Soccer clubs and mortgages: How a media mogul spends $10 million
Unlike many of us, media executives know what it’s like to play around with large wads of cash. So it seemed natural to ask them about what kind of investment opportunities they’re seeing when they gathered in New York this week for the Reuters Global Media Summit.
We gave each media honcho $10 million in hypothetical cash and told them to put the money to work without buying stock in their own companies.
Some executives plowed the money into broad sectors and regions, like emerging markets, while others zeroed in on specific stocks, like Electronic Arts’ CEO John Riccitiello’s penchant for software maker Adobe.
Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said he already owns shares of privately-held Facebook, the Internet social network on which many of Zynga’s video games are designed to be played on, and that he’d buy more on the secondary markets (OK, so he creatively sidestepped the rule against investing in his own company).
And some media moguls seemed to have investment strategies driven by goals other than maximizing returns:
“I would put it in US-based international equities. I mean, if you said….If you forced me to invest a dollar.”
(Reuters: You can put it in your pillow if you want.) That’s what I’ve been doing. Unfortunately, the pillow was unsleepable
from Summit Notebook:
EPIX CEO: Kids are media omnivores, industry must adapt
Remember when the "good" TV in the house only received 7 or 8 channels?
Most young people today cannot, and in many ways they could not care less. Even more, they probably think that it is just as odd that we "old folks" don't understand their ability juggle multiple devices and inputs. Therein lies a critical challenge for broadcasters using old media models to reach younger audiences, Mark Greenberg, president of cable channel EPIX said speaking at the Reuters Global Media Summit.
Hey, even Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney/ABC Television Group, had to force her college-bound kid to take an actual TV to school.
Greenberg's EPIX offers a "screening room" service that allows subscribers to order a movie on EPIX's web site and share it with friends who are watching at the same time in other locations. In the meantime you can chat with each other about the film -- that's "chat", like, commenting about the star's clothing by typing "I want to buy those shoes" into a little box, not "chat" as in "dude, pass the nachos."
Greenberg explains that that is the world young folks, like his teenage son, live in:
I look at my 17 year old -- we tease him and refer to his bedroom as "the hole", because he has got his big screen TV, it is hooked up to a DVR, he's got his other TV set set up to his Xbox, his got laptop and his cell phone and he doing his homework. and by the way -- he's a great student, so i can't complain.
But this generation multitasks in a totally different way and what we have to do as programmers is start thinking about how we are making content available on their terms and not my terms.
That's the mistake the music industry made. They said you have to listen to a CD and spend $14.99, and you have to go to HMV to buy it. This generation, for better for worse, this group has a different behavior. If we want to build this, this is where we need to go. This is the way the world is now evolving.
Epix nears launch date — more distribution deals coming?
Suddenly, after limited news over the past year, Epix has been very much the talk of the town in recent days. A number of publications, including Reuters, have picked up on some announcements out of the pay TV site jointly owned by Paramount, Lions Gate, and MGM.
The key bit of news, of course, was the announcement that it had reached its first distribution deal, with Verizon. Chief Executive Mark Greenberg suggested to us that other deals should be coming soon — that he is talking to everybody and “some are further along than others.”
This is key, in the eyes of Wall Street. Distribution deals are always a bit tricky, and even tougher in the current economic environment. But analysts want to see Epix sign a deal with one of the big players — one with a ton of subscribers. We’re talking about Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, DirecTV. So far the reaction has been a little lukewarm from some of the big boys but that could just be a negotiating tactic.
That aside, there have been some other relatively significant bit of news. In case you missed…
- Epix will be launching in October, though hasn’t announced an official date. Sounds like they could be planning some sort of “event” or “special” to kickstart the channel
- The epixHD.com web site, which we’ve seen, is going to launch earlier. It’s currently in beta, and looks good. Has some of the feel of Hulu.com
- Epix, which will be home to some 15,000 films, including titles like “Iron Man” and “Star Trek” and the James Bond movies, just signed a content deal with independently owned Samuel Goldwyn Films.
Sumner Redstone cool with Dauman; theaters hot with buyers
As we previously noted in MediaFile the main takeway from Viacom’s earnings call was that advertising is awful, but it’s not getting worse. But there were a few other highlights, too, so here’s a time-saving rundown:
Sumner Redstone is still a gigantic fan of Philippe Dauman. Even after 12-months in which Viacom’s stock price has dropped 50 percent, Redstone introduced Dauman as “my great friend” and “the greatest CEO of all” while crediting him “capable and insightful leadership.”
National Amusement’s movie theaters are a hot ticket. Redstone said the sale of theaters in the United Kingdom and United States has attracted “substantial preliminary interest” from buyers. “”We are very encouraged by both the number of interested bidders and particularly the prices being discussed.”
Dauman isn’t sweating Epix. Asked what happens to the bottom line, worst case, if the movie network isn’t launched on the terms that Viacom wants, Dauman responded that, “There is not a worst case here. We are quite engaged in discussions. You will see the affiliate agreements being announced as we get closer to launch. So we are in good shape and furthermore, in addition to covering the movie costs on the Paramount side, we are creating a great new asset for Viacom and as well as our partners.
(Photo: Reuters)
New York Times — Profit sliding, Red Sox stake up for sale
The New York Times confirmed this morning that it’s looking to get rid of its stake in the Boston Red Sox baseball team, something previously reported by a number of news outlets.
The Times could raise at least $200 million selling its stake, analysts have said, though it should be noted that selling anything these days — even part of a first class baseball organization — is no easy task.
Check back to MediaFile for more on the sale shortly.
Meanwhile, here’s a recap of the New York Times decline in quarterly results:
The Times’ fourth-quarter net income fell 48 percent to $27.6 million, or 19 cents a share, compared with $53 million, or 37 cents a share, in the quarter a year earlier.
Excluding a writedown related to the International Herald Tribune, its European newspaper, the Times reported earnings of 26 cents a share. The average analyst estimate was 27 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.
Revenue fell 10.8 percent to $772.1 million, beating the average Wall Street forecast of $761.1 million.
In the fourth quarter, advertising revenue fell 17.6 percent. Ad revenue at the news media group — which includes its namesake newspaper, The Boston Globe and other local papers throughout the United States — fell 18.4 percent.
Online revenue, including About and its newspaper websites, fell 2.9 percent to $92.5 million.
