Inside Move
Spielberg into CitySearch
Spielberg is in good company.
While Diller's USA Networks controls the company, which operates online ticketing services and various Internet city guides, other significant shareholders include some of the brightest names in media and computing: Intel, Compaq, Washington Post, Times Mirror and Comcast.
Most of these companies invested in CitySearch's early days, before it merged with Ticketmaster's online businesses last summer. And although Spielberg's involvement wasn't previously known, he too has been a longtime investor in CitySearch, according to Ticketmaster Online CEO Charles Conn.
"If he wasn't (CitySearch's) very first investor, he was very close to it," Conn says. "He is very passionate about what we are doing. He loves the Web and Web initiatives."
Spielberg's spokesman declined comment.
The company is about to be merged into Internet portal Lycos in a three-way $22 billion deal also involving Diller's Home Shopping Network. Ticketmaster Online shareholders will emerge with just 8.5% of the new entity, however, so Spielberg will have a tiny stake in USA/Lycos Interactive Networks.
Spielberg's filing came two months after Ticketmaster Online went public at an offering price of $14. Like all Internet stocks, it has been on a roller coaster, rising to a recent high of $80 before plunging to its Feb. 19 price of $35.81.
At that price, Spielberg's 506,000 shares are worth about $18 million, small change for the movie mogul.
