Does Ivan Seidenberg, Verizon’s top executive, fancy himself the next media mogul with a pro-sports team, a la Mark Cuban, the Dolan family and Paul Allen?

He hinted as much at the Dow Jones Media and Money conference  conference in New York. The trouble is the team he mentioned — The New York Knicks — are owned by Cablevision, a chief rival of Verizon. So pretty much kiss that idea goodbye.

Seidenberg hinted at the very, very unlikely possibility of buying the Knicks during a back and forth at the conference Michael Burgi of MediaWeek. Burgi asked Seidenberg to discuss his “content strategy.”

“People keep asking, when are you going to go vertical and add a lot of content?” Seidenberg said. “Content gets to the customer in a lot of (ways). We like to think of ourselves as bundling it, packaging it, formatting it, helping to store it if that’s what you need, helping to send it … to your PC, to your television (and so on).”

Burgi then asked whether Verizon was actually interested in creating content.

 “No,” Seidenberg answered. “Having said that, if somebody came up with the perfect killer service, that we could invest in, we can do it. It’s not necessarily a strategic imperative that we do it — we’d do it to annoy the hell out of everybody.”

At that point, Seidenberg said that it wouldn’t be in the shareholders’ best interest to buy just any content, but if the right thing came along he’d look at it. And here’s the killer quote…

“If I could buy the Knicks and fix them, I would do it. But we can’t do it.”

(Allow me take a moment with a message for Mr. Seidenberg. Millions of Knicks fans — especially rabid, win-starved ones like yours truly – would welcome, how do I say it, new leadership for the legendary team. We have not had a winning season since 2000-2001. You’re a local product. I can tell that you’re are fan, too. So, hey, don’t give up the dream. That’s all.)

(Photos: Reuters)

General Electric’s problems – it warned yesterday that turmoil in the global credit markets could drive profit down as much as 12 percent — have once more put the spotlight on its media unit, NBC Universal.

Forever, it seems, media observers and Wall Street bankers have been talking about whether or not NBC should be sold by majority-owner GE. For its part, GE and its leadership — most notably CEO Jeff Immelt — repeatedly respond that NBC isn’t going anywhere.

As The Hollywood Reporter points out, GE’s latest troubles have nothing to do with NBC.  The article reports that Immelt called NBC a “great media franchise” during his rounds yesterday.

During a conference call with Wall Street analysts, Immelt was asked three times if he would spin off GE Capital, prompting him to quip later on CNBC: “At least it took over from, ‘Are we going to spin out NBC?’ “

That’s not to say that NBC isn’t facing challenges of its own.  NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker told a conference on Friday that local TV stations have been profoundly impacted by the economic downturn, according to Reuters.

“We haven’t seen an advertising slowdown on a national level yet in the United States but obviously we’re concerned about it, and I think if you’re not concerned about it you’re in denial,” he added.

Reuters later spoke to Zucker on the sidelines and came up with these tidbits…

1.  Zucker isn’t interested in Rainbow Media
2.  He’s “pleased” with NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman
3.  And he’s still not into “wanton spending on pilots.”

Keep an eye on:

• Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Thursday he still sees a “certain buoyancy” among technology and telecommunications customers worldwide, despite recent U.S. economic woes (Reuters)
• Cablevision’s largest shareholder yesterday ratcheted up the pressure on the controlling Dolan family (NY Post)

(Photo: Reuters)

We thought we had a big story on our hands this afternoon when an email popped up in our Inbox proclaiming: “Newsday TV”.

Finally, Cablevision Chief Executive Jim Dolan is sticking it to the Doubting Thomases of Wall Street by serving up the synergies between his recent acquisition, the Long Island newspaper Newsday and his 3-million strong subscriber base of cable TV customers and cable networks, we thought.

It wasn’t anywhere close to what we imagined.

Yes, Cablevision has launched a new interactive Newsday channel. But the interactivity pretty much ends with an on-screen subscription form letting cable customers order up a Newsday subscription on TV screens and charged to cable bills.

From the Cablevision release:

Located on Channel 611, the Newsday channel features both 7-day and weekend delivery options (Thursday, Friday and Sunday), and promotional information on the paper’s various sections and benefits, including local news, sports, Long Island Home, area coupons, the Explore LI feature section and classifieds. Also available through the channel are long-form videos of some recent Newsday stories, and information on the paper’s “Newsday Insider” benefit program for subscribers.

Meanwhile Wall Street cable analyst Craig Moffett of Bernstein Research not only thinks there’s little obvious strategic sense in the Newsday acquisition for Cablevision but that the Dolans, who control the cable operator, probably paid $150 million too much for the paper in May.

In his latest client note titled “Toys in the Attic…What’s Cablevision Really Worth?” Moffett says Cablevision is conservatively worth at least $45 a share compared with its current price of around $28.

In the breakdown of Cablevision’s assets Moffett values Newsday at just $505 million - a 20 percent discount in just three months.

No wonder top Cablevision stakeholder and activist investor Mario Gabelli wants improved corporate governance on big decisions and is calling for a sale of some of Cablevision’s asset’s to help boost the share price.

(Photo: Cablevision)