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Posted
May 27 2008, 11:40 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The New York Times examines why we keep paying for cable, even though prices have risen 77% since 1996. Cable customers generally pay at least $60 a month, but only watch 13% of the channels available. Sounds like a rip off, doesn't it? But people accept the charges and continue to subscribe in growing numbers. The key to cable's success has been bundling channels together instead of letting people pay just for the ones they watch, according to the Times. Cable companies say that unbundling those channels would give lots of cash to the most popular ones while the rest suffer.
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Posted
May 16 2008, 10:56 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
People will pay between $7 and $9 to rent HD movies-on-demand that come out the same day as DVDs, according to consulting firm Oliver Wyman. Right now, movies generally hit DVD first before releasing on-demand. Changing that formula would lead consumers to pay for three more movies a year, the firm said, adding $5 billion to the $50 billion spent on movies annually in the U.S.
Even a $7 rental seems too pricey to me, unless you're talking about some jaw-droppingly amazing movie that absolutely must be watched in high-definition. Despite its slightly outrageous numbers, the report touches on a fact that movie studios have clued into for a while now: video-on-demand is smoking hot, and doesn't deserve its second-tier status.
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Posted
Aug 29 2008, 02:15 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Comcast is rolling out a new policy to keep people from hogging the Internet. And while the new restrictions seem pretty generous, I'm on high alert for what I call the Comcast gotcha. That's the sticker shock that happens when the cheapo trial period ends, and suddenly the bill comes and I'm paying how much for cable and Internet? The new policy goes like this: Starting next month, customers will be limited to 250 gigabytes of downloaded content per month. If someone goes above that limit, their account could be suspended. The good news? It's very tough to hit that limit. Comcast says that people can still download 50 high-definition movies, 250 standard-definition movies or 6,000 songs every month. So most people won't be affected by the new rules. The bad news?
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Posted
Nov 29 2007, 03:01 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Poor TiVo. The company pioneers the DVR business only to watch the market being taken over by cable and satellite. It's hard to sell your DVR to people when Comcast is practically forcing a DVR set-top box into their hands.
Luckily, TiVo is working out some deals that might keep it in business, and some of them were announced this week.
First, NBC agreed to place TiVo "tags" in its commercials, so that viewers can click the TiVo remote during an ad to get more information about the product. And to counter the legendary TiVo ad-skippers, NBC signed up for a TiVo service that measures audience viewing behavior on a second-by-second basis. Basically, the network is going to test advertising campaigns to see which, if any, can hold on to its audience during commercials. Good luck -- that fast forward button is a very good thing indeed.
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Posted
Mar 13 2008, 12:18 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
DirecTV is finally going to offer a video-on-demand service. About time, too. Comcast and other companies are light-years ahead in this area, and on-demand is becoming a required feature for some consumers these days. It's taken DirecTV this long because, as a satellite provider, it broadcasts a one-way signal. The technology doesn't allow for the two-way conversation that an interactive service like on-demand uses. DirecTV is going to work around this using broadband connections and digital video recorder (DVR) technology, according to the WSJ. DirecTV shares are up nearly 1% on the news today to $25.21. The project is expected to launch in the second quarter.
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Posted
Dec 12 2007, 04:13 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
After years of paying Comcast at least $100 a month for cable and Internet, I can't help but cheer AT&T on these days. The company is going after cable in a big way by aggressively expanding its U-verse digital television service. AT&T said yesterday it wants to have signed up 1 million video customers by the end of next year. And by 2010, the company said, the service will be available to 30 million customers.
Getting there isn't cheap: AT&T is planning to spend about $5 billion this year and next to deploy U-verse, which could cut into 2008 earnings by as much as 14 cents a share. It wants to up its weekly installs from 10,000 to 40,000 by next year.
U-verse's TV signal comes over Internet Protocol through broadband, and you don't need a traditional voice line to use it. The service's advantages include fast channel changing, the ability to record four shows at the same time on a DVR, and a picture-in-picture tool that lets you watch one channel and browse another. You can only watch one HD channel at a time, but AT&T said it will change that in the future.
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Posted
Sep 26 2007, 12:44 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Tough week for Vonage, the one-time Internet calling darling that has more courtroom drama than a season of "Law & Order." But I think the company could be an attractive acquisition target.
 Today an appeals court upheld a verdict against Vonage in a patent case involving Verizon. Now the courts will recalculate how much money Vonage should pay (the previous total was $58 million plus 5.5 percent royalties on future sales). Trading was halted briefly on the stock, and its share price fell 26 percent to 96 cents.
This follows yesterday's news that a jury found Vonage guilty of infringing patents owned by Sprint Nextel. Vonage was ordered to pay nearly $70 million, which caused the stock price to plummet 34 percent. Woe to the investors that got in at the company's $17 IPO price
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Posted
Nov 05 2008, 08:03 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The Internet and limits go together like, well, kittens and the guillotine.
Limits on the amount of data subscribers can use each month may soon be a standard feature of Internet usage. In an effort to combat "bandwidth hogs" who use a lot of network capacity, Internet service providers (ISPs) around the country are exploring new restrictions.
AT&T plans to test them in Reno, Nevada; if successful, may extend the practice to other cities. In some cases, about 5% of an ISP's subscribers use about 50% of the network's capacity. Adding bandwidth would be expensive, and most users don't require it
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Posted
Jun 10 2008, 12:48 PM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
You've heard of golden parachutes for executives, but how about golden coffins? Those are the benefits that executives continue to receive after their death. The Wall Street Journal exposes the practice in an article today.
If Comcast CEO Brian Roberts dies in office, for example, he'll still collect a salary and bonus for five years -- which totals more than $60 million. His family would also get $223 million from his life insurance plan. Add to that another $14 million in stock awards and other payments.
I can understand the life insurance and stock payouts to families. But should a CEO continue to collect a salary after death?
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Posted
Feb 20 2008, 08:38 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Verizon has been the ruler of the walk, but that has changed. Yesterday, the shares hit a 52-week low at $35.19.
The large run-up in Verizon's stock last year was based on two things. The first was that its new fiber-to-the-home TV and broadband service was picking up customers from cable companies like Comcast. That sent Comcast shares to multi-year lows. Comcast's latest earnings showed that the impact of Verizon's initiative was less than expected. More recently the phone company said that it could not get HD set-top boxes to many of its new fiber customers. Motorola had fallen behind in making them. All of a sudden, the $23 billion that Verizon put into the fiber project did not look quite so good.
Then the market was hit with news of a cellular price war between Verizon Wireless and AT&T. T-Mobile got in on the action just or fun. Cellular revenue is what has driven Verizon's revenue and operating income over the last several years as it has lost landline business to VoIP.
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