Liberty Media Set to Spin Off Entertainment Unit

ENGLEWOOD, December 15: Liberty Media's board of directors
has approved a plan to spin off the Liberty Entertainment subsidiary, which
owns a majority stake in the satellite platform DIRECTV, among other assets.

The plan, proposed earlier this year and put on hold, sees
Liberty Entertainment becoming a separate public company. Greg Maffei,
the president and CEO of Liberty Media, noted: "We believe a new
asset-backed security will reduce the discount from fair value in our stock,
thereby making it a more attractive currency, and will permit us to better
pursue our strategic objectives."

The new public company will own 52 percent of The
DIRECTV Group, 50 percent of cable network GSN, and 100 percent of FUN
Technologies and of Liberty Sports Holdings.

—By Mansha Daswani