"IAC/InteractiveCorp, operator of the Ask.com search engine, reported a third-quarter loss on costs associated with Chairman Barry Diller's decision to spin off four divisions in August. The net loss was $14.8 million, or 11 cents a share, compared with a profit of $70.5 million, or 47 cents, a year earlier, the company said yesterday in a statement. Revenue climbed 10 percent to $369.3 million, sending the shares up as much as 8.9 percent." [NYP]
"As Twitter has made the leap to the masses, a fundamental, quantitative question has started to percolate among technoscribes: How the hell is Twitter going to make money? Behind that query, though, is another that often goes unasked in today's Silicon Valley: Does Twitter even want to make money in the first place? Or is it all peer pressure?" [The Big Money]
50 Cent, Jay-Z, and Diddy are all names that get thrown around a lot when you're talking about parlaying those rapping dollar$ into a business venture like Sean John or Rocawear. These men made their money off spitting rhymes, then built actual businesses off their street cred, which gave way to personal empires of bling, cars, studios, and women — which they then turn around and write new raps about. Circle of life, folks.
But now there is a new contender for the hip hop artist/mogul title. Someone who took the money he made from his early 90s career and invested it into his own movie company, of all things. And he's white. And it's not Vanilla Ice. CONTINUED »
Master P, ahem, P. Miller, has a new business venture to go along with his name change. The No Limit millionaire has announced plans to launch Better Black Television, a cable network designed to "bring people of color a choice when turning on their television." The family-friendly programming will include health, animation, sitcoms, reality TV, movies, politics, sports, and — just guessing — several poorly-produced, woodenly-acted shows and movies starring P. Miller and Romeo. Take a look at Miller's idea of quality family entertainment here.
You are looking at a Wall Street Journal headline from yesterday's newspaper. What you might not get from the headline is that instead of posting a $8.86 billion loss, Wachovia will post a $9.11 billion loss. Pennies, right? But there's a reason you didn't get a sense of peril — we're talking a $250 million difference — from the headline: the Journal didn't want you to. When Rupert Murdoch launched the Fox Business Network last year, he promised a "more business friendly" (than CNBC) financial network. And having gobbled up the Journal, it appears Murdoch might be spreading that policy to newsprint. Otherwise, this headline might've read the less wordy, less vague, "Wachovia Admits to Even Wider Loss." [Naked Shorts]
Entrepreneur Media is no longer for sale, having found no takers for its $200 million asking price. Perhaps in this economic climate, nobody values a company that publishes a magazine about risking it all. [Folio]
Isn't the multi-culti niche supposed to be the one bright spot in the tsunami that is media revenue? Perhaps not. Since its incorporation in December 2000, PlanetOut — operator of Gay.com, Kleptomaniac.com, and, before selling them off, RSVP Vacations and Out and The Advocate magazines — has lost a total of $99.8 million. In 2007, CEO Karen Magee was paid, in salary and bonuses, a total of $522,600 for helping the company lose only $51.2 million that year. [SF Biz Times]
"Of course, financially it is a bad idea to start a magazine, as most of them fail, but, despite the current sense of doom on the stock markets, it appears now is the best time in years to start a magazine." [Kristine Lowe]
Rafat Ali's excellent PaidContent.org, and its parent company ContentNext, has been purchased by the UK's Guardian News & Media for an estimated $30 million. [PSFK]
The money, which often isn’t as much as one might think, that recording artists make off of their music these days is enough to make the average person very happy, but not quite enough to fund the crazy, extravagant lifestyles that they like to publicly flaunt. Hence, the ubiquitous clothing lines, colognes, footwear lines, and other branding deals. In recent days there have been a flurry of such deals, from high brow to low brow.
Barnes & Noble + Borders = Borders Barn? [BW]
Angry that they're taking so much heat from activist groups for sponsoring the Olympics that's hosted in a Darfur-hating country, big name sponsors are fighting back against orgs like Mia Farrow's Dreams for Darfur.
That outfit issued a report card on 19 Olympics sponsors, awarding sixteen of them Ds or Fs. Giant corporations with billions and market value and shareholders with a tendency to bitch aren't taking it lightly.
Spits Coca-Cola: "For an organization that has not eased the suffering of a single individual on the ground in Darfur to criticize those who are helping thousands every day is more than ironic." Johnson & Johnson adds: "Given the complexities of the tragedy in Darfur, we are disappointed that Dream for Darfur has used such a narrow context by which to evaluate the company’s response." Fires off General Electric: "We commend Dream for Darfur for raising awareness of this tragic situation, however we strongly disagree with the organization’s approach as well as the use of the Olympic Games as a political platform and the assertions made in the report card." And also: CONTINUED »
In order to fend off Microsoft's takeover bid, Yahoo is said to be teaming up with Time Warner's AOL division in a merger. [Reuters]
While Maria Bartiromo was watching the Dow go up and down, and Fox Business recapped the market while throwing back a few pints, the News Corp.-ownedWall Street Journal figured out what to do with its CNBC relationship, and Portfolio watched as staffers fled and gossip radiated, where was everyone calling out financial institutions on their risky lending practices? MediaChannel.org's Danny Schechter would certainly like to know.
Just as the mainstream press is quick to blame things like America's boredom for its plummeting Iraq coverage, they've also tucked away coverage that you're going to lose your home into the "not widely read business sections that focus on the ups and downs of the markets and the way the collapse of these arrangements have affected the fortunes of CEOS and business enterprises, not citizens, consumers and most of all homeowners."
And they were only too happy to do so: Many media outlets prospered financially from ignoring the coming crisis. CONTINUED »
While the XM-Sirius merger is worth either $5 billion or $13 billion, the sale of radio giant Clear Channel to a pair of private equity firms is worth $19.5 billion. Or it would be, if the banks handling the sale don't pull out, as they're threatening to do. If banks like Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley do pull out, Clear Channel, and Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners, are threatening to sue to force them to complete this ridiculously enormous transaction. That mortgage market crumbling is their problem.
Know what was a terrible marketing move for Chrysler? Having DaimlerChrysler's German CEO Dieter Zetsche play "Dr. Z" in its ads. When the ad campaign (which celebrated the merging of American and German engineering) aired, sales and market share plummeted. It was an embarrassment for the agency behind it, BBDO Detroit, who thought it could hone the success of making household names of Dave Thomas, Orville Redenbacher, and even Chrysler's own Lee Iacocca. They couldn't.
And Sprint didn't get the memo.
They've enlisted CEO Dan Hess, who's only been on the job since December, to star in its new TV campaign promoting it's $99.99 unlimited everything service plan. The ad is black-and-white; this tells viewers "the decision to switch to Sprint is obvious."
After the jump, a few of those terrible Dr. Z ads. CONTINUED »
In exchange for creating the best time suck for pot smoking university students, Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy are set to receive a $200 million-plus payday. The duo, who created the video game Rock Band at their company Harmonix, sold their equity to Viacom in October 2006 and pocketed $175 million, in cash, during the sale. Now, with game sale revenues expected to hit $600 million, Viacom is preparing to dole out another nine-figure sum to its creators. [NYP]
Crain's 40 Under 40, a listicle of mostly attractive men and women who have all accomplished more than even your mother had hoped for you, has often been the target of publicists lobbying to get their clients included, because the attention carries potential for new clients, salary raises, and evidence that your publicist is earning her keep.
The roster includes the "first marketing chief at Hispanic media giant Univision Communications," the chief of "one of the most successful record labels at Sony BMG," and the "head of a joint venture between deep-pocketed investors, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide and acclaimed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten." And you thought setting up your 401k was an achievement worth celebrating.
People always talk about the dying newspaper industry, but no one ever does anything about it. Apparently, complaining about job cuts while reading the news free online isn’t enough.
Roy Peter Clark at Poynter claims it is our duty to buy the actual paper:
And now I pose this challenge to you: It is your duty as a journalist and a citizen to read the newspaper—emphasis on paper, not pixels … Until we create some new business models in support of the journalism profession, we've got to support what we have, even as we create and perfect online versions that may one day attract the advertising dollars and other revenues we need to do what we do well.
That’s like being told to floss your teeth for the good of Johnson & Johnson.
We happen to buy the paper several times a week, let’s be real here: A business model that depends on people’s goodwill to pay for something they can get for free has no chance of universal buy-in.
Staring mid-October, The Financial Times' website will be granting "casual readers" complimentary access to its online content. The move will enable would-be viewers to read up to 30 articles per month and give the FT an opportunity to get a leg up on competitors like the Wall Street Journal Online (without pulling a TimesSelect) by becoming a growing online presence.
[The shift] comes as other newspapers are rethinking their efforts to charge users for online content. A surge in online ad spending over the past three years has persuaded many publishers that it is better to increase their Internet audience, in an effort to appeal to advertisers, than to try to squeeze meager revenue from online subscriptions.
Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether Murdoch and the Dow Jones Co. will retaliate in kind, either by offering WSJ readers a similar online premium or by taking over the Financial Times Group (owned by Pearson PLC) in an effort to singlehandedly control every international financial news outlet and, ultimately, the world.
Editorial Director
