By most accounts, the 88 percent revenue share Yahoo will collect from its advertising partnership with Microsoft is a pretty darn good number. Obviously, 90 percent is even better. And that’s exactly the share of revenue that Microsoft will pay Yahoo in the second half of their 10-year deal, according to a regulatory filing.

The filing casts more light on the details of the partnership. It also seemed to give a lift to Yahoo, whose stock rose slightly in early trade.

Here are five other key points from the filing …

1. At least 400 Yahoo staffers will join Microsoft. The two companies will select an extra 150 employees to help with Yahoo’s transition to Microsoft’s search technology.
2. A definitive agreement is due to be signed by October 27, or they head for an arbitration panel.
3. Microsoft is paying Yahoo about $50 million a year during the first three years of the deal to help with transition costs.
4. The deal is limited to web sites, applications and “other online digital properties designed for use and consumption on personal computers.” But Yahoo can receive Microsoft mapping and mobile search if it wants.
5. Yahoo can kill the deal if the Yahoo and Microsoft’s share of the U.S. query market falls below a certain level. Either party can terminate the deal due to repeated material breaches of the agreement.

If you want more information on these provisions, or others, have a look here.

Keep an eye on:

• What’s the Wall Street Journal’s policy when it comes to story embargoes? PaidContent has the latest rundown (paidContent.org)

• Google is doing a little wheeling and dealing. It is buying On2 Technologies, and has sold its Google Radio Automation business (Reuters)

• Sirius XM Radio’s stock has been on a run this week. Seems that investors are looking past what will likely be quarterly loss and focussing instead on new initiatives like “cash for clunkers” (Reuters)
• Looking for a less expensive digital book reader? Sony’s hoping to please (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

So after two weeks of following all the twists and turns of Sirius XM’s attempts to avoid bankruptcy, CEO Mel Karmazin decided on John Malone, founder of Liberty Media, to come in as Sirius XM’s white knight with a $530 million loan . The loan will cover the satellite radio provider’s looming debt and help it avoid bankruptcy. As part of the deal Liberty will eventually take a 40 percent stake in Sirius’ equity.

But does this mean the big money deals that Karmazin signed with the likes of Howard Stern, Oprah Winfrey and Major League Baseball will get re-worked at a more favorable rate for the company now that there’s a new major stakeholder?

No, says Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei in an interview with Reuters.

You can look and say some of these content deals were cut at a time when there were two guys (Sirius and XM) bidding against each other in a relative frenzy. Having said that, a lot of these content relationships like Howard Stern are very valuable to this company, have been important in building the company, and are likely to be important in sustaining it.

But Stern isn’t quite out of the woods.

I’ll rely on Mel and his team to think about how those content relationships look going forward and make the right decisions,” said Mafffei. “All those content (deals) have some term and they’ll get renegotiated or reset at that time for the value that they’re then creating.

With Sirius generating net operating losses which hit $217 million in the third quarter, it would make sense that Liberty might suggest that Karmazin looks at trimming one of its biggest outgoing cashflows: talent costs. But Mafffei seems not to agree.

I don’t think you look and say the way to build profitable business is to hammer the content deal here…as deals rooll-off you can appropriately look at those that are which are adding value and those that are not.

Will it survive? That’s the main question looming over today’s official news that Live Nation will indeed buy Tickemaster Entertainment, a deal that has been much in the news this week.

Already, Sen. Charles Schumer, a member of the Judiciary Committee and Democrat from New York, has called for a federal probe into Ticketmaster’s relationship with resale subsidiary TicketsNow (a relationship that was roundly criticized recently when fans tried to buy Bruce Springsteen tickets) and said a merger with Live Nation “must be viewed skeptically).

As the New York Times recently pointed out, the deal will mark “an early test of the Obama administration’s views on concentrated corporate power, particularly in an area with potentially stark implications for consumers.”

“The combination of the two companies would place under one corporate umbrella dominant players in all sides of the live concert business: the sale of tickets, the representation of artists and the control of concert halls. Of particular issue to regulators, say lawyers with expertise in antitrust law, would be Live Nation’s recent entry into the ticket-selling business — essentially a challenge to Ticketmaster on its own turf,” the story noted.

Of course, even if the deal does survive, and even if it gets approval from antitrust regulators, the process could take some time. Months. A year. Maybe more. Such a time lapse could causes problems of its own — the economic landscape can change, strategy can shift, relationships can fray — and you end up, in some ways, far worse than when you began the whole darned thing.

Just ask XM and Sirius.

(Photo: Reuters)

Media mogul Sumner Redstone appears to be sticking with his decision to not sell more shares in Viacom and CBS. Here’s the Financial Times:

Media mogul Sumner Redstone has reached agreement with his daughter, Shari, to put some of National Amusement’s 1,500 cinemas on the block rather than the entire division, as part of debt-restructuring discussions to avoid selling more shares of Viacom and CBS, according to people familiar with the matter.

If lenders agree, the plan would clear the way to sell a part of the US group and 19 theatres in the UK. A prospectus is not expected to be released until early January, one person familiar with the discussions said.

It was not immediately clear how much the proposed partial sale would fetch. The entire chain is valued at $500m to $700m by analysts and at about $1billion by Mr Redstone.

This comes after National Amusements sold its stake in video game company Midway for $100,000 and a big tax writeoff.

As you’ve read here before, Redstone is trying to restructure about $1.6 billion in debt. Half of that, as the FT notes, is due December 19 (only 15 more shopping days until debt day!). Redstone is in this position after he blew a debt covenant that was tied to Viacom’s and CBS’s market value. Both stocks took a dive, which forced Redstone into selling $233 million in non-voting shares of both companies, the FT reported.

Meanwhile, we asked Regal Entertainment CEO Mike Campbell if he would be interested in buying National Amusements’ theater chain If Redstone does put it on the block. Cambell said their domestic theaters would be a good fit — but noted that the credit crunch could hinder financing.

Keep an eye on:

Our Reuters Media Summit: We’re heading into the last day, but have a look at our interviews with Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin, Microsoft videogame executive Shane Kim, Professional Golfers Association Commissioner Tim Finchem and more. We’ve been running Summit blog entries here on Mediafile, but they’re all in one convenient place at the Summit Notebook site too.

You can’t have too much Michael Wolff. Here’s Wolff in a video interview with me.,

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned earlier this year after patronizing a prostitute, is entering the journalism world with a column at Slate.com, the online magazine owned by The Washington Post Co. Reported by Reuters, but broken by the New York Observer’s John Koblin.

(Photo: Reuters)

If you’re an old Sirius or former XM subscriber who lost one or more of your favorite channels after the two satellite radio companies merged earlier this year, CEO Mel Karmazin has a message for you: Tough luck, it’s for the greater good.

Karmazin told reporters at the Reuters Media Summit in New York that the two companies had taken the best of breed in each music channel genre from either Sirius or XM as part of a $400 million cost saving drive.

“We’re going to pick the best channels,” said Karmazin. “We’ve gotten hundreds of people who hated it and claimed they were going to cancel. So we’ve analyzed all the cancellations since the rationalization…It’s hard for me to understand what they don’t like.”

“If we took the most aggressive number of people who cancelled and we take that (away) the $120 a year (they pay) it doesn’t get to a $1 million as compared to the significant amount of cost savings as a company that needs to make money,” said Karmazin.

Our colleague Franklin Paul said he was upset with the loss of his favorite classic hip-hop channel, The Rhyme. So Karmazin made his best pitch to an old school B-boy.

“We have other hip hop channels,” coaxed Karmazin.

“You as a subscriber, though you may miss your channel, you need to make sure we make money because you want us to be around so we can invest in programming and we can provide you with all these services,” said Karmazin.

In other words, deal with it.

(Photo: Reuters)

We’re not entirely sure if the current round of leaks will lift Sirius XM out of its $1.40 per share doldrums, but screenshots of a new iPhone application in development that will let users stream Sirius XM radio stations could put a new shine on the company.

The shots, leaked to Orbitcast, show a login screen that would appear to imply that the service would likely only be available to existing Sirius or XM subscribers or subscribers to the mobile service. We’ve seen various mobile applications that do just that over the years for Windows Mobile phones. But this is the first to offer a common platform for both services — and months ahead of the company’s own timeline for an interoperable receiver.

Citigroup’s Tony Wible thinks the link to Apple “highlight that SIRI’s value lies in its content and not its hardware or infrastructure.” And such applications could help it gain share in the audio entertainment market. “SIRI bears argue that AAPL’s products will take share from SIRI, but we disagree as both MP3 players and satellite radio have unique advantages that leads us to believe both will co-exist. New satellite radio plans create a greater opportunity for synergies between the two,” Wible writes.

We think it could potentially create an ancillary income stream and soften its reliance on automotive contracts at a time when U.S. car sales limp along. Perhaps more importantly, such applications makes Apple, and its ubiquitous devices, a partner rather than a direct rival.

The application, called StarPlayr, developed by GeeksToolBox, could nudge Sirius XM away from Apple’s line of fire.

(Photo: Orbitcast.com)

Time Warner’s earnings may be better-than-expected, but the most arresting news out of its quarterly report isn’t really about the media company’s profit, revenue or forecasts. It’s about strategy.

It’s always interesting to find out what direction Time Warner plans to take. What’s it selling? What’s it spinning off? What could it buy? Will it get rid of AOL? Could it acquire NBC Universal?

Here’s the latest news: Time Warner Chief Jeffrey Bewkes says the company would split AOL’s dial-up Internet and advertising business. This plan, along with getting rid of its cable services business, basically positions Time Warner as a content company.

Here’s what Bewkes said in the press release:

We’ve also made significant progress in our top structural initiatives. During the quarter, we agreed to the terms of our planned separation from Time Warner Cable. In addition, we’ve made the key decisions that will enable us to run AOL’s access and audience businesses separately beginning in 2009. As we continue to reshape Time Warner, we’ll increasingly focus on our goal to create and manage high-quality branded content, across multiple platforms around the world, at the highest returns possible for our stockholders.

Okay, but this leaves a lot of questions to be answered. Sources have said Time Warner is still talking about deals to merge or sell off its online advertising and Internet business. Does this mean a deal with Microsoft? Or Yahoo? And if it sees itself as a content company, does this mean it could be looking to acquire a TV network? Or more cable channels? Does it make a deal with NBC Universal more likely? (We should note that NBC Universal and parent GE have repeatedly said the media concern is not up for sale).

It’s time to speculate…

Keep an eye on:

• Comcast is buying email fashion and culture newsletter Daily Candy for $125 million, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing people familiar with the matter (WSJ.com)
• Mel Karmazin talks to the New York Times about the merger of Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Radio, and says the movie he is most proud of making in his time as a media mogul is “Jackass.” ”It cost me $6 million and made $100 million,” he says (NY Times)
• Mario Gabelli has filed to raise $200 million and will use the proceeds to buy a media or telecom company (NY Post)

(Photo: Reuters)

The marathon satellite merger for Sirius and XM is finally complete. (Check out the new “Sirius XM Radio” logo, above, provided by Sirius.)

That means new channel options, new pricing options, new radios — eventually.

We want to know if you care. Does the prospect of having Oprah and Howard Stern on your radio make you want to sign up for satellite radio? Will you start paying for the service once the free subscription in your new car runs out? Does the thought of the upcoming professional football season mean it’s time to pick up a satellite radio?

We’d like to know.

Hear that? It’s the sound of sighs. Sirius Satellite Radio has finally completed the purchase of rival XM Satellite Radio.

“The completion comes after a marathon period of government scrutiny that ended late last week when the U.S. Federal Communications Commission approved the deal, which was first announced 17 months ago,” Reuters reports.

Now that the deal is done, it’ll be interesting to see whether it was worth the wait. Neither company has posted a profit on its own, and, in fact, they have posted huge losses along the way as they’ve paid to build up subscribers.

RBC analyst David Bank put it this way in a note to clients: “While merger is beneficial for Sirius, we remain cautious as significant execution risk exists implementing synergies and recognition of synergies is probably already priced into stock.”

While they will no longer be fighting one another, they will still have to convince audiences to pick satellite radio over traditional radio, digital audio players and iPods. That’s no easy task, particularly when people are worried about gas prices, food costs, a lousy housing market and a fragile job picture. Do people really want to be spending their extra cash on satellite radio?

Keep an eye on:

• Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia reported a quarterly profit, buoyed by higher magazine advertising sales and revenue from deals to label various products with its brand (Reuters)
• AMC’s “Mad Men,” coming off 16 Emmy nominations, scored record ratings in its second-season premiere, drawing nearly 2 million viewers (LA Times)
• The Los Angeles Times new monthly Sunday magazine, LA, will debut on September 7 (Folio)
• Sony Corp posted a bigger-than-expected 47 percent fall in quarterly profit and cut its outlook, hurt by its struggling mobile phone joint venture with Sweden’s Ericsson, while rival Matsushita nearly doubled its profit on rising flat TV sales (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

Finally, some movement.

It seems that the head of U.S. Federal Communications Commission Kevin Martin will support Sirius Satellite Radio’s proposed purchase of rival XM Satellite Radio.

The Washington Post and others are reporting that Martin decided to support the deal after the companies agreed to concessions intended to prevent the new company from raising prices or stifling competition among radio makers.

A decision has been a long time coming. Seventeen months ago the two companies announced they would merge, bringing entertainers such as Oprah Winfrey and shock jock Howard Stern under the same banner. The Justice Department approved the deal in March, but the companies are still waiting for the FCC.

The question is, have the delays made the whole issue mute? Have iPhones and every other sort of portable music/phone/camera/microwave oven gadget made concern over the XM/Sirius combination seem… well… dated?

Keep an eye on:

• Carl Icahn, who launched a proxy battle in May to replace the board of Yahoo says the deal Yahoo forged with Google “might have some merit” (Reuters)
• A bigger, meaner “The Incredible Hulk” crushed the competition at North American weekend box office with a $54.5 million take, but still fell short of its predecessor (Reuters)
• Time Warner hopes to move swiftly to find a buyer for AOL’s dial-up business after the company completes its separation from the Platform A advertising division in the next month, unnamed sources told the (NY Post).
• Canada’s Nortel Networks is challenging larger rival Cisco Systems with a negative advertising campaign, saying that Cisco’s equipment uses twice as much energy as that of Nortel’s (WSJ).
• The Associated Press will attempt to set standards on how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on its copyright (New York Times).