Mergers

In an effort to help struggling newspapers stay in business, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is asking the Justice Department to broaden its view of media competition when reviewing merger proposals. Pelosi sent a letter to the Justice Department on Monday saying any antitrust concerns that arise from proposed mergers between newspapers should take into account online news sources and nearby daily and weekly papers "so that the conclusions reached reflect current market realities." The Hearst Corp.

The Obama administration on Monday gave Chrysler Corp. an ultimatum: join forces with Italy's Fiat within 30 days or prepare to enter Bankruptcy Court. Over the weekend, the president's automotive task force concluded that Chrysler couldn't survive on its own, despite the $4.3 billion that taxpayers have pumped into the company since December. The Auburn Hills, Mich., firm, which announced in January that it was in merger talks with Fiat, had asked for a $5-billion loan.

In a move aimed at getting more control, satellite broadcaster DirecTV Group is merging with Liberty Entertainment, a programming arm of media mogul John Malone's Liberty Media Corp. The all-stock deal will put a handful of cable networks under DirecTV and give Malone a 24% voting stake in the company. The deal will make it easier for DirecTV to "pursue strategic initiatives," said Chase Carey, president and chief executive of the satellite programmer, which has 17.

U.S. airlines are hiking fares as leisure travelers who stayed home amid the economic malaise are getting back in the air. In the last two weeks, carriers have raised domestic plane tickets twice by an average of $10 to $20 one way and are offering fewer fare sales, according to travel website Farecompare.com. "Two airfare hikes in the past few weeks is the strongest signal I have seen that the bottom is either here or near," Farecompare.com Chief Executive Rick Seaney said.

Sorry, old chum. Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc. and Live Nation Inc. may have to divest assets in the United Kingdom to go ahead with their proposed merger, British regulators said Thursday. The Competition Commission, which investigates mergers for the British government, issued a provisional ruling that the merger of ticketing giant Ticketmaster and concert production company Live Nation could "severely inhibit" German ticketing company CTS Eventim. CTS signed a deal before the proposed merger was announced in February to sell tickets to music events for Live Nation in Britain.

The standstill continued Monday between a California healthcare union and its parent organization in Washington as United Healthcare Workers West gave the Service Employees International Union its own set of demands for peace. The groups have been locked in a dispute for the last year over whether 65,000 of United Healthcare's members would join members of two other California SEIU local unions to create a new group representing only home health aides. A hearing officer's recommendation, ratified by SEIU last week, gave United Healthcare five days to agree to accept the merger and other conditions or be subject to trusteeship.

Cable giant Liberty Media Corp. doesn't plan to combine the satellite operations of DirecTV Group Inc. with Sirius XM Radio Inc., Chief Executive Greg Maffei said. Bundling subscriptions to DirecTV and Sirius XM may be an "opportunity down the road," Maffei said in a conference call after Liberty Media in Englewood, Colo., reported fourth-quarter results. Last week Liberty agreed to buy a 40% stake in Sirius XM in exchange for $530 million in loans to help the pay-radio company avoid bankruptcy.

Their first public meetings drew 150 people, max, last spring, and they were brushed off as "extremists." But in less than six months, Motivated Museum Members managed to persuade some 800 Orange County residents to vote against the Newport Harbor-Laguna Art Museum merger, which they decry as a "scam." That merger was approved, but by a scant 27 votes.