3D filmmaking has existed for a long-time, with animation increasingly utilizing the medium over the past several years. However, the “chicken and the egg” issue (quality/quantity of 3D movie content with sufficient 3D screens to exhibit on) has been permanently put to bed in our mind, having seen Avatar last night. We can gripe about…
Viacom’s Paramount continues to bolster near-term profitability, announcing yesterday that it was extending its short-term arrangement with Redbox through June 2010 (was set to expire at the end of December 2009), with an option for the deal to extend out until 2014. We expected Paramount to extend their Redbox agreement, as they will still be…
On November 17th, we wrote a blog post (click here) raising the question of how long EMI could remain an independent company. EMI’s situation is growing stranger by the day, with its private equity owners, Terra Firma, now suing Citibank – the investment bank that led its transaction and that continues to hold all the debt associated…
When Tiger Woods underwent knee surgery last year, Golf ratings on broadcast and cable networks typically dropped at least 50% (per Golf magazine, click here) from the levels when Woods was playing in those tournaments the year before. While we have no way of forecasting the length of Wood’s current exit from professional Golf, near-term…
MTV always seems to be at its strongest when its programming is the most shocking or controversial – remember “The Grind,” the early years of its annual Spring Break show, Tila Tequila, or even The Osbournes. Well, MTV may have finally found its next big controversial show, Jersey Shore (full episode #1 embedded below). …
Never say never, hence we assign a 2% chance that DT buys Sprint within the next two years. In fact, we think it’s more likely that DT structures a transaction with the cable companies to use their spectrum to build out a nationwide LTE network in a new joint venture which would provide a healthy…
We downgraded Sprint to Neutral from Buy because we do not think the pace of improvements in subscriber losses is enough to grow EBITDA. Sprint’s stock is not expensive at 5.1x our 2010 EBITDA estimate or a free cash flow yield of 15% but with EBITDA in perpetual decline and capital spending at a low,…
CBS in November 1999, despite three years remaining on its NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament broadcast rights agreement, outbid Disney’s ABC/ESPN and News Corp.’s FOX/Fox Sports to extend its broadcast rights for another 11 years (click here for NY Times story from 12/19/99). CBS’ 1995-2002 NCAA Tournament contract cost $1.73 bn, averaging $216 mm/year. CBS’s 2003-2013 NCAA Tournament contract cost…
During WMG’s just completed fiscal year (ending Sept), constant currency revenues declined about 4% excluding a one-time publishing gain in Q4. While that revenue performance exceeded our expectations of mid-high single digits coming into fiscal 2009, the quarterly trajectory was even more encouraging with: Q1 down 6%, Q2 down 10%, Q3 down 2% and Q4…
While Cablevision had expected to complete the spin-off of Madison Square Garden (MSG) by year-end 2009, we believe the transaction is now likely to be completed by the end of January 2010. We believe management remains firmly committed to the MSG spin, however, the regulatory approval process has taken longer than expected and Cablevision is…
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