If you, like me, think Big Media will eventually just consist of Disney, Time Warner, and News Corp as MGM, Viacom/Paramount, and NBC Universal get gobbled up because of consolidation, here’s more evidence: Time Warner Inc, already flush with extra cable cash, will eventually sell the Time Inc magazine unit and could use the bigger bounty to buy holdings in its core entertainment category. That’s according to Gordy Crawford, the managing director of its largest shareholder, The Capital Group. Crawford said at a presentation September 24 at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication about media. “Time Warner just spun off their cable division, they are going to sell their print division, they are going to spin off AOL and they’re just going to be Warner Brothers, HBO and the Turner Networks. “Now, they will make acquisitions … but they’re probably going to buy just stuff in their wheel house of those businesses. They’re not going to, I don’t think, go very far afield from their core competency.” While Crawford did not name specific acquisition targets, he did say there would be a “winnowing process” during which weaker companies in the sector would be gobbled up. I’ve already reported about rumors that Time Warner and GE are in talks about NBCU. Meanwhile, former News Corp No. 2 Peter Chernin said at the conference he expected there to be a “great consolidation” down the road, as the weaker companies among the larger players decide to sell rather than continue to lose market share. “The ones that will get destroyed first are the under-performers and these will be large companies,” said Chernin, without naming them.

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