Liberty Media Sues NBC Over CNBC Fees

Liberty Media Corp., the company controlled by cable-television investor John Malone, claimed in a lawsuit that General Electric Co.’s NBC-TV unit wasn’t paying all the fees it owed for Malone’s help starting the CNBC network.

Liberty filed its suit last week in Delaware state court, accusing NBC of withholding fees it owes under a 16-year-old agreement for the CNBC network to be carried on cable systems formerly owned by Malone’s Tele-Communications Inc. Liberty Media was the programming arm of TCI. Malone kept control of Liberty after selling TCI to AT&T; Corp. in 1999.

Comcast Corp., the biggest U.S. cable-TV provider, now owns the TCI systems after buying AT&T;’s cable unit in 2002. NBC told Liberty last month that Comcast had “repudiated” the old agreement with TCI and that NBC would pay a lower fee to Liberty than it had in the past.

The suit also claimed that CNBC’s advertising revenue for 2001 and 2002 was under-reported in financial statements that NBC provides to Liberty to calculate fees under the agreement.

NBC spokeswoman Hilary Smith and Comcast spokesman Tim Fitzpatrick declined to comment.

Shares of Englewood, Colo.-based Liberty Media rose 12 cents to $11.38 on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares of Fairfield, Conn.-based General Electric rose 33 cents to $33.05 on the NYSE. Philadelphia-based Comcast’s Class A common shares rose 85 cents to $30.75 on Nasdaq.