Disney’s acquisition of Marvel appears to be strategically logical – leveraging Marvel’s comic-book/superhero content across Disney’s global platform and providing Disney a critical toe hold in the young boy and teenage boy demo, where Disney’s efforts have been less successful of late. While we do not doubt the acquisition will ultimately prove successful, it appears…
After announcing the April ’09 launch of a Chicago-specific sports website, ESPNChicago.com, ESPN has announced plans (Click here for Multichannel News story) for its second local site, ESPNBoston.com, which is scheduled to go live on 9/14/09. Click here to see current, pre-relaunch ESPNBoston.com site which is “under construction.”
While we have no doubt that consumers will return to the Disney parks over time, we are increasingly concerned about the impact the downturn of the past year will have on the parks in Disney’s fiscal (Sept) 2010. We are particularly worried that Disney’s deep discounting (7 for 4 from January to mid-August) pulled forward…
Despite essentially flat revenues in first half 2009 (due to the economy’s impact on ad revenues and significant foreign currency headwinds), Discovery has grown EBITDA by 11% as it leveraged its programming globally, as well as utilizing its significant content library to drive margins. While we expect 2H 2009 growth to slow as Discovery loses…
[Updated] Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, appeared on ABC’s The View back in March (click here to watch The View segment that re-aired on ABC yesterday; Iger is the third segment) announcing the launch of D23, Disney’s official fan club with Disney now preparing for its first-ever D23 convention in Anaheim, California next month. D23 is a…
Since our last estimate revision on July 8th, Disney shares have risen 20% compared to the 16% increase in the S&P 500 over that time frame (with virtually every major media company also outperforming: CBS up 88%, NWSA up 36% and both TWX and VIA/B up 24%). Click here for full report
While the “Live at Five” branding of WNBC NY’s 5 pm local broadcast TV newscast disappeared almost two years ago (having been on the air for 28 years), WNBC has continued a traditional newscast at 5 pm, currently called 4 NY News at 5, with Sue Simmons still in the anchor booth (Simmons joined the…
We believe that Sprint has sold about 70,000 Palm Pre’s since our last estimate of Pre sales on August 7th. While we have not evaluated the weekly data, this indicates that Pre sales are holding in at the mid 20,000 range per week. Advertising for the product has increased with a more direct attack on…
Paramount (owned by Viacom) this evening announced (click here) that it reached a distribution agreement with Redbox (owned by Coinstar). Redbox has now signed agreements directly with Sony, Lionsgate and Paramount and an indirect deal (via its distributors) with Disney. On the other side of the battlefield, are Universal (NBCU/GE), Fox (NWSA) and Warner Bros…
While investors are hopeful of a broad recovery in local advertising over the next 12 months, technology continues to disintermediate legacy local media businesses. While everyone is familiar with Craigslist, which has decimated classified advertising (will be adding 87 more cities in the US shortly, per the NY Times), movie listings are also beginning to…
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