MEDIA MOGULS SPEAK THEIR ACQUISITION FANTASIES OUT LOUD

Excerpts taken from AdAge (AAR47F )

Comcast, Hearst, AOL, ABC, and Google execs recently made acquisition wishes:

Comcast COO Stephen Burke wants more content, and specifically called out Disney as a desired target.

Yawn...

Hearst Magazines president Cathleen Black wants to own all of ESPN, instead of their lousy position of just 20%.

Okay, so you really don't have any idea where else to grow.

Michael Kelly, president of AOL Media Networks, says AOL is expected to sell pieces of their business, not buy more.

Good thinking after the whole Time Warner debacle. If AOL even suggested a large acquisition, their stock would probably tumble.

Mike Shaw, ABC Television, admits they need a search engine strategy and regrets the fold of Go.com.

Me too, me too! Can I get an operating system to go with that?

Google's own VP-Advertising Sales Tim Armstrong wants to buy either a grocery store or a car dealership: “Just to see how they work.”

Sounds ridiculous, but what do you expect from the Sales VP regarding M&A? Even if Armstrong had a good M&A thought; I'm sure he withheld it after Google CFO Reyes made a comment which sparked a 13% gap down in Googles stock price.
On the otherhand, I'm sure we'll be seeing "Ads served by Google" in grocery store aisles, digital displays, the back of cashier receipts, and in the dashboards of our navigation systems... so perhaps Armstrong is poised to close the loop by actually owning these ad distribution outlets.