Ergen changes course. (Top of the Week).(EchoStar Communications chairman Charlie Ergen)(Brief Article)

Broadcasting & Cable, January, 2003 by Higgins, John M.

What does Charlie want? That's the question media executives were asking when word broke that EchoStar Communications Chairman Charlie Ergen had approached Liberty Media and News Corp. about their buying his operation rather that his DBS competitor DirecTV.

The move derailed the conventional wisdom that DBS-hungry Rupert Murdoch would simply sweep up the pieces of EchoStar's failed takeover of DirecTV parent Hughes Electronics and secure the national U.S. satellite footprint for which he has lusted for more than a decade.

Wall Street executives say Ergen might simply be trying to complicate DirecTV's search for a buyer or supporter given the financial needs of its controlling shareholder, General Motors. But some believe that Ergen is looking...

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