IAC's Diller sees opportunity in news online

By Michele Gershberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) - IAC/InterActiveCorp. (IACI.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Chief Executive Barry Diller said on Monday he saw opportunities as news increasingly moves to the Internet from newspapers, and his company was close to announcing a new product.

He declined to give details, but said IAC was not interested in buying a U.S. newspaper publisher or individual newspaper.

"I actually think that there's going to be real opportunity in the conversion of print journalism to online, real opportunity, which I think very few people have attacked head on," Diller told the Reuters Media Summit in New York.

"We're doing it in our way from an original product creation at this point. I can't really talk about what we're doing because we're, I think, fairly close to announcing it," he said.

Diller said IAC's mix of dozens of different Internet properties working together is beginning to prove itself and the advantages should become clearer in a few years.

IAC is reshaping its retail segment, including the HSN home shopping network, and also aims to keep costs down for its LendingTree.com mortgage business amid a weak U.S. real estate market.

HSN is poised to narrow the gap with rival Liberty Media's (LINTA.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) QVC over the next 18 months, Diller said on Monday.

The company recently saw profits grow with strong revenue from its Ticketmaster ticketing service business and online dating service Match.com.

IAC's search and media business includes Ask.com and Citysearch, which compete with industry leaders Google Inc. (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).

"We've said we are an integrated conglomerate, which is different from conglomerates as we know them, which can go from ... light bulbs to the Today show," he said, referring to General Electric Co. (GE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and its NBC Universal media unit. "We started to say it and more than saying it, we started to act like it."

IAC is slated to join the S&P 500 Index .SPX after the close of trading on November 30, joining a list of stocks watched by many portfolio managers who try to track the index.

The company's share has outperformed that index since the beginning of the year, with a 25 percent increase compared with an 11 percent gain for the S&P 500.

IAC's entry into the index proves how far IAC has come to being understood as "an actual business" in the last 10 years, he said.

"You can not quite get your arms around (it) because we've got 60 different brands," Diller said. "But, in fact, it's no longer a speculation."

IAC's shares closed down 5 cents at $35.46 on Monday.