Will This Bird Fly?

摘要

General electric's old advertising slogan―"We bring good things to life"―conjured the comforting glow of a GE light bulb or the hum of a refrigerator. Real stuff. The company's new catchphrase―"Imagination at work"―may soon summon visions of the Hulk or a horse named Seabiscuit. With GE entering talks last week to merge its NBC unit with Vivendi Universal's entertainment assets, the industrial powerhouse has muscled onto a media stage already crowded with Schwarzenegger-size conglomerates. For GE, imagination may soon have to do some heavy lifting. Vivendi narrowed the field to one after many months of shopping, flirting and haggling with a long line of suitors that included Viacom, MGM, Liberty Media and finally Edgar Bronfman Jr., the former Seagram CEO who sold Universal to Vivendi in the first place.