidelines for 11 million folks is, well, a yawner.

It’s become almost an annual kabuki dance among cable or satellite operators and content providers to show which side – content or distribution – has the most muscle when it comes to such talks. Guess what fellas? Neither of you really have what it takes any longer to force your will on the other.

The last time we had a showdown anywhere near this size was back in 2000, when Time Warner, in the midst of a similar showdown with ABC, allowed Regis Philbin and his then-hit show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire� to go dark for some 3.5 million homes. The cries from Washington were deafening. Hearings were held, fingers slapped.

So when the chorus started again in Washington on Dec. 30 on the current impasse you knew that Fox and Time Warner were destined to do whatever they could to avoid having DC on their backs. First, Sen. John Kerry urged the sides toward arbitration, and then FCC commissioners started encouraging peace. If there is anything that a media company wants less than a shutdown in the ad markets, it’s to have the feds on their backs. So Time Warner and News Corp. wisely extended the Dec. 30 deadline, then scurried to cut a deal that you know is less than the monthly $1 per subscriber fee that News Corp. had all but insisted was their right to get from cable operators.

One thing News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch, who owns TV stations, newspapers and internet sites, understands is that he sure as heck doesn’t want an angry FCC looking over his shoulder. In the past, he’s done back flips to keep them happy, whether it was striking a deal that allowed him to own the New York Post and New York area TV stations, or to get his deal to buy DirecTV passed a few years back. As for Time Warner, do you think they want the feds thinking bad thoughts about them when the FCC is still contemplating rules on such things as “net neutrality� – that is, whether Time Warner’s online offerings are to be regulated? Uh, no.

Sure, it was good theater. News Corp. told America that it might not get the NFL, American Idol or Glee. Time Warner said it was fighting to keep consumer prices from zooming if Fox high jacked higher fees from them. Yeah, yeah. A good show boys. It sure played in Washington.

As surely as the ball drops in Manhattan’s Times Square, another certainty on New Year’s Eve now seems to be that a tv programmer and a cable distributor will be locked in a public feud over money that almost certainly goes right down to the wire at midnight.

This year’s warring contenders are executives from News Corp.’s Fox Network and those from Time Warner Cable, the country’s second largest cable operator with 14 million customers. Fox is threatening to pull its programming at midnight tonight and leave those subscribers staring at black on their flat screens unless Time Warner Cable agrees to pay Fox a buck a month for every subscriber.

These kinds of disputes are nothing new. Time Warner Cable and Viacom did the same dance last New Year’s Eve before an 11th hour resolution was worked out.

But even if Fox and Time Warner Cable iron out a deal before midnight, the year-end spat may just have greater repercussions this time. The two sides may see negotiating in public as a necessary tactic, but being front and center with consumers, and pandering politicians, could come back to bite them.

Whatever Time Warner Cable agrees to pay Fox will surely be passed on to subscribers in their monthly bills. Consumers are already fed up with escalating cable bills, threatening to drop their service and instead watch free video offerings on the Internet. In this economy, the possibility that cable bills will rise even further can only mean that a campaign to mandate something called the a la carte model will be rekindled. Under this model, subscribers would have the choice of receiving, and paying for, only the channels they want. That may mean you would only get 30 channels instead of 500, but they would be the channels you know you will watch on a regular basis. If the Internet has taught consumers anything, it’s that choice on their own terms is a great thing. If, once the dust settles and Fox gets anywhere near a buck, the battle with Time Warner Cable may serve to push frustrated consumers to the breaking point.

A la carte was a big deal about five years ago when then-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin supported giving consumers this choice. Cable companies and programmers vehemently opposed a la carte, saying it would destroy the economics of their business. By unbundling cable offerings and fragmenting audiences, they argued, advertising rates would plummet and niche programming could not be supported. At the same time, distribution fees would rise even more, they posited.

Congressional hearings were held on the matter, but the a la carte debate faded away after Martin’s FCC reports on subject were called into question. The current FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, busy with plans to expand broadband access in the country, has said little about his position on a la carte. But with politicians like Sen. John Kerry taking a deep interest in the Fox- Time Warner Cable standoff (he’s threatening to intervene to make Fox stay on the air), can it only be a matter of time before Congress along with consumer groups make a la carte headlines once again?

It suddenly occurred to me today – after my wife and I were forced to head back to the theater twice in the same weekend to catch Sherlock Holmes -- that Robert Downey, Jr. has suddenly become the hottest actor on the planet. That’s right, Robert Downey, Jr., who six years back had to drop out the Woody Allen film Melinda and Melinda because the costs to insure him were too high after several well-publicized arrests and a trip to the drug rehab clinic.

But Robert Downey, Jr seems able to do no wrong these days at the box office. As I found when I couldn’t get into his flick on Saturday, he has his third mega-hit on his hands with Sherlock Holmes, which opened second this weekend to Avatar but still clocked a steep $65.4 million.

The flick is certain to pass $100 million, which would give the 45-year old Downey roles in three $100 million performances in the last two years – his breakout starring role as Tony Stark in Iron Man, which grossed $318 million in the US and $585 million worldwide, and the comedy Tropic Thunder, for which he was nominated for an Oscar for his hilarious turn as an Australian method actor who undergoes surgery to play an African-American. (Oh, and the film also grossed more than $110 million in the U.S.)

So, why is Robert Downey, Jr. so hot? Well, the camera clearly loves him these days. He mugs, smirks and plays the smart aleck with such style that he can pull of the role of a snarky corporate exec in Iron Man or the equally smarmy Sherlock Holmes. But chalk one up for Hollywood. For once they’ve got it right, casting a bad boy gone straight in the role of – well – a bad boy who has more or less gone straight.

So, surround Downey’s bad boy acting with enough pyrotechnics --- Iron Man taking out Arab terrorists with his pulse beams or Sherlock Holmes escaping a fiery warehouse – and you’ve got a special effects-fueled superstar. It’s worked before: Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible series, or Christian Bale in the Batman movies. Add in that Downey comes cheap these days – he got a “mere� $6 million for starring in Iron Man – and he’s the kind of superstar Hollywood loves these days as well.

Now, will he stay cheap? Uh, no. The crowd with whom I saw Sherlock Holmes roared when the trailer for Iron Man 2 came on the screen before the main attraction. And Downey was at his smirking best on screen when he faced down a congressional inquiry in his role as the defiant Tony Stark. The crowd ate him up. And they’ll do the same this May, when Iron Man 2 opens.

For media reporters everywhere, Thursday will be one wistful day. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong is expected to climb the podium and ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange. With that, AOL will officially be unleashed from Time Warner. The divorce marks the end of an era. The soap opera representing the union of AOL and Time Warner was the media story that just kept on giving for a glorious and tumultuous decade.

When I took over the media beat at BusinessWeek in October, 2000, my first story was a commentary that said Time Warner executives were already questioning whether merging with AOL made sense, this three months before the deal would close. The piece was illustrated with storm clouds looming over a photo of Time Warner CEO Jerry Levin and AOL CEO Steve Case. That prompted an angry call from the Time Warner PR denizens to our then editor-in-chief Steve Shepard. The worst was still to come for AOL Time Warner, the best for those of us covering media. Accounting scandal. Corporate politics. Management shakeups. Government investigations. Parent company name change. Strategy Shifts. Turf battles. Plunging share price. Shareholder lawsuits. Sweeping layoffs.

The story's lasting legacy for journalism outfits is that the AOL Time Warner merger broke down newsroom silos. It really was the first big story that made technology and media reporters work together because AOL in those days was typically covered by the tech side. And, boy, were we suspicious of each other. I partnered for years with Cathy Yang, our AOL reporter, but it took a while before we worked well as a team. Today, the overlay between technology and media is so common that teaming up is no big deal.

Now, tens of thousands of column inches later, three books and I am sure a script has been optioned somewhere, we’ve come to the end of the AOL and Time Warner thread. We’re going to miss the worst corporate merger in history. They say the recent NBC Universal-Comcast partnership will become the new AOL Time Warner. Maybe. But I just can’t imagine it will dish out the same Sturm und Drang that kept us rich in bylines all these years.

David Maisel will soon be an ex-super hero. The Chairman of Marvel Studios, who helped build the comic book company into an action movie powerhouse, is leaving the New York-based company once its $4 billion deal with the Walt Disney is finalized, BusinessWeek has learned. Maisel confirmed his departure, which could come shortly after the acquisition is finalized, expected to be Dec. 31.

Maisel, a one-time talent agent, says he intends to stay on as executive producer for three of the films that Marvel has put into production, Iron Man 2, Captain America and Thor, and will also be a part of Marvel’s effort to resurrect a Broadway show based on Spider-Man. “I couldn’t ask for a better six year ride,� says Maisel, "but now I get to work on projects that I like and explore other opportunities.� He would not say what he intends to do next.

Maisel was the first Marvel executive to discuss the notion of a sale with Disney, according to documents that Marvel filed with the SEC. Maisel and Iger, who knew each other from Maisel’s year at Disney in the mid-90s, would often do lunch. Iger broached the notion of a deal and Maisel took to Marvel's brass. The deal was finally agreed upon on August 31 for $50 in Disney stock and cash. Maisel, who made $5,2 million in cash, stock and incentives in 2008, is to collect an estimated $20.3 million in accelerated stock options and other benefits tied to the sale.

At Marvel, Maisel was instrumental in helping to build Marvel into a separate production entity, rather than continuing to license its films to other studios. In 2005, he engineered a $525 million film production facility that gave the company the funds to bankroll its own films and which Paramount would distribute for the company. Marvel’s first film under that agreement, the 2008 flick Iron Man, grossed more than $318 million at the US box office.

Kevin Feige, president of the studio and its top creative executive, is expected to stay with the studio after the deal is completed. Marvel and Disney both had no comment on the pending deal.

A Dow Jones executive charged with boosting revenues across the company's various print and online properties will become the first president of Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

Paul Bascobert, 45, will be responsible for finding new revenue opportunities for the magazine, as well as boosting circulation and reversing the losses that BusinessWeek has posted during the past several years. He begins his job on Jan. 4. (see below for a staff memo announcing Bascobert's hiring from Bloomberg CEO Daniel Doctoroff and Bloomberg BusinessWeek Chairman Norman Pearlstine). Bloomberg's acquisition of BusinessWeek closed on Dec. 1.

Despite the dire shape of the media industry, Bascobert says he is optimistic "because I see a real demand for a well-written global business product." He says it is too early to articulate what his concrete plans will be for the magazine, but "I am encouraged by the forward thinking at Bloomberg."

Bascobert did say that he believes a weekly magazine is a better complement to a business news website than a daily newspaper. Providing a daily news digest online and then a deeper, more analytical take on business weekly, he says, serves readers more fully.

At Dow Jones, where he served as chief marketing officer of its Consumer Media Group, Bascobert's accomplishments included everything from lowering operating costs by streamlining distribution and outsourcing certain IT functions to helping launch local editions for The Wall Street Journal. He also managed to do the unthinkable in this depressed newspaper market: boost circulation revenues.

In less than a week, AOL's corporate overlords at Time Warner will spin out the Internet unit, ending what is arguably the worst corporate marriage ever. Here's our take in this week's magazine, the first edition of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, on what CEO Tim Armstrong is up against.

What do you think? Does Armstrong have a chance of turning around AOL?

General Electric (GE) and French telecommunications company Vivendi(VIVDY) are inching back toward a deal for GE to buy Vivendi’s 20% stake in NBC Universal, sources say. The movement comes a week after talks between the two sides seemed near collapse, with the sides at one point being as much as $1 billion apart. GE needs to buy the minority stake in order to complete its planned sale of its NBC Universal media assets to cable giant Comcast. (CMCSA).

A source with knowledge of the talks say the two sides resumed pointed negotiations over the Thanksgiving weekend and hope to have an agreement announced this week, but in no case later than Dec. 10. That’s when Vivendi’s annual window for selling the stake back to GE expires. The source says that the two sides narrowed their differences to less than $500 million and are now pointing toward an agreement around $5.4 billion, although that number still appears fluid. These sources ay the deal could still fall apart altogether, although they are more optimistic than they have been in weeks.

GE had initially offered $5 billion for the stake, which Vivendi has held since selling an 80% stake in the Universal film studio and theme park to GE in 2004. The industrial giant’s tentative agreement with Comcast to merge GE’s media assets with the cable company’s cable channels had valued the combined company at roughly $30 billion, which would have indicated a price tag for Vivendi's 20% stake at just under a $6 billion, including NBC debt.

GE had offered less than that amount, however, thinking that Vivendi couldn’t fetch as much as it planned in an IPO. Under its agreement with Vivendi, GE can also preempt any planned IPO of the shares by buying them at a price to be determined by a third party.

Vivendi had valued its NBC stake at $6.3 billion in a June 30 securities filing, but the value had fallen closer to $6 billion. As part of any agreement with GE, the French company is believed to have insisted upon – and gotten – an agreement from the U.S. conglomerate to pay for part of its stake before the deal closes to guarantee against a lengthy regulatory review that might delay the deal’s closing.

John A. Byrne, for years one of BusinessWeek's most prolific writers and later one its most admired editors, is leaving the magazine to launch his own digital media company.

Byrne, 56, an executive editor and editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com, said he will officially step down when the sale of the magazine to Bloomberg is completed, as expected, on Dec. 1. (see Byrne's full memo to staff below). In two separate stints, Byrne spent 22 years at the magazine. In between, he served as editor-in-chief of Fast Company magazine from 2003 to 2005.

He will be re-locating to the San Francisco area. Byrne was recently married to Kate Rodler, who resides in Marin County. Byrne did not elaborate on what kind of media company he was interested in launching, or whether he had any financial backers.

During his tenure as a writer at BusinessWeek, Byrne penned a record 58 cover stories while also authoring eight books. His last book was a collaboration with GE Chairman Jack Welch, Jack: Straight From The Gut. Former BusinessWeek Editor-in-Chief Steve Shepard once jokingly referred to Byrne as Johann Sebastian Byrne because of the substantive body of work he created while at the magazine. Byrne also earned a reputation as a patient mentor over the years to lots of young BusinessWeek staffers.

Byrne was instrumental in launching BusinessWeek's Best Business Schools rankings, and as executive editor, he and his team created three additional annual franchises, including the highly successful Customer Service Champions and the Best Places to Launch a Career. In addition, Byrne recruited to the magazine such weekly columnists as Jack and Suzy Welch, Maria Bartiromo, and renowned wine critic Robert Parker.

Under his leadership of BusinessWeek's web operations, which he assumed in 2007, traffic and user engagement, with monthly unique visitors has risen by 40% to 10.4 million (more than twice the size of the magazine’s audience). Under his leadership, BW.com has won two consecutive National Magazine Awards. What's more, Byrne was inducted last year by Media Industry News into the Digital Hall of Fame and this year min named him one of 21 “Superstars of Social Media.� Byrne has nearly 18,000 followers on Twitter, under the handle JOHNABYRNE.

“John brought his prodigious energy, credibility, and creativity to BusinessWeek.com after a stellar, award-winning career in print and truly outdid himself," says Stephen J. Adler, editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek who will be leaving the magazine as well on Dec. 1. "He leaves as one of the most exciting innovators in the entire digital world, and I’m eagerly awaiting his next venture.�

Not to be overlooked is Byrne's tireless support of the BusinessWeek softball team, which has appeared in all three championship games of the New York Media Softball League, which was formed in 2007. BW captured the crown in 2008 after a record-breaking undefeated streak.

How’s the modern day “data room� work? Forget the locked conference room in a law firm, where the dealmakers of old used to pour over reams of facts, figures and assumptions while contemplating whether to bid for a company. MGM, the fabled but debt-hobbled studio, has set up an online site with its data and is parceling out access as it prepares to launch an auction pressed by its debt holders.

A first round of bids are expected shortly after Thanksgiving from companies that have been given access to the online site – so far that’s Warner Brothers(TWX) and Fox (NWS), according to a source with knowledge of the bidding. But even if Warner and Fox submit bids, those bids aren’t likely to be the end of the MGM drama. Instead, holders of the studio’s $3.7 billion in debt are expected to use what are expected to be all-cash bids from those studios as the starting point in their decision as to the “strategic alternatives� they choose to take. An MGM spokeswoman did not return requests for comment.

MGM said on Nov. 13 that it was “beginning a process to explore various strategic alternatives, including operating as a standalone entity, forming strategic partnerships and evaluating a potential sale of the company.� It also said that it had received an extension from Dec. 15 to Jan. 31 of the forbearance agreement from its lenders that has allowed MGM to postpone debt payment that threatens to throw the studio into bankruptcy. Sources with knowledge of the online data room say that MGM and its investment bankers haven’t as yet opened access to the wide range of parties that might consider bidding on the company, instead choosing to see how high competing studios might value the company. The studios are expected to value the company on the basis of its 4,100 film library and the rights to the James Bond, Pink Panther and other franchises.

Getting a potential price tag for the studio would enable the 140-odd debtor group to determine whether they might hang onto the studio or launch a formal auction process.
At least one private equity fund, Qualia Capital, is said to be interested in joining the bidding but would do so with a structured plan that would include injecting some capital into MGM, converting some of its debt into equity and operating the company as a standalone venture n hopes of increasing its value for a sale further down the road. Another studio, Lions Gate(LGF) is also said to be interested in taking a look at MGM’s financials and might try to structure a bid. Lions Gate declined comment. Media dealmaker John Malone(LMBIA) has said he’d like to look at the data. But the Liberty Media chairman says he isn’t likely to bid on the entire studio.

Josh Tyrangiel, who was named this morning to be editor of a Bloomberg-owned BusinessWeek, says it's too early to lay out specific plans for the magazine but his goal is to create "a great indispensable business weekly."

In a brief interview, Tyrangiel, 37, says he plans to meet soon with BW staffers as a group and individually to gather their input so "we can formulate a strategy for the magazine together." Tyrangiel has been serving as a deputy managing editor of Time magazine and as the top editor of its online operations.

While he earned kudos for his work online at Time, Tyrangiel says he is committed to long-form journalism in print. "Listen, the big mistake magazines made was trying to imitate the Web," he said. "Magazines are read reclining, and that lends itself to longer, more in-depth stories."

Tryangiel has edited business stories in the past but he acknowledged that he is not a traditional business journalist. He says his background is an "opportunity" for the magazine. "I need help," he said, "and I am going to rely on the staff. I want the staff to stay in their lanes and be experts on their subjects."

He believes a big reason that Bloomberg LP Chief Content Officer Norman Pearlstine and Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief Matthew Winkler recruited him is that "I am a good person at bringing people together. We are going to work on this as a team."