Filed under: MISC
WALL STREET JOURNAL: FAIR AND BALANCED
I woke up. I made my espresso. I sat down on the couch, opened my Wall Street Journal and found myself accosted by over 22 DirecTV ads (see 1 of many in the pic above) and 1 Fox Business Network ad (see below). These ads commanded the majority of ad spaces throughout the paper.
What’s the connection?
Rupert Murdoch has significant holdings in the following companies:
DirecTV
FoxBusiness Network
and most recently. . .
[gulp]
The Wall Street Journal
Coincidence? I think not.
I wish I could say that I was over you WSJ but you just keep pullin’ me back. . .
Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
NBC is preparing for Jay Leno’s exit from “The Tonight Show” in 2009. But as the date draws closer, Leno is becoming reluctant to retire from late night, according to people familiar with the situation. NBC execs fear Leno could pack up his show, and his audience, and jump to ABC or Fox. (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-leno15oct15,1,2128162.story?ctrack=7&cset=true 10/15)
News Corp.’s Fox Business Network premieres today. “We’re basically launching two channels,” says Fox News boss Roger Ailes. “We’re launching a cable channel and an Internet channel. You can’t tell me that five years from now the Internet site might not be more aluable.” (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/10/29/100737709/index.htm?postversion=2007101506 10/15)
HEROES will soon become a graphic novel, thanks to a partnership between exec producer/creator Tim Kring, Universal Studio Consumer Products Group and UK publisher Titan Books. The books is expected out in the UK on November 23rd, and is written by Kring along with Michael Turner and Phil Jimenez.
Yahoo’s breakup value exceeds the company’s combined value as long as its current strategy prevails, according to Bernstein Research. The current valuation for Time Warner is so strained, shareholders are “practically getting AOL for free,” says Morgan Stanley. (http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=69132 10/15)
The market values of News Corp. and Time Warner flip-flopped last week after many years of TW being on top. News Corp. ($71.6 billion) is seen as chief Rupert Murdoch’s “life’s work,” while CEO Dick Parsons of Time Warner ($71.2 billion) admits: “This is my job. It’s not my life.” (http://www.thedeal.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=TheDeal/TDDArticle/TDStandardArticle&bn=NULL&c=TDDArticle&cid=1190001870454 10/12)
MTV Networks is considering selling its Caribbean music and culture channel, Tempo, to local investors who could operate the outlet under a license deal or acquire it completely, according to this story. The possible divestiture comes as MTVN revamps its cable group in an attempt to boost international profitability. (Broadcasting & Cable 10/14)
Hearst is ending its $600 million bid to buy the rest of Hearst-Argyle Television, after its tender offer expired and conditions for the offer were not met. The company declines to provide details. Privately held Hearst holds 73% of the public TV-station group owner. (http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSN1227789420071012 10/12)
AT&T is laying the groundwork for an assault on Comcast’s leadership in local cable television. Having cleared the legislative hurdles that stood in the way of offering TV, AT&T is now building out the fiber-optic network needed to deliver its U-verse TV service. (http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=26736 10/13)
Comcast customers in the Houston area are beginning to experience the company’s expanded VOD library, which includes 9,300 programs and about 800 movies a month, most of which are being offered free. Comcast’s VOD service is being rolled out across the state now and is expected to be available systemwide by the end of the year. (Houston Chronicle 10/14)
San Mateo, Calif., startup BlackArrow has received additional funding from Comcast Corp., Cisco Systems and Intel Corp. for software it is developing that places relevant ads for VOD, DVR and broadband-video viewers. Advertisers are increasingly challenged by time-shifted viewing, prompting technology companies to create programs for updating ad placements. (Advertising Age 10/15)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Universal Music is in talks with Sony BMG and Warner Music about launching a downloadable music subscription service to challenge iTunes’ dominance. The service, dubbed Total Music, would be optimized for rival devices such as the Microsoft Zune and would be free to the user. In the proposed Total Music model, device manufactures would pay the music companies for access to their catalogs. (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_43/b4055048.htm 10/22)
BMG, Sony, Warner Bros. and other major record companies are filing a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usenet.com, claiming that the Fargo, N.D.-based service enables and encourages customers to reproduce and distribute millions of the labels’ recordings without permission. (http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i66abf6954df1d43f75ac96b95a3324c4 10/15)
Television networks are declining in relevance among younger viewers, according to experts at the Wharton School. Younger audiences, now accessing TV shows online, are becoming “more affiliated with the program itself.” Also: Industry observers aren’t sure how online TV will evolve. (http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm;?articleid=1814 10/3)
All media, including print and television, will be digital within 10 years, says Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, in his opening keynote at the Association of National Advertisers’ conference. “Everything will be delivered digitally. All media and all advertising will have to take that into account.” (http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071012/FREE/71012003/1078 10/12)
The Web 2.0 Summit, opening Wednesday in San Francisco, is expected attract the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Meg Whitman, Philippe Dauman and Rupert Murdoch. Among the big topics, says Forrester analyst Rebecca Jennings: How will the “social Web” look in five years’ time? (http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article2625454.ece 10/12)
News Corp.’s MySpace is opening an office this week in San Francisco and plans to hire as many as 200 employees as it moves to redesign its site, introduce features and fend off rivals such as Facebook. (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/15/BU70SP3D3.DTL 10/15)
Television networks are now competing with Google and blogs for advertising dollars. Even with the boom in online advertising, there may “not be enough ad dollars in the marketplace.” Nike exec Trevor Edwards says: “We’re not in the business of keeping the media companies alive.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSN1221764120071012 10/12)
Time Warner’s AOL Internet unit, which is restructuring as it relocates its headquarters from Dulles, Va., to New York, will cut some 4,000 jobs, a third of the estimated 12,000-person staff, a source says. Some 400 positions will be eliminated in the Dulles offices alone. (http://valleywag.com/tech/rumormonger/aol-layoff-details-revealed-310763.php 10/15)
Discovery, owner of cable channels such as Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, plans to acquire the Web site HowStuffWorks.com for $250 million. Discovery says it will use the site as the cornerstone of an effort to bring its vast library of video content to the Web. (http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119240620469258721.html 10/15)
U.K. Guardian News and Media is to make its entire archive, 212 years of material, available online as a paid-for service, starting Nov. 3. The archive will be accessible to the public via an online subscription, although it will be made available free during November. (http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=39107 10/15)
Online users spend more time on CNN.com than any other news and information site on the internet including Wikipedia, according to a CNN analysis of a Home and Work Panel from Nielsen/NetRatings that measures time spent online. CNN Digital Network registered more than 1 billion total usage minutes for September, compared to 679,000 minutes for MSNBC Digital Network and 375,000 minutes for the Fox News Digital Network, two direct competitors.
Cinema advertising company Screenvision signed a deal with Geico to launch a long form ad starring the famous Cavemen characters. The two-minute spot finds the three Cavemen in their high-rise apartment serenading a room full of women with Sinatra’s “Everything Happens to Me.” The ad is intended to drive traffic to Geico’s interactive site www.cavemanscrib.com.
Not quite sure how this site advertises for Geico but it’s interactive elements are interesting none the less. Users can listen to cell phone messages, watch TV, look at texts, etc. If the Cavemen didn’t generally sketch me out, I’d be more into it.
Caveman’s Crib
Zipidee, a San Francisco-based marketplace for digital content, has launched, with unspecified venture backing from Individuals’ Venture Fund, Novus Ventures and Khalda Development, reports Red Herring. The site will allow third-parties to set up their own online stores, a la eBay, to sell “long tail” digital content like music, videos, ringtones, e-books, and games. (http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-digital-marketplace-zipidee-set-to-launch/ 10/8)
Executives from Joost.com, the first online TV network with televisionlike video quality, have announced that more than 2 million people have downloaded the Joost application since it became available at the onset of this month. (Yahoo!/Agence France-Presse 10/14)
Filed under: WIRELESS
Google is believed to be developing an Apple iPhone-like device to launch next February that will feature an oversized screen plus WiFi capability. The Google mobile phone could be marketed below $100, and potentially even be free, supported by advertising. (http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article3058810.ece 10/14)
Nokia announced today that it had started shipping its newest N95 mobile phone. The N95 8GB features 8 gigabytes of memory, a 5 megapixel camera, extended battery life and an integrated GPS chip. (The Boston Globe/Reuters 10/15)
Nokia N95
The Weather Channel Interactive launched an application for the iPhone and iPod touch to deliver current conditions, hourly and 10-day weather forecasts. Created by The Weather Channel Mobile, the app maps in a fully interactive environment and offers functionality like sliding pages and “fade ins.” Look for it on weather.com or Apple’s new web applications page.
This highlights a popular point of resistance between Apple and iPhone users and developers regarding an open source (SDK) application environment. Installed on every iPhone, one will find a Yahoo! weather application located on the home screen of the iPhone. This particular application has been programmed into the phones rather than accessed through Safari. If I have an application accessible through my home screen, why would I take the time to navigate through Safari? What is this SDK you speak of? Simply, SDK stands for Software Developer’s kit. In other words, this kit gives developers the information they need (set of programming instructions, points of access and guidelines) for programming applications to operate within the phone’s hardware.
Filed under: GAMING
The delayed release of “Grand Theft Auto IV” could help drive holiday profits for both Activision and Electronic Arts, both of which have new releases scheduled for the market. “I expect Activision will benefit significantly this holiday [and] shares could climb higher,” said Janco Partners analyst Mike Hickey. (New York Post 10/14)
