Despite the benefit of a solid upfront, we are now assuming that the weakness in scatter ad market and the expansion of the advertising slowdown to Viacom’s cable networks outside the US, will result in Q4 2008 advertising being essentially in-line with Q3 (down about 2% globally). We are also taking a more conservative view…
Wireless usage data provided by Cofetel, the Mexican regulator, could be a red flag about lower than expected usage for America Movil in Mexico in Q3. We believe investors are looking for America Movil’s usage in Mexico to rise in Q3 as a result of the elasticity from price cuts and promotions earlier in the…
During our investigation of National Amusements’ debt situation last week, we were pointed to an article that ran in Boston Magazine in 2000. While sources close to Sumner Redstone firmly deny his divorce was linked to National Amusements’ current debt situation (with the actual culprit being NAI’s theater buildouts, MWY purchases and buying out a…
China Mobile showed no improvement in ARPU in its third quarter results which led to EBITDA that was lower than we expected. For the past two quarters we have incorrectly estimated that China Mobile would rebound from the fall off in ARPU it posted in the first quarter but usage has continued to slow. Q3…
While we do not have any experience predicting the success/failure of Broadway musicals, we believe initial Shrek the Musical ticket sales (previews begin November 8th and it opens December 14th) appear to be positive. While ticket agents indicated it was too early to judge success, as the holiday-selling season has yet to begin, we are…
Nearly 70% of CBS’s revenue is derived from advertising, with the vast majority of that ad revenue coming from local advertising. As the outlook for the US economy deteriorates, we believe consensus expectations for 2009 are unrealistic, even after the dramatic guidance reduction CBS made 10 days ago (led to 2009 consensus falling from $1.87…
China Unicom’s GSM net additions appear to be back on track following several months of lower than expected results that were likely impacted by the distraction of the breakup of Unicom and the sale of the CDMA business to China Telecom. The CDMA business that was sold to China Telecom was horrific. Excluding the CDMA business,…
Our blog post on Viacom and National Amusements (NAI) from earlier today (click here), has sparked even more “off-the-record” phone calls from sources close to Viacom/CBS and NAI. What continues to amaze us is why NAI does not go on the record with its full financial position, given its importance to VIA’B and CBS shareholders.…
While we are increasingly frustrated with National Amusements’ (NAI) lack of public disclosure (particularly given the overlap of three board members with Viacom), we now have a far greater understanding of what happened to NAI and Sumner Redstone last Friday. We believe a net debt/asset covenant on one or more of NAI’s debt obligations was…
Anatel released wireless market share data for September that revealed a very weak month for Oi (Telemar) which was primary capitalized on by America Movil. We note that Market share of net additions can vary significantly from month to month based on promotions in the market. Total industry net additions of 2.4 million in September…
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