Here are some of the day’s stories on the media industry:

Movie studios try to harness “Twitter effect” (Reuters)
“Audiences are voicing snap judgments on movies faster and to more people than ever before on Twitter, and their ability to create a box office hit or a flop is forcing major studios to revamp marketing campaigns. The stakes are especially high this summer season when big budget movies like “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” which opened on Wednesday, play to a core audience of young, plugged-in moviegoers,” writes Alex Dobuzinskis.

Sun-Times chief optimistic about sale of company (Chicago Tribune)
But, Michael Oneal writes: “In a court filing last week, creditors in the Sun-Times’ bankruptcy case raised concerns about the sale efforts, noting that the company has “limited time” before it “can no longer sustain the losses being incurred from operations.” They warned that unless a buyer is found soon, “time could run out, or a buyer could be located that would only pay a fire-sale price.”

Goldman makes peace with blogger in trademark case (Reuters)
“The agreement required blogger Michael Morgan to post a disclaimer on his goldmansachs666.com website, saying it has no affiliation with the financial firm. Morgan, a Florida investment adviser, uses his blog — whose name combines Goldman’s name with numbers used to evoke connotations with the devil — to criticize the bank and its large profits,” writes Martha Graybow.

Reuters Opens its Kimono (CJR)
“Wright, Reuters’s global editor of ethics, innovation, and news standards, brandished the thick stack of paper to drive home the point that “we’ve moved beyond the time when people were carrying around books with style guides.” We’re also apparently beyond the time when all journalism organizations charge people for said style books,” writes Craig Silverman

News about the media industry:

Netflix looks to future but still going strong with DVD rentals (USA Today)
“Netflix CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings doesn’t think his 58 distribution centers are in immediate danger of becoming obsolete, but he knows that day will come. He believes DVD rentals have four to nine years to keep growing, despite inroads in Internet delivery of movies to set-top TV boxes and other video-on-demand options,” writes Jefferson Graham.

Is the bell tolling for Clear Channel? (San Antonio Express-News)
David Hendricks writes: “Analysts believe Clear Channel, now with about $22 billion in total debts, will have trouble making scheduled payments later this year. The company, already down to about 800 stations from its peak of about 1,200 stations, either will have to start selling stations itself or go into bankruptcy, where lenders will put stations up for sale.”

Foes No More, Ad Agencies Unite With Internet Firms (NYT)
Eric Pfanner writes: “With consumers spending more and more time online, analysts say Internet companies and ad agencies have no choice but to work together to develop ways to make money from digital media.”

In other news:

• U.S. gov’t to release $4 bln soon for broadband (Reuters)
• Politico’s Washington Coup (Vanity Fair)
• Average Twitter user has 126 followers, and only 20% of users go via website (Guardian)
• First Came Gizmodo, Then Engadget. Now, GDGT (NYT)

Walt Disney is turning to baseball to hype a 3-D movie about secret-agent guinea pigs.

Walt Disney Pictures has signed a deal with Major League Baseball for undisclosed terms under which the entertainment giant will give away 1 million tickets to the movie “G-Force,” scheduled to open nationwide on July 24, if a grand slam home run is hit at the sport’s All-Star game on July 14.

“G-Force” is a comedy adventure about a covert government program in which guinea pigs are trained to work in espionage. “Armed with the latest high-tech spy equipment, these highly trained guinea pigs discover the fate of the world is in their paws,” says Disney.

Under the program, a grand slam at baseball’s mid-summer classic means a free ticket for the first million people to register at Disney.com between April 22 and July 14, as well as the more than 46,000 fans attending the game in St. Louis.

If no grand slam is hit, no free tickets. In 79 previous MLB All-Star games, the only grand slam was hit in 1983. (Thank you, Fred Lynn).

Most U.S. sports have been hurt by consumer and corporate spending cutbacks in the recession. Major League Baseball officials expect attendance to fall as much as 10 percent this season, but that still translates to more than 70 million people at the games. And companies are still drawn to the sport as recent marketing deals have shown.

The last movie to use the MLB All-Star game to promote its debut was Disney’s “Angels in the Outfield” in 1994.

“G-Force” also will be part of the All-Star voting, appearing on more than 20 million ballots distributed at the 30 MLB ballparks, more than 100 minor league parks, and through in-stadium messages and announcements.

The Jerry Bruckheimer-produced movie stars the voices of Sam Rockwell, Tracy Morgan, Penelope Cruz, Nicolas Cage, Jon Favreau and Steve Buscemi.

Hey, it may be guinea pigs, but check out Bruckheimer’s track record. His credits include such hits as “Flashdance,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Top Gun” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” in theaters, as well as “CSI” and “The Amazing Race” on TV.

Baseball is careful about how it ties into movies, however.

You will see no “G-Force” logos on any bases. In 2004, baseball officials scrapped plans to promote the “Spider-Man 2″ movie on its bases after a major public outcry.

(Photo courtesy of Disney.go.com)

Here’s the thing about Blockbuster: like other cultural icons, its synonymous with its service — renting movies from a local store.

Sure it does other things, rents video games, sells gadgets and point-of-sale popcorn, but most of us hear the name Blockbuster and do a quick mental check — “did I return that rental copy of “To Sleep With Anger”? (Ok, maybe that’s just me.)

But even with the spectre of looming debt, and market talk that bankruptcy might be an option it’s exploring (an idea the company flatly denied), Blockbuster is mapping out a future where Blockbuster = Movies (not so much on the “local store” part).

Its latest step on that path is a partnership that lets TiVo’s subscribers access (later this year) movies and video from Blockbuster on Demand. It joins TiVo’s roster of other video suppliers — Amazon, Jaman, YouTube, CinemaNow and Blockbuster’s archrival Netflix.

Although mentioned quietly as an aside in an Interview, Blockbuster executive Kevin Lewis also reiterated that Blockbuster is “enabling the Apple ecosystems” in its own services, which could someday mean a marriage of sorts between the video provider and the iPhone.

It’s too soon to tell if that is enough to help. But is that enough to withstand the onslaught of video available to a changing demographic that thrives on free video from myriad sources (some illegal). At least shareholders are pleased. The battered stock is up more than 17 percent today.

Then again, blogger Dan Frommer calls the TiVo-Blockbuster deal “insignificant.”

What do you think?

Keep an eye on:

• Houston Chronicle lays off 12 pct of staff. (Houston Chronicle)
• Facebook may tweak its layout… again. (WSJ)
• Google top execs keep $1 paychecks (AP)

(Photo: Reuters)

You’d think nothing could be cuter than a stuffed rabbit that comes to life to cheer up a lonely child. But Verizon Wireless rewarded the promoters of Velveteen Rabbit, the movie, with a not-so-cuddly lawsuit.

A representative for the mobile service said Verizon had nothing against children’s movies but it is taking issue with a Utah-based telemarketing company, which has apparently been calling cellphone users to advertise the movie.

Verizon said it filed a suit in the U.S. District Court in Trenton, New Jersey , alleging that Feature Films For Families Inc illegally used an auto-dialler for LA-based Family 1 Films. The suit says Verizon Wireless customers and employees received nearly 500,000 calls with a scripted promotion for the film over a 10-day period in February.

Is the movie industry so desperate for new viewers that it needs to pester phone users about children’s movies? You’d think that was the preserve of companies who feel the need to tell you what to do if your car warranty is about to expire.

A media representative for Feature Films For Families Inc was not immediately available for comment.

(Photo: from Fandango Web site)

 Netflix Inc <NFLX.O> apparently didn't get the memo: there's a recession on.

The online DVD rental company is aiming for "at least" 12 percent net earnings growth in 2009 and will invest any "surplus profit" -- terms not heard much on Wall Street these days -- in growing its subscriber base and streaming content, Chief Executive Reed Hastings told investors on Monday.

The comments, made amid a storm of bad news from other U.S. media companies, came as the Los Gatos, California company posted a 45 percent rise in quarterly profit that even its own executives weren't expecting.

"Our October forecast of slowing growth turned out to be wrong," Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy admitted on a conference call with analysts. "We continue to see strong momentum in our business, quarter to date."

And then there was this: McCarthy said so many Netflix users are streaming content to their PCs and set-top boxes that they aren't ordering as many DVDs online. This equals fewer costs and more profits if this streaming thing takes off.

The relentlessly cheerful news continued: Netflix is still hiring! It is testing weekend shipping in some markets to speed service! It is within 0.4 percent of the 10 percent improvement it sought in its movie recommendation algorhythm!

On and on: More subscribers are upgrading to more costly plans than are cutting to cheaper plans! Free cash flow and gross subscriber additions hit a new record! "We will reach 10 million subscribers this quarter!" Hastings said.

The company says no data supports the idea that its growth is due to "cocooning" consumers who are trading expensive trips to the movies for DVDs -- so rivals can't even feel the satisfying schadenfraude of knowing that Netflix is profiting from misery.

What's with this company? Don't they know there's a recession on?

Christmas was good to Hollywood.

The top holiday movie, “Marley & Me,” sold an estimated $37 million worth of tickets during the traditional three-day weekend beginning on Friday, and overall Christmas Day sales reached $75 million, up about $10 million from last year.

While that’s good news, particularly during the downturn, it won’t be nearly enough to salvage an otherwise rough year in the movie business, as Reuters points out.

Still, Hollywood is on course for a down year. With three days left, year-to-date sales are off about 1 percent at $9.5 billion, while the number of tickets sold has slid 5.2 percent, Media By Numbers said.

“Bedtime Stories” was No. 2 for the weekend with $28.1 million and its Christmas Day haul of $10.5 million drove its total to $38.6 million, said Walt Disney Pictures. Sandler plays a man whose bedtime stories come true in real life.

“Benjamin Button,” in which Pitt’s character ages backward, did better on Christmas Day with a $12 million opening. Its weekend tally of $27 million took its total to $39 million, said Paramount Pictures.

The adaptation of an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story has racked up five nominations from the Golden Globes and eight from the Critics Choice Awards. Women accounted for 60 percent of the audience and 70 percent of ticket buyers were over the age of 25, Paramount said.

Tom Cruise’s fact-based thriller “Valkyrie,” about a failed plot to kill Adolf Hitler, opened at No. 4 with $21.5 million for the weekend and $30 million for the four days — much better than skeptics had predicted. The United Artists movie has been plagued by bad publicity and shifting release dates.

“We had obstacles to overcome,” said Erik Lomis, head of worldwide distribution at the studio’s closely held Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer parent. “But the movie speaks for itself.”

Keep an eye on:

• A top advertising researcher says U.S. ad spending actually fell in full-year 2007, with bigger drops seen in 2008 and expected in 2009. If true, it would mark the first three-year decline since the Great Depression (AdAge)
• The premiere episode of HBO’s offbeat comedy “Flight of the Conchords” has drawn 250,000 streams in its first 10 days on FunnyOrDie (The Hollywood Reporter)
• Stuart Elliott, of the New York Times, recaps the best and worst of advertising for 2008 (NYTimes)

(Photo: Reuters)

For all of you expecting a slow week at work, and looking forward to killing some time by watching your favorite music videos on YouTube, we have some bad news for you. Warner Music Group ordered YouTube on Saturday to remove all music videos by its artists. So, in other words, you’re not going to find the Red Hot Chili Peppers or T.I. on YouTube today — or at least you shouldn’t.

Essentially, the disagreement boils down to Warner seeking a bigger share of the huge revenue potential of YouTube’s massive visitor traffic. “We simply cannot accept terms that fail to appropriately and fairly compensate recording artists, songwriters, labels and publishers for the value they provide,” Warner said in a statement.

But all is not lost, according to the Wall Street Journal, which writes: “In the wake of Warner’s move, people close to the other major labels said they didn’t anticipate taking down their content in the immediate future. These people say they are discussing new, more lucrative ways to do business with YouTube. The four music companies don’t necessarily have the same terms with YouTube, which could explain the discrepancy in their stances.”

Besides, you can still watch many Warner Music videos on MySpace Music.

But this goes well beyond how we’re going to spend the next few days at the office. It’s part of the broad, ongoing battle between content providers and content distributers. That’s why, even if you don’t care about My Chemical Romance or any other Warner bands, you should be watching how this plays out.

Keep an eye on:

• Jim Carrey’s new comedy “Yes Man” got the nod from moviegoers across North America, but brutal weather in key markets combined with holiday shopping distractions to hit overall ticket sales (Reuters)
• General Motors Corp. may finally be getting its loan from the Federal government, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to resume its former marketing-spending levels (AdAge) 
•  Arthur Spiegelman, one of Reuters’ finest writers and longest-serving correspondents, died at home in Los Angeles on Saturday. He was 68 (Reuters)

(Reuters photo: Vocalist Gerard Way of the rock band My Chemical Romance )

People who talk and text on cell phones are still the number one source of movie theater complaints tracked by Regal Entertainment Group, Chairman and Chief Executive Mike Campbell told the Reuters Media Summit on Wednesday.

Campbell made news at a the 2006 Reuters summit by disclosing that Regal, the largest U.S. theater chain, had armed patrons in a few test theaters with gizmos that summon ushers to deal with problems ranging from rowdy audiences to a freezing auditoriums. Back then, Campbell reported that some patrons were “getting into physical battles in the theaters” over cell phones and that the chain had “had people assaulted with bats, knives and guns” over their electronic umbilical cords.

The program worked so well that Regal has now expanded it to 100 of its highest volume locations, and cell phone talkers and texters seem to be getting the message, Campbell said.

“We have noticed — at least our perception over the last couple of years is — we don’t seem to be having quite as many issues there,” Campbell said. “I think the message that we are trying to get out to customers, both subtle and not so subtle, is beginning to have some impact.”

Regal has used data from the expanded program to track whether a particular disturbance “is mostly a… one-off situation or is there a pattern across the country,” Campbell said.

Still, the most common problems are “cell phone related – texting…and cell phone usage,” Campbell said. “In general, the number one complaint… continues to be some kind of customer disruption.”

(Photo: Director/actor Woody Allen uses his phone, but not in the movie theater. Reuters)

Blockbuster got into the set-top box game right in time for the holiday season with a new digital media player that brings fewer but newer titles from the Web to TV six months after arch rival Netflix launched its $99 Roku set-top box. Netflix followed that launch with similar partnerships with Tivo, Samsung, LG Electronics and Microsoft.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. While the number of people who watch movies or TV via the Web is still small, media and technology executives believe a host of new technologies will make Web to TV a mainstream staple. Vudu already sells a $299 set-top box that lets users download TV shows, while Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PS3 game consoles can also be used to download programming from the Web for TV viewing.

Apple of course is trying to take a bite of the market with its Apple TV device that lets viewers download shows from their computers onto their TVs.

This could save consumers a lot of money– bypassing the need to pay hefty cable fees — and a lot of time when you factor in all the hours spent watching commercials. These devices do require fast Web connections, but market researcher Gartner forecasts there will be 499 milion residential broadband subscribers globally by 2012, up from 323 million at the end of 2007.

Blockbuster said its MediaPoint set-top box, made by broadband device maker 2Wire, allows customers to download high-definition quality movies to their TVs via broadband lines for $1.99 apiece, after an initial $99 for the box and 25 films.

Consumers have 30 days to watch a film once it is downloaded to the set-top box, and must finish watching it within 24 hours of pushing the “play” button. The service, called Blockbuster OnDemand, can be ordered at http://www.blockbuster.com beginning on Tuesday.

Unlike Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” feature, which streams movies to subscribers’ TVs or personal computers, the Blockbuster on-demand service will be open to customers who do not subscribe to its DVD-by-mail service, Blockbuster Online. Blockbuster Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Keyes said the company’s longtime emphasis on new releases draws different consumers than Netflix subscribers, who are directed by its Web site to older catalog titles.

The service is essentially a rebranding and expansion of Blockbuster’s Movielink.com Web site, which offers about 10,000 on-demand movies for download to personal computers. About 2,000 of those titles, such as recent DVD releases “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2″ and “Get Smart”, can be downloaded to TVs via Blockbuster OnDemand, the company said.

Blockbuster’s also looking into packaging the new service with Blu-Ray DVD players and is considering alliances with video game console makers, but is not ready to disclose the details.