Anxious to expand the company's broadcast and cable presence, longtime MCA head Lew Wasserman sought a rich partner. He located Matsushita Electric, the Japanese electronics manufacturer. Around this time, the production subsidiary was renamed Universal Studios Inc. Matsushita provided a cash infusion, but the clash of cultures was too great to overcome, and five years later Matsushita sold control of MCA/Universal to Canadian liquor distributor Seagram. Hoping to build a media empire around Universal, Seagram bought PolyGram in 1999 and other entertainment properties, but the fluctuating profits characteristic of Hollywood were no substitute for the reliable income stream of hard liquor.
Western set at Universal Studios Hollywood

To raise money, Seagram head Edgar Bronfman Jr. sold Universal's television holdings, including cable network USA, to Barry Diller. (These same properties would be bought back later at greatly inflated prices.) In June 2000, Seagram itself was sold to French water utility and media company Vivendi(which owns StudioCanal). The media conglomerate became Vivendi Universal. Afterward, Universal Pictures acquired the United States distribution rights of several StudioCanal's films, such as Mulholland Drive (which received an Oscar nomination) and Brotherhood of the Wolf (which became the second-highest-grossing French-language film in the United States in the last two decades). Universal Pictures and StudioCanal also co-produced several films, such as Love Actually(an $40 million-budgeted film that went on grossing $246 million worldwide

Answered by Alok Gupta , an ibibo Guru, at 12:47 PM on December 15, 2008