Analyst Session Follow-Ups – Block Does "Both Sides Now" – All Broadcasters Fault?
Analyze This: Emulating
Disney more,
Viacom’s
Philippe Dauman says movies will be product drivers with licensed merchandise. ---
Canaccord Genuity’s
Tom Eagan says
News Corp is “positioned for FY13 growth” but drops his Q4/12 estimate a bit ... the overhang of M&A plus phone hacking has the company trading “at the bottom of its peer group.” Still, strong global franchises make his share target of $25 reachable. (More on phone hacking below.) --- At the
Bernstein conference,
Discovery’s
David Zaslav “reiterated its optimism in
OWN.” Interesting note was that SVOD contracts have “ratings degradation” outs. --- Also at Bernstein,
TiVo’s
Tom Rogers said he, “believes operators missed an opportunity to offer broadband connected to the television, which would allow customers to get full value from the broadband pipe and speed.” ---
Comcast’s
Brian Roberts told the crowd this morning that
NBCU would be “flat, slightly down” because of
Battleship and other movie missteps. He was surprised by “how steady the cash flow appears to be from the theme parks.”
More detail here from deadline.com’s David Lieberman. ---
AT&T's
Randall Stephenson touted enhanced DSL (?!?) that might enable keeping rural landlines for broadband.
More here from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.In the Courts:
ISI’s
Vijay Jayant highlights a great
DISH quote from SVP
David Shull (from a
WSJ story): "The damage has been done at broadcasters' bequest. They are making plenty of money … Customers shouldn't pay for massive increases in retransmission fees when the content is out there more widely." The quote kind of pertains to more than the hopper and
Aereo, too.
Retrans:
Block, arguing both sides of the retrans issue, yanked stations from
TWC in Louisville, KY this morning while its
Buckeye unit is suing
Raycom and a Toledo station over fees.
Up, Down & Over There: 110 on the way to 500+?
WSJ reports, “Lawyers for both
News Corp. and phone-hacking victims have estimated in court that the media company will ultimately face about 500 civil claims related to illegal voice-mail interception by the now-closed
News of the World tabloid.”
Retail:
Piper Jaffray’s
Gene Munster says the
Apple TV is coming ... and it will – because of Apple’s interface genius, integration of Siri and iTunes with other Apple devices including games and apps – change the business. “The bottom line is that we believe in five years Apple will have a significant hand in changing how people consume content on their TV.”
Kudos: Just another note to congratulate
Elon Musk and
SpaceX for the success of Dragon. --- Mega-kudos for
The History Channel and its terrific
Hatfield & McCoys mini-series. (Those to-be-deleted Emmys should be kept.)
More news in your inbox early Monday in
The Morning BRIDGE.•
