Posts related to ‘Old Media’

Sirius XM (SIRI) And CBS (CBS) Pose Greatest Financial Risk Among Media Firms

TVCBS (NYSE:CBS) and Sirius XM (NYSE:SIRI) pose the greatest investment risks among media companies based on a forensic measure of their transparency and the statistical reliability of their financial reporting and governance practices, according to new data from Audit Integrity. The probability for bankruptcy for Sirius is 8.5% and 4.6% for CBS. Both numbers are remarkably low, but still high for major US companies. Audit Integrity’s bankruptcy model achieved 90.9% accuracy in 2008 and 93.8% in 2009.

The safest companies for investors, based on the same measurement are Disney (NYSE:DIS) and  DirecTV (NYSE:DTV). The rest of the firms in the analysis are Time Warner (NYSE:TWX), Viacom (NYSE:VIA), Comcast (NYSE:CMCSA), Cablevision, (NYSE:CVC), GE (NYSE:GE), and Time Warner Cable (NYSE:TWC). Read More »

Posted on: November 12, 2009 – 9:23 pm in Accounting, Media, Old Media, , , , , , , , , ,

Newspapers Cut To Black

newspaperNot too many years ago, one senior newspaper executive said that there was nothing wrong with cutting costs but that, eventually, a company could cut so much that it would disappear up its own arse. The Audit Bureau of Circulations yesterday reported that the average American newspaper lost 10% of its circulation in the six months ending September 30, based on the 379 papers that filed data with the firm. All of the country’s largest newspapers do so. Some of the most well-known newspapers in the industry reduced their circulations much more than 10%. USA Today, the Gannett (NYSE:GCI) flagship, had a drop of over 17% to 1,900,116. The Boston Globe, which is owned by The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT), had a fall of more than 18% to 264,105. Read More »

Posted on: October 27, 2009 – 5:41 am in Internet, Old Media, ,

Apple’s Tablet Computer: The DVD Killer

appleThe music industry never saw the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPod coming. The iPod was an expensive toy when it was introduced in 2001. There was no reason to think it would do well. Digital multimedia players were not part of mainstream consumer electronics. Read More »

Posted on: October 27, 2009 – 5:13 am in Hardware, Media, Old Media, PC Companies, , , , ,

New York Times (NYT) Loses Over 7% Of Circulation, Washington Post (WPO) Down 6%

Daily circulation at the nation’s newspapers dropped 10% for the six months ending September 30 according to industry measurement service Audit Bureau of Circulations.

newspaperIt is not clear whether newspapers are helping themselves by shrinking both the size of the pages they are printed on and the number of daily subscribers that they have. The industry’s theory is that if it charges more for newsstand copies and home delivery that marginal readers will fall away and profit-per-reader will rise.

The only problem with a shrinking reader base is that advertising rates have to come down as well. Fewer readers, and advertisers want a better deal. Read More »

Posted on: October 26, 2009 – 10:37 am in Internet, Media, Old Media, , , ,

Fortune Magazine To Sharply Cut Publishing Frequency

newspaper

First Portfolio, the business magazine launched just two years ago by publishing giant Conde Nast, folded. Then, the largest business magazine in America, BusinessWeek, was sold by its parent company, McGraw-Hill (MHP), to Bloomberg for as little as $3 million plus its subscription liabilities. Now, Fortune, started by Time, Inc. founder Henry Luce, will cut its publishing frequency from 25 times a year to 18 times. According to several media reports, Time, Inc. will also cut several hundred jobs. Time, Inc. is part of media giant Time Warner (TWX).

Like BusinessWeek, Fortune began publishing during The Great Depression in 1930, when it came onto the market bearing the steep price tag of $1 an issue. It was printed on heavy paper and contained a sustained level of expensive photography and illustrations not found in other business magazines. Fortune published monthly until 1978, when it changed it frequency to fortnightly in order to match the publishing schedule of rival Forbes.

Read more…

Posted on: October 23, 2009 – 5:29 am in Old Media, ,

52-Week High Club

CF Industries Holdings Inc (NYSE: CF) rallied over 4% to a yearly high of $95.06 after Agrium Inc. announced that it had extened its offer to acquire CF Industries holding for $40 in cash and a share of Agrium per share of CF Industries Holdings.

Gannett Co. Inc. (NYSE: GCI) hit a yearly high of $14.02 after the company’s earnings beat analyst estimates.

iPCS Inc. (NASDAQ: IPCS) rallied over 30% to a yearly high of $23.95 after Sprint Nextel announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire the company for roughly $831 million, with the shares valued at $24.

Garrett W. McIntyre

Posted on: October 19, 2009 – 4:17 pm in Agriculture, Media, Old Media, Telecom, , , , ,

The New York Times (NYT) Will Keep The Boston Globe

houseThe newspaper industry must be looking up. Recently, Gannett (NYSE:GCI) said its last quarter was better than expected. Today, The New York Times Company (NYSE:NYT) said it would keep The Boston Globe which has been for sale for several months.

The Times said earlier this year that The Globe would loss $85 million in 2009, but was able to get Globe unions to knuckle under and agree to large cuts in staff and compensation. A former publisher of the Globe, Stephen Taylor, and Platinum Equity both submitted bids which a New York Times reporter says were for about $35 million in cash and pension obligations. Read More »

Posted on: October 14, 2009 – 8:26 pm in Old Media, ,

52-Week High Club

Pier 1 Imports Inc. (NYSE: PIR) rallied over 11% to a yearly high of $5.01 after Dow Jones reported that the company had entered into an agreement to sell its St. Charles Ill. distribution center $11 million.

ResMed Inc. (NYSE: RMD) hit a yearly high of $47.90 after analysts at Credit Suisse upgraded the stock.

Bitstream Inc. (NASDAQ: BITS) hit a yearly high of $6.05 after the company announced that K-Touch Mobile Indonesia, a mobile phone maker, had licensed Bitstream’s mobile we brower for distribution.

Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. (NASDAQ: PSUN) rallied over 6% to a yearly high of %6.62 after FBR Capital upgraded the apparel stores industry. 

Sinclair Broadcast Group (NASDAQ: SBGI) rallied over 12% to a yearly high of $4.22 after the company’s subsidiary, Sinclair Television Group, intends to offer roughl $430.00 million in debt which will be used to pas for its cash tenders for its 3% senior covertible notes due in 2027 and 4.875% senior convertable notes due in 2018.

Garrett W. McIntyre

Posted on: October 13, 2009 – 4:33 pm in Healthcare, Old Media, Retail, Technology Companies, Telecom, , , , ,

Comcast Should Buy Viacom, Time Warner, Or Scripps

TVOne of the leading media investing firms in the US, Gabelli & Co. wants cable outfit Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) to stop its pursuit of GE’s (NYSE:GE) NBCU and turn its focus on better run media companies with stronger assets. That would include, in Gabelli’s opinion Viacom (NYSE:VIA), Time Warner (NYSE:TWX),  Scripps Interactive (NYSE:SNI)

Gabelli & Co. analyst Chris Marangi said. “Viacom has everything Comcast wants and none of what it doesn’t want.” Read More »

Posted on: October 9, 2009 – 5:47 am in Cable Companies, Old Media, , , , , ,

Murdoch Wants Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) To Pay

magazinRupert Murdoch wants Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) to pay for the use of content from his News Corp (NYSE:NWS) and all of his major competition. He told an audience at  the World Media Summit in China that “The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content.” If he is successful in his crusade, search engines and online publications like Huffington Post are in for a rough time.

Tom Curley, the head of The Associate Press, echoed Murdoch’s sentiments while speaking at the same gathering. “Crowd-sourcing Web services such as Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook, have become preferred customer destinations for breaking news,” he said. It seems that all of new media is becoming a target or at least a whipping horse for the problems of old media. Read More »

Posted on: October 9, 2009 – 5:16 am in Media, Old Media, ,

The Rise Of The Kindle And The Fall Of Literacy

TVJeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon (NYSE:AMZN), is being praised as the man who has invented the next big and important electronic device. That category includes the Sony (NYSE:SNE) PS2, the Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPod, and the Nintendo Wii. The iPod has sold 200 million units worldwide. That, in the nomenclature of the electronics industry, makes it a once in a generation success, a truly mass market product. Read More »

Posted on: October 8, 2009 – 5:01 am in Consumer Electronics, Media, Old Media, , , , , ,

What Is Time Warner Worth? The 2006 Icahn Break-Up Model Revisited

magazinLazard Freres delivered Carl Icahn a break-up analysis of Time Warner (NYSE:TWX) in late January 2005. Icahn had bought five million shares in the media company and he wanted the board to sell the company’s cable and publishing units. Either move, he reasoned, would decrease Time Warner’s heavy debt load. Read More »

Posted on: October 5, 2009 – 6:46 pm in Internet, Media, Mergers and Buy Outs, Old Media, ,

Bloomberg On Its Way To Becoming Most Powerful Media Firm In US

    magazinBloomberg is, according to several reports, the most likely buyer of the largest business magazine in America. BusinessWeek is being sold by McGraw-Hill (MHP) Bloomberg has the balance sheet and editorial staff to support the publication’s $40 million in losses and probably bring them down sharply.

    Bloomberg today announced that it will set up a joint venture with The Washington Post (WPO). The Post had a news partnership with the LA Times. The 47-year-old deal was killed earlier this week, perhaps because the huge layoffs that the Times have crippled the paper’s ability to produce good stories.

    The new Post deal with Bloomberg will lead to the paper distributing stories on Bloomberg’s terminals and creating a joint online business section. The Post is losing huge amounts of money. Having a rich business partner with substantial news gathering ability could be critical to it keeping its financial pages among the most important in the US. It will also help the Post compete with the rival New York Times (NYT) and Wall Street Journal in covering global business and economic stories.

    Bloomberg is quickly becoming one of the most important media companies in the nation. Its Bloomberg TV operation is beginning to challenge CNBC. It has broadened it programming with shows including the Charlie Rose interview show, underscoring Bloomberg’s aspirations to move beyond business news.

    Bloomberg now has more than 1,500 editors and writers around the world. That puts it makes it almost as large as the Associated Press. There is no reason Bloomberg cannot go head-to-head as a supplier of content to major newspapers, cable and TV companies, and Internet properties.

    Bloomberg’s advantage is that the company is privately held and has revenue of $4 billion from its trading terminal business. The firm is highly profitable according to most analysts. Bloomberg can afford expanding its news operations in a way that no other organization in the world can.

    Bloomberg is quickly becoming one of the most powerful media companies in the US and that status is likely to grow.

    Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 2, 2009 – 5:15 am in Media, Old Media, , ,

DVD Sales Crushed By Rentals, As Apple (AAPL) And Amazon (AMZN) Rise

bearDVD sales are flagging and rentals are up, news which is likely to be unwelcome at the major movie studios. The Digital Entertainment Group announced that in the first half of this year, DVD sales fell almost 14% to $5.4 billion. DVD rental  revenue rose 8% to $3.4 billion.

While kiosk operator RedBox and DVD mailer NetFlix (NFLX) are a large part of the rise in rentals, it is Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) that are really crushing the studio DVD sales. Read More »

Posted on: September 22, 2009 – 6:25 am in Old Media, , , , , , ,

The End To “Free” At The Wall Street Journal

camMonopoly_wideweb__430x325,0It costs money to subscribe to the print edition of The Wall Street Journal. The price is $2.29 a week to be exact. The newspaper also charges for its $1.99  a week for its online edition.

The best no-cost way to get WSJ content has been on handheld devices like the RIM (RIMM) Blackberry devices and Apple (AAPL) iPhones.

Read More »

Posted on: September 15, 2009 – 7:00 pm in Media, Old Media, , ,

BusinessWeek And The Cowardice Of McGraw-Hill (MHP)

magazinBusinessWeek is losing money, over $40 million last year by some accounts, and more if the publication’s corporate overhead is included. There have been questions about whether BusinessWeek is financially viable for some time. McGraw-Hill (MGP) is trying to sell the magazine it launched in 1929 as “The Business Week”. Most analysts would agree that the publication has made McGraw-Hill hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. But, Harold McGraw III, who is the firm’s CEO due to his membership in the firm’s founding family, knows that his shareholders don’t want to be in money-losing operations, so BusinessWeek is for sale. Read More »

Posted on: September 14, 2009 – 4:46 am in Media, Old Media, , , ,

Fox Business Lasts Less Than Two Years

TVMSBNC, operated by the NBCU division of GE (GE) and CBS (CBS) made the mistake of throwing Don Imus off the air in April 2007. He made intemperate and distasteful comments about black women basketball players at Rutgers. It is what the old fool has been doing for years. It is hard to imagine why the two media companies expected more from him.

Imus staged a comeback by moving to WABC in New York and onto RFD TV. RFD never had any audience, so it was only a matter of time before Imus found another TV network to simulcast his radio show which runs weekday mornings during drive time and ends at 10 AM.

Fox Business, launched in October 2007 by News Corp (NWS), was never able to get any significant audience, so, after less than two years one the air, it is throwing in the towel on business programming during its most important part of the day, from 6AM to 9AM. According to The New York Times, “the Fox Business Network said Thursday that it would simulcast the “Imus in the Morning” radio show starting on Oct. 5.”

Fox Business will continue to run financial programming during the rest of the day, but having surrendered the core of its schedule, the channel is dead as a competitor to CNBC and Bloomberg TV.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 3, 2009 – 1:23 pm in Old Media, , ,

Wasting News On The Evening News

TVMost of the news yesterday was dominated by the news that Charles Gibson would leave as anchor of the ABC Evening News and be replaced by Diane Sawyer. Since almost no one under 60-years-old watches the news in the early evening which makes the programs unattractive to advertisers, the news about the ABC Evening News does not mean much. Read More »

Posted on: September 3, 2009 – 5:42 am in Old Media, ,

24/7 Wall St. TV: Reader’s Digest Goes To Hospice

24/7 WallSt TVThe US business of Readers Digest is going into Chapter 11. The immediate cause is the company’s need to restructure $1.6 billion in debt and to move ownership of the company to its lenders. The story is more complex than that. Two-and-half years ago, private equity firm, Rpplewood, led a buyout of Reader’s Digest for $2.6 billion. The problem at this stage is that Reader’s Digest does not make money. Read More »

Posted on: August 18, 2009 – 2:39 pm in Old Media, TV

Reader’s Digest Goes Into Hospice

magazinThe US business of Readers Digest is going into Chapter 11. The immediate cause is the company’s need to restructure $1.6 billion in debt and to move ownership of the company to its lenders. The story is more complex than that. Two-and-half years ago, private equity firm, Rpplewood, led a buyout of Reader’s Digest for $2.6 billion. The problem at this stage is that Reader’s Digest does not make money. Ripplewood probably projected increasing profits when it closed the deal. Instead, the magazine publishing and direct marketing firm has run into the same trouble that newspaper groups like McClatchy (MNI) have:  too much debt against no profit. Read More »

Posted on: August 18, 2009 – 4:53 am in Internet, Old Media,