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Posted
Sep 22 2009, 04:02 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
DVD sales are flagging and rentals are up -- news 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 really crush studio DVD sales.
Revenue for online stores was up 21% for the period to $968 million. At that rate of growth and the drop in DVD sales, Apple and Amazon have become essential to studio revenue and a real danger to premium DVD profits.
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Posted
Jul 06 2009, 03:59 PM
by
Tobin Smith
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Back in the '70s and '80s, baby boomers were at the forefront of a new wave of consumer demand. They were also the early adopters of new media technologies. Their TV viewing habits, purchasing habits, likes and dislikes were tracked intensely by the corporate world to help them determine which products, services and technologies were wanted most.
But fast forward a few decades to the 21st century -- are baby boomers still at the forefront of today's media technology?
Given the radical changes in media, particularly over the last decade, including the ubiquitous use of the Internet, social networking services and now even video content delivery over the Web, you wouldn't think baby boomers would be leading the charge forward.
Well, think again. A recent ChangeWave Alliance survey points to a powerful shift occurring among baby boomers from traditional TV to new types of online entertainment.
But what, if anything, are media companies doing to keep up with changing demand? As it turns out, they're doing plenty. And it could mean a boom for the biggest media firms out there.
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Posted
Apr 20 2009, 09:15 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Finish downloading that song and check your e-mail one last time: The Internet can't handle all this traffic, and it's going to die!
Cable and internet providers have been selling us that line for a few years now -- ever since high-speed connections sprang up throughout the country. But these doomsday warnings hit a fever pitch when free online video sites like YouTube (GOOG) and Hulu began competing with network TV programming. As viewership drops, traditional media companies have to supplement lost revenue via other means.
Their inevitable solution: Make heavy Internet users pay through the nose for the privilege.
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Posted
Jul 21 2008, 11:30 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
As social mood continues to transition from peak optimism to an increasingly negative state, why wouldn't we see a new anti-hero smash all box office records? Batman: The Dark Night, Warner Brothers' sequel to the first instalment in a revamped and darker Batman series sold $155.3 million in tickets opening weekend, a new record for the biggest three-day box office take.
The original Batman, as this darker version is billed, finds its origin at the very tail end of the Great Depression... naturally. The character first appeared in Detective Comics in May 1939.
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Posted
Jan 08 2009, 02:53 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Just how important is India's economy becoming? Important enough to generate a financial scandal that pushes Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme off the home pages of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. Both report on Ramalinga Raju, head of Satyam Computer Services—one of India's most important outsourcing companies—who resigned yesterday after admitting he cooked the books, including maintaining a fictitious cash balance of more than $1 billion. "It was like riding a tiger, not knowing how to get off without being eaten," said Raju with a candor that would cause U.S. corporate defense lawyers to have a breakdown. Satyam runs back-office operations for one-third of the Fortune 500, handling computer systems and customer service for companies such as General Electric, Nestlé, and Cisco, and the U.S. government. Both newspapers note that Raju's indiscretions have cast a pall over other high-flying Indian companies and are "prompting investors to question other corporate results as the once-hot economy slows."
Which brings us back to that bastion of stability and integrity—the U.S. economy. CNN Money has the lowdown on a bad day on Wall Street, in which investors pulled back from six-week sustained rally on grim news from Alcoa and Intel (more on that below). The Dow Jones industrial average lost 245 points (2.7 percent), Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 3 percent, and the Nasdaq composite was down 3.2 percent. And you can bet there's more bad news to come today when the nation's retail chain stores report December sales figures. The results are expected to be "pretty dismal," says CNN Money. That explains part of the pain for
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Posted
Feb 20 2009, 02:14 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
DVD sales are slowing down, and that's got Hollywood pretty nervous. People have filled out their home video libraries, reports The Wrap. That's one of the reasons that DVD rentals and sales dropped to $21.6 billion last year from a peak of $24.1 billion in 2006. The entertainment industry was hoping that high-definition discs would pick up the slack, but folks aren't rushing to buy a $25 Blu-ray movie in this economy. And who can blame those who sunk money into the now-failed HD-DVD format for laying low for a while? DVD sales woes are hurting the bottom line at companies like Viacom (VIA), which saw home entertainment
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Posted
Feb 05 2009, 03:15 AM
by
Bernhard Warner and Matthew Yeomans
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
This post comes from partner site The Big Money.
Fat cats, you've been warned. From here on in, pay packages for the executives of those stricken firms on taxpayer support must show "common sense," President Barack Obama chided yesterday from the White House. The Obama administration is calling for a $500,000 cap on executive pay, and for restrictions on "golden parachute" payouts and when stock incentives can be cashed in (now, who would be foolish enough to do such a thing these days?) until the government assistance is repaid. The limits run deep. As the New York Times reports, even "luxury perquisites like private jets and country club memberships" are to be scrutinized. The Wall Street Journal calls it "the most aggressive assault on executive pay by federal officials," one that shows Washington is determined to take greater control of the companies it bails out.
The moves are not retroactive, the WSJ points out, sparing, for now, the John Thains of the world.
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Posted
Apr 01 2009, 03:59 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The business of having online sites with content created by amateurs to be viewed by other amateurs never had a reasonable chance of making money. The fact that Facebook once had a $15 billion valuation, and that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS) bought MySpace, and that Google (GOOG) bought YouTube only proves the “greater fool” theory.
YouTube was started in 2005 and MySpace in 2003. Normally, having a social network where people go to share profiles of themselves, write blogs and submit videos would not seem like much of a business. But MySpace has well over 100 million users. People viewed over 5 billion videos at YouTube last month.
Investors assumed that any medium with such a large number of users had to become a huge business. Millions and millions of users must be worth something. They can’t be worth nothing. That couldn’t be possible.
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Posted
Jul 06 2009, 01:21 PM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
It's not likely that Michael Jackson's estate will be settled any time soon. Given conflicts among his family, his lawyers, and children of unclear parentage, Jackson's property should finally be divvied up around the time "Off the Wall" enters the public domain.
But as those closest to Jackson attempt to sift through red tape almost as lasting as his fame, the pop star's death has sent ripples through Hollywood's ailing economy and has given it a much needed boost -- no matter how morbid or undignified.
Rather than a time of mourning and reverence, event planners are pushing for happiness and celebration: They're organizing events at which consumers might not mind dishing out $9 for a bottle of water emblazoned with a glittery glove, and where $50 to have your picture taken next to a cardboard cutout of MJ will seem like a good deal. You know -- the sort of magical moments when a huge crowd remembers a person's life by wanting to buy a part of it.
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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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