John Malone is on the prowl for fresh blood again: The wrinkly media magnate will be splitting his Liberty Media company off into two separate entities to make an easier go of acquiring full control over his newest target, DirecTV.

Blah, blah, insider-y gossip. What's that? Explain the trade in Star Wars terminology? H'okay:

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, John Malone was the Anakin Skywalker to Barry Diller's Obi Wan Kenobi; Diller with his home shopping channel QVC, Malone with his more powerful, but less charismatic, cable conglomerate. At first the two worked together for a common Jedi Alliance (IAC/Liberty Media). But then young Anakin/Malone became embittered and used his new found "force" to try to strong-arm Diller out of splitting the corporation into five different Jedi Knights (companies).

Malone and Diller fought; the latter won when he dropped his opponent into a vat of hot lava (Diller won the lawsuit and Malone was out.)

Cut to The Empire Strikes Back; with his Death Star plans foiled, Malone takes his empire Liberty Media and splits that into separate sections in order to gain more control of the planet Tatooine (or DirecTV shareholdings, this analogy isn't perfect) than he already has.

The LM split-off, Liberty Entertainment, will work sort of like Boba Fett. Technically it's its own rogue company, even though obviously owned by Darth Malone and will be used to suit his dark needs. By making it its own separately traded company, the newly formed Death Star could suck DirecTV into its gravitational pull via a reverse merger.

DirecTV is already making moves towards the dark side, insomuch as it is already lying about its readiness to switch from satellite signal to digital delivery. Hopefully a long-lost son of Malone's will reappear from his foster planet and take aim at destroying his father's evil legacy. George Lucas, give me a call.