Currency
B&C Business Editor Jon Lafayette covers the financial dimension of the TV business at the intersection of Wall Street and Madison Ave.
Dick Ebersol: Super for the Last Time?
In the New York Giants’ locker room after the Super Bowl, a familiar figure wearing a blue down vest was congratulating people from the winning team including Ann Mara, widow of late Giant’s owner Wellington Mara. For former NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol, it was the end of what might have been his last season on the road producing NFL games. And probably his final Super Bowl. And ...... Read More
Comments (0)Early Upfront Forecast: 8% Price Hike on Flat Sales
How’s an 8% price increase in this year’s upfront grab you? That’s the early prediction by Brian Wieser, the former Magna Global forecaster who’s now an analyst for Pivotal Research Group. The 8%–or high single digit–increase would be much smaller than last year’s double digit gains but bigger than some other predictions. And while an increase of th ...... Read More
Comments (0)Super Game Big for NBC Sports' Lazarus
The Super Bowl is a big event for all of NBCUniversal according to Mark Lazarus, who was named chairman of the NBC Sports Group last year. “It’s a good experience for us to rally around an event,” says Lazarus, who arrived in Indianapolis Monday looking to put an exclamation point at the end of his first NFL season at NBC. Lazarus noted that NBC’s Golf Channel is taping ...... Read More
Comments (0)Campaign Cash Flows Local, Helping CBS, News Corp.
As the Republican primaries heat up, it is pretty easy to pick out the winners — at least as far as media stocks are concerned. With the vast majority of campaign dollars flowing through local TV, the entertainment conglomerates with the most to gain are CBS, which generates the largest share of its revenues from local broadcast, according to analyst Anthony DiClemente of Barclays Capital, ...... Read More
Comments (0)While Football Scores, Other Programmers Get Sacked
The big ratings numbers that football has been pulling in leading up to the Super Bowl leads to the conclusion that the networks that completed those billion dollar passes to the NFL are winners. But who are the losers? Analyst Anthony DiClemente of Barclays Capital expects MSOs to agree to pay higher affiliate fees to sports programmers. Which means that “we believe the non-sports programm ...... Read More
Comments (0)Analyst Says TV Everywhere Means Money Everywhere
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes’ campaign to get the television industry to adopt TV Everywhere might be paying off. In a new report, Laura Martin, analyst at Needham & Co., estimates that over the next 3-5 years, TV Everywhere could add about $12 billion of revenue annually to the U.S. TV ecosystem, which currently generates $165 billion — $85 billion in subscription revenue and ano ...... Read More
Comments (0)Analyst Downgrades Scripps Nets, MSG
With earnings season on the horizon, analyst David Joyce of Miller Tabak + Co. has downgraded stock in two media companies, Scripps Networks Interactive and Madison Square Garden. Joyce says that Scripps is already near its short term target price and noted that it appears that Food Network had managed to renew carriage deals representing about 25% of its subscribers at the end of 2011 at acceptab ...... Read More
Comments (0)Ad Dollars Shrink in Fourth Quarter
Over the past few weeks, media executives have noted that the ad market slowed down during the fourth quarter. Many media companies had been racking up quarters of double-digit ad sales growth despite a weak overall economy. So how slow did it get? Analyst Anthony DiClemente of Barclays Capital said in a new research report he was lowering his expectations for ad revenue at Viacom’s media n ...... Read More
Comments (0)Analysts Say Disney Did Well in Comcast Deal
Since no one had a gun to anyone’s head, Wall Street analysts believe that the big carriage deal announced Wednesday by Comcast and Walt Disney Co. is a positive one for both companies. The deal is also a healthy sign for the current TV ecosystem. In comprehensive, multiplatform deals like these, cable operators, nervous that video subscriber counts may fall, are able ensure that they have ...... Read More
Comments (0)Rutledge Departure Puts Dent in Dolans' Stock Price
How important was COO Tom Rutledge to Cablevision Systems? Very, according to investors. After Cablevision’s surprising announcement Thursday night that Rutledge had resigned, Cablevision stock tumbled 15% to just under $12. Analyst David Joyce of Miller Tabak + Co. quickly downgraded Cablevision stock to Neutral from Buy and lowered his short-term target prices for the shares to $15 f ...... Read More
Comments (0)Now Streaming On Netflix: A Takeover Story?
Netflix, once a threat to remake the entertainment industry, is now being talked about as a takeover candidate. Several reports say that Verizon Communications, which has expressed interest in getting into the streaming video business, is interested in Netflix either as an acquisition or as a strategic partner. A Bloomberg story quotes an investment banker as saying Verizon is “very serious ...... Read More
Comments (0)Analyst: Nick Ratings Cost Viacom $23M in Profits
What’s really behind Viacom’s problems with Nickelodeon? And how much will they cost the company? Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has warned Wall Street that an “inexplicable” drop in Nickelodeon’s ratings will have an impact on the company’s advertising revenues this quarter. Dauman pointed a finger at Nielsen, which has said it’s found nothing wrong wi ...... Read More
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