Media Monday Buoy European Markets
DEBORAH MARCHINI, CNN ANCHOR: Part of the fallout from the announced merger of AOL and Time Warner, this morning's top business story, analysts say is likely to be additional mergers in both the Internet and content industries; that especially true, according to analysts, in Europe. Well, we're going to look at what the impact has been thus far in European markets, where stocks are considerably higher right now. Todd Benjamin is in London with the very latest. And Todd, what you got?</s>TODD BENJAMIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Deb, media companies definitely reacting to that Time Warner/AOL deal. In fact, eight of the 10 largest rises here in Europe this morning are media companies. Let me give you some names here in the</s>U.K.: Granada, a big media company, is up 11 percent; Pearson, of course, which owns the "Financial Times" and has TV interests, it's also up 11 percent; and Canal Plus, a pay TV group in France, it suspended, limited up, it had been up as much as 16 percent. I spoke with Instinet just before I came on here, they said the last trade on AOL was 84, and no trades yet on Time Warner, but it was bid at 73. In terms of the overall markets this morning, they are up: London is up almost 1 1/2 percent; Frankfurt is up 1.8 percent; Paris is up two percent; and Zurich is up about half a percent. In the currency markets, the dollar is sharply weaker against the Japanese currency, the yen. The euro, though, is about 2/3 of a cent lower against greenback. And the pound is about a quarter-cent lower against the dollar. Deb, back to you in New York.</s>MARCHINI: All right, Todd Benjamin, thanks a lot. We will be a checking back with you throughout the broadcast.