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Posted
Jul 29 2009, 10:58 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Any lingering hopes of a smooth merger between Ticketmaster (TKTM) and Live Nation (LYV) were dashed this week when the head of a Senate antitrust subcommittee asked the Justice Department to investigate the deal's "serious competition concerns."
It's unclear why the lawmaker, Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl, needed to ask for more scrutiny. The deal has been under review over at Justice since February, The Washington Post reports, and is considered by some to be a barometer of how the Obama administration will come down on antitrust issues. The questions Kohl raises are undoubtedly at the forefront of the DOJ investigation: Will the deal lead to higher prices for consumers? Will it hurt competition in the business? Some experts claim that Ticketmaster controls around 75% of the primary concert ticket market. Live Nation promotes concerts and sells tickets at hundreds of large venues. The merger will end the direct competition between Live Nation and Ticketmaster, Kohl wrote
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Posted
Jul 06 2009, 09:56 AM
by
Catherine Holahan
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 Michael Jackson had plenty of fans among investors. But, many are now discovering that a bet on the global icon's fame and future earning power was a far riskier proposition than they had believed.
The iconic performer's death has reportedly left financial firms such as Colony Capital, Fortress Investment Group and Barclays Bank in creditor's limbo, according to a recent Associated Press article. Jackson reportedly had $331 million in outstanding debts when he died, but had assets totaling more than $567 million.
The financial firms, some of which lent Jackson money on the belief that he could easily pay them back with revenue made from future tours and music sales, are now awaiting the division of his estate. Today, a Los Angeles judge ruled that Jackson's attorney and friend John Branca should oversee the distribution of Jackson's remaining assets.
While some investors are only hoping to be paid back, others are undoubtedly hoping to profit from the singer's death. Assets such as the singer's music catalog and Neverland ranch could be worth far more overtime than their current selling price. The ranch, in particular, is more valuable than the now depressed value of its California land would indicate.
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Posted
Jun 15 2009, 05:18 PM
by
Catherine Holahan
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
 The music has officially stopped playing at
Virgin Megastores. The last of the iconic record shops closed today, June 14. The
New York
Times, present for the last day of business at the chain's landmark store
in Union Square, described the
closing as "particularly dispiriting."
That's putting it mildly. Sure, it's not as
though the demise of Virgin Megastores is surprising. Record stores have long
struggled for relevance in a digital age defined by à la carte downloads and
illegal file-sharing sites. Even the music discovery part of the record store experience
-- long touted by store owners as what would keep people coming into their
shops -- has largely been usurped by ad-supported music blogs and MySpace
pages.
But Virgin Megastores' closing is more than another
example of consumers pushing aside an old distribution model for a newer,
more-immediate one. It is a symbol of the inability of the music industry as a
whole to successfully adapt its business for digital consumers. As such,
Virgin's closing is downright depressing.
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Posted
Apr 29 2009, 12:23 PM
by
Jon Markman
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
The entertainment industry has been hammered by the recent downturn, as consumers have pulled back on buying everything from movie tickets to video games. But Dolby Laboratories has bucked the trend, performing well on all fronts in a mostly stagnant market. DLB shares are up 16% this month, soundly beating the market's 8% advance, and are gunning for more.
Even if you don't recognize the name, you've no doubt seen Dolby's logo blaring at you at the start of a film. It's best known for surround-sound work, especially in theaters, but has branched out to providing its technology to video games, digital TV and mobile phones. Audiophiles know their tech is the industry standard.
Let's take its three-dimensional film technology first. The latest in a recent line of 3D films was released in March, DreamWorks' "Monsters vs. Aliens." With a strong debut at $58 million and a total of $318 million in receipts so far, the format is catching on fast. Reviewers and critics hailed the technology's ability to freshen up the theater experience. DLB got a chance to rake in profits of its own with Walt Disney's "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience."
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Posted
Apr 07 2009, 11:52 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Songs on iTunes are no longer a flat 99 cents each. Apple (AAPL) has rolled out its tiered-pricing structure, selling songs for 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. Engadget finds that most of the top 10 singles are at the top price range, while Amazon (AMZN) sells many of the same ones for only 99 cents. For a while at least, that gives Amazon a slight edge against Apple. New research shows that Amazon has been slowly gaining on the industry giant, though it's still the underdog. About 87% of people buying digital music in the U.S. used Apple last year, while 16% bought from Amazon (some used both stores). Surely Apple can't be happy that Amazon is selling the same songs for cheaper. It's safe to assume that Amazon will be getting some pressure to up its prices as well.
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Posted
Sep 09 2008, 08:42 AM
by
Minyanville
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Today's the big day -- and no, I'm not talking about Tom Wopat's 57th birthday.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs will unveil some shiny new products in just a few hours and -- though Apple's press events are usually shrouded in secrecy -- Jobs has tipped his hand. Ads for the "Let's Rock" convention contain a modified iPod display, which implies development on the digital music front
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Posted
Mar 19 2008, 08:02 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
After pooh-poohing music subscription services for years, Apple is talking to labels about that very idea, according to the Financial Times. It's about time. Apple could really energize iPod sales this way. But here's the twist: instead of the regular pay-every-month scenario, the fee would be bundled up front into the price of an iPod or iPhone.
In other words, if you pay more when you buy the iPod, you could get free access to all the music on iTunes for the life of the device. Executives talking to the FT said research has shown that people will pay up to $100 for that, or they would be willing to pay a $7 to $8 monthly fee for a music subscription.
Nokia has a similar deal in place for devices it's developing, and reportedly will pay music labels $80 for every device sold. Apple, in its typical drive-the-labels-nuts fashion, has only offered to pay about $20, according to the FT. Nokia is being hit hard with the news today; its shares have fallen nearly 8% this morning to $30.17. Apple shares are down less than 1% to $132.04, and shares in RealNetworks, which owns the competing Rhapsody music subscription service, are down nearly 2%. Napster shares are down 3%.
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Posted
Feb 27 2008, 06:53 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Apple's iTunes store has surpassed Best Buy to become the #2 music retailer in the country, second only to Wal-Mart in sales. And an analyst from the NPD Group, which tracks these sorts of things, said that Apple is on track to catch Wal-Mart this year. Apple shares dipped less than a percentage point yesterday to close at $119.15. Best Buy shares rose 3% to $46.50, and Wal-Mart shares rose 2% to $51.40.
This news says much about the way we consume music. NPD notes that 1 million people stopped buying CDs last year, a trend most apparent in young people. In 2007, 48% of teens didn't buy a single CD -- up from 38% in 2006. So retailers like Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target -- who mainly sell physical CDs -- are going to see music sales slide. But what does the news say about Apple? Is the rise to No. 2 a result of its own sales savvy, or is iTunes the lucky beneficiary of the CD's decline? A closer look at the numbers sheds a little more light.
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Posted
Oct 22 2007, 03:49 PM
by
Jon Markman
Rating:
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Apple reported a huge third-quarter number after the bell today, surprising bulls and panicking bears who have sold the stock short. The Cupertino, Calif., company said it earned $1.01 per share on $6.2 billion in revenue. Consensus expectations were for an 84-cent quarter on $6.06 billion in sales.
How big a surprise was that? As I have explained to readers in the past, the quick and dirty way to figure out the “expected surprise” for a stock is to visit its Earnings Surprise page on MSN Money. There you will see that in the past four quarters, Apple has surprised by 22.7%, 24%, 46%, 38% and 29%. So today’s 20% surprise was on the low end, but good enough for a company with a $150 billion market cap.
Looking forward, Apple executives tried to sandbag analysts with lowball guidance, stating that they expected to earn $1.42 in the first quarter -- just a touch better than the $1.40 expectation. The company is really in a sweet spot now because it is getting a premium price for its personal computers, MP3 players and phones at a time when all of its competitors are discounting like crazy, and at the same time it is benefitinig from lower input costs such as flash and hard disk memory.
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Posted
Oct 22 2007, 12:02 PM
by
Robert Walberg
Money Blog: Top Stocks Blog - MSN Money
Howard Stern couldn't do it. Neither could NASCAR. Not even the announcement of a merger with rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings (XMSR) back in February could make Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI) an attractive investment. So why on earth has the stock managed to outperform the NASDAQ composite over the past two months by some 22 percentage points?
In a word, timing. Over the next several weeks Sirius should be the beneficiary of several bullish catalysts. First and foremost, shareholders of both XM and Sirius are due to vote on the proposed merger in early November. No doubt the outcome will be positive. What will remain in doubt, however, is whether or not the deal will win government approval. While the experts were originally skeptical of the deal getting done, the growing sentiment on Wall Street is that the DOJ/FCC will end up endorsing the merger before the year is out. For more on this issue, see Congressman Rick Boucher's (D-VA) op-ed piece as posted on the Orbitcast blog.
Sirius is also scheduled to report earnings on October 30th. Even though the street is expecting a quarterly loss of 8 cents per share that compares to a loss of 12 cents per share during the same period last year. Additionally, revenues are projected to jump by 46% year-over-year with net subscriber growth north of 500k. For the year the company expects to have more than 8 million subscribers. Meanwhile the company will inch closer to its goal of being cash flow positive.
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