Barry Diller

Chairman and CEO
IAC

Barry Diller needs almost no introduction–he is one of the best-known executives in the U.S., straddling a number of industries, including entertainment, online and retail. Well known too for his biting wit and gimlet gaze, he has recently been embroiled in a high-profile battle for control of IAC with major investor John Malone, another well-known mogul. What's been at stake are some of the Web's most famous names, including HSN, Ticketmaster, LendingTree, Match.com, Ask.com, CitySearch and Evite. Mr. Diller was one of the first Hollywood executives to take interest in the interactive space, which made him unusual when he started focusing on the Web in the mid-1990s. Before that, he served as chairman and CEO of Fox Inc. from 1984 to 1992. Previous to that, Mr. Diller was chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures for a decade. He started off his career in television at ABC.

Posts With Barry Diller

Vimeo Gets a New Boss: AOL, Yahoo Vet Kerry Trainor

Peter Kafka in Media on March 19 at 8:21 am PT

Earlier this year, video site Vimeo showed off a new look. Now it has a new CEO. Next up, perhaps, real ad dollars.

News Byte

Broadcast Stations Sue Aereo Over Web TV Plans

Peter Kafka in Media on March 1 at 3:30 pm PT

The owners of four New York-area TV stations have sued Aereo, the start-up that plans to give users Web access to live broadcast TV. Aereo, which has raised $25 million from backers including Barry Diller’s IAC and venture investors like First Round Capital, has been expecting copyright challenges from the TV industry. It argues that its technology is legal because individual users will be getting streamed TV from their own individual antennas. One of the plaintiffs, Fox Television Stations, is owned by News Corp., which also owns this Web site.

Why Would You Pay $12 a Month for Free TV? Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia Explains.

Peter Kafka in Media on February 14 at 11:49 am PT

Aereo won’t let you cut the cord quite yet. But it could be a starting point.

Barry Diller Gets Into the “Cord-Cutting” Business

Peter Kafka in Media on February 13 at 7:51 pm PT

Kinda sorta: The IAC head is backing Aereo, a start-up that will let you watch some TV — but not all TV — live on your iPad.

OkCupid Sets Up San Francisco Labs to Try to Reinvent Online Dating (Video)

Liz Gannes in Social on November 18, 2011 at 1:30 am PT

The hipster dating service OkCupid has ventured from New York to San Francisco to create a freshly staffed outpost of start-up folks in order to brainstorm the site’s next act. They call it OkCupid Labs.

Voices

Welcome to the Boardroom: Chelsea Clinton Joins Diller

Lauren A. E. Schuker and Joann S. Lublin, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal in Media on September 26, 2011 at 10:30 pm PT

She’s 31. She’s still a graduate student. And she’s held many different jobs in different industries over the last five years.

Barry Diller Panders to SXSW–and It Works

Liz Gannes in Social on March 14, 2011 at 10:06 am PT

One of these speakers is not like the others, one of these speakers just doesn’t belong…but the fourth-day hangover crowd at SXSW Interactive came out in force to see longtime media executive Barry Diller speak at the Austin Convention Center this morning.

News Byte

Barry Diller and John Malone Complete Their Divorce

Peter Kafka in Media on December 2, 2010 at 5:40 am PT

Barry Diller and John Malone, who have been tied together for 17 years, are officially split up, for good: Malone’s Liberty Media is abandoning its majority stake in Diller’s IAC holding company and taking $220 million along with IAC’s Evite.com and Gift.com units, as parting gifts. Meanwhile Diller himself is making a smaller break with IAC by stepping down as CEO, but will remain as chairman. More details from Shira Ovide.

Ask Adds to Consensus: Social Is the Way to Compete With Google

Liz Gannes in Social on November 9, 2010 at 1:00 pm PT

IAC’s Ask.com is giving up the ghost on algorithmic search and Web crawling. Rather than continuing to wilt on search or competing directly with Google, IAC said today it is changing strategy to Q&A search. That will strike 130 engineering jobs in New Jersey and China, according to Bloomberg.

College Humor Gets a New Grown-Up: Time Inc. Digital Dude Paul Greenberg

Peter Kafka in Media on October 7, 2010 at 5:44 am PT

Here’s the new adult supervisor at College Humor, Barry Diller’s much-smarter-than-you’d-think humor site: Paul Greenberg, who most recently has been running digital operations at Time Inc.’s Lifestyle group.