Viacom (VIA) competes with other media and broadcasting companies like Time Warner (TWX), News Corp. (NWS), CBS (CBS) and Disney (DIS) in the media and entertainment business. Our price estimate for Viacom's stock stands at $58.36, which is a roughly 10% premium to market price.

Viacom makes money through cable and satellite operators, such as Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), and DirecTV (DTV) that pay Viacom a monthly fee for each of their subscribers that receive Viacom-owned channels such as Nickelodeon, MTV, VH1 and TV Land. Viacom also sells advertising spots on its channels to advertisers like Coca-Cola (KO), Ford (F) and Procter & Gamble (PG). These revenues are partially a function of the total number of U.S. pay-TV households. The modifiable chart below showcases how changes to this metric affect Viacom's stock value.

Viacom (VIA) competes with other media and broadcasting companies like Time Warner (TWX), News Corp. (NWS), CBS (CBS) and Disney (DIS) in the media and entertainment business. Our price estimate for Viacom's stock stands at $58.36, which is a roughly 15% premium to market price.

The company recently signed a deal with Hulu to make more of its TV content available on the subscription/ad-supported portal. In its press release Viacom stated that:

Distribution of content fascinates me. So does compensation for the talent that generates the content. In my mind, talent is extremely overcompensated via pricey salaries and overgenerous profit-participation schemes. The demands of talent constitute a friction working against the goal of increasing shareholder value in the media industry. Time and time again, we see evidence of the thesis.

These were my thoughts as I checked out Steve Levitan's comments on streaming practices at ABC.com and Hulu that were made in an interview at The Hollywood Reporter. Levitan is one of the creators of the excellent Modern Family series. That really is a quality show, and I'm glad ABC possesses it in its programming portfolio. I'm a shareholder of Disney (DIS), as you might have guessed.

Business has been booming for Akamai (AKAM), which provides high-end technologies to deliver large amounts of Internet traffic and video. In the latest quarter, adjusted earnings came to $0.35 per share and revenues were up 14% to $240 million. The company also posted $88 million in cash flows from operations.

On the news, the shares of Akamai are up 16.7% to $38.72 in today's trading. The Street expected earnings of $0.31 per share and revenues of $230 million. However, in light of the spike in the stock price, investors may want to hold off on buying stock right now, and wait until things cool down.

We all knew News Corp.'s (NWS) Avatar would cede the top spot to some film someday. To be honest, I didn't think Sony's (SNE) Dear John would be the one to do it.

According to Box Office Mojo, John grossed roughly $32 million at domestic theaters. That was more than enough to put the sci-fi flick in second place. However, no one should feel sad for News Corp.; Avatar's worldwide haul now stands at over $2.2 billion.

Ahhh, Hulu. That wonderful destination where I can re-acquaint myself with my favorite Justin-Timberlake-on-SNL moments, catch up on episodes of Greek, and search for those old Silver Spoons clips I remember so fondly. The two-year-old website is a joint venture between Walt Disney's (DIS) ABC Network, General Electric's (GE) NBC Universal division, and News Corp.'s (NWS) FOX Entertainment Group, and is partially funded by Providence Equity Partners.

But just as online news readers may soon be charged to access The New York Times online, we may have to open our wallets for certain corners of the Hulu universe (they will likely still let me watch Silver Spoons for free).

A new executive team is trying to bring MySpace back to its former glory. By focusing on music, videos and games, it hopes to recapture some of its luster. With the MySpace refugees mounting, it's time for some new blood to make some brilliant, future-changing decisions. This week, the company is holding a conference for its global ad sales team to explore ways to bring in traffic and beef up ad spending.

MySpace is poised to haul in $495 million in ad revenue this year, down 15% from last year's $585 million, according to research firm eMarketer. In August, MySpace attracted 64.2 million unique visitors from the United States, off 15% from August 2008, according to comScore, while Facebook pulled in 92.2 million unique U.S. visitors – up more than 100% year-over-year.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is dominating online video just like it does internet searches. In August, Google's various video properties went past the 10 billion video view March. In all, the Mountain View, Calif., company took in 40% of all online video viewership, according to comScore.

Of course, the answer to Google's fortunes in online video viewership was YouTube. Google Video didn't account for much at all, as YouTube accounted for 99% of all video viewed on Google's video properties. The only problem: Google continues to not monetize YouTube very well, which has been a point of contention since the 2006 acquisition for $1.65 billion. The good news: YouTube has grown like gangbusters at the same time, and the YouTube acquisition has kept Google at the top of the video viewing field ever since.

Nielsen ratings have always been an imperfect system of projecting who is watching what when. The advent of DVR technology and internet-streamed programming have made the television ratings game even more challenging.

So the major TV companies -- General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), CBS Corp. (NYSE: CBS), and Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) -- have teamed together to fight against Nielsen, which not only delivers arguably flawed data, but charges a hefty fee to do so.

Disney (NYSE: DIS), a media conglomerate that competes with CBS (NYSE: CBS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), Sony (NYSE: SNE), and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), will report fiscal second-quarter earnings on Tuesday, May 5. And it appears that investors should be prepared for a significant decline in the bottom line. Analysts believe that income may drop by over 30% to $0.40 per share. Yep, those magical days of profit growth are, for the time being, a thing of the past.

And it's not difficult to understand why. Disney is battling a recession. Consumers aren't spending money. They need all kinds of promotions and discounts to get them to open their wallets. So, theme parks and consumer products are understandably challenged. And then there's the advertising recession. That affects Disney's media properties. DVD sales? They're not as robust as they used to be. All in all, this is not a great time to be a shareholder of the Mouse.

Hulu.com, the online video sensation backed by General Electric Co.'s (NYSE: GE) NBC unit and News Corp. (NASDAQ: NWS) moved past industry heavyweight Yahoo!, Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) in terms of videos viewed. Hulu, barely a year old, streams a huge amount of movies, TV shows and other non-YouTube content. In other words, it isn't a "you upload it" service: all the content there is professionally produced.

Despite poor data from Chicago Purchasing Managers and on the consumer confidence side, stocks jumped back. It turns out that the world decided yesterday's sell-off was just a buying opportunity for bargain hunters. A change may be coming Thursday to "mark to market" from FASB. The bad news was that we had a another negative quarter, but this marked an up-month for the broad index readings. Finally.

Here are today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 7,603.98 +81.96 (1.09%)
S&P 500 797.51 +9.98 (1.27%)
Nasdaq 1,528.59 +26.79 (1.78%)

Top Analyst Upgrades
Top Analyst Downgrades

It's all over the news. Media conglomerate Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube have entered into a deal for the former to supply content to the latter. Not for free, of course. There will be an ad-revenue-sharing model in place. The transaction calls for short-form content at first. This will be derived from ABC and ESPN properties. I assume that, if the short-form stuff works, then long-form stuff will follow pretty soon.

According to Julia Boorstin at CNBC, Disney will have full authority over the ad sales. That's good for shareholders of Disney. But YouTube wins a lot here, too. Google paid quite a bit of money to acquire the platform, and so far, monetization of the user-generated model has not been going smoothly.

YouTube needs to sign deals like these to legitimize its presence. It doesn't want to be known simply as the Cyberland of Copyright Infringement, a wicked, evil digital kingdom where content is stolen, used, and abused. That's how Viacom (NYSE: VIA) sees the site. It has engaged litigation against the company.

Right now, over at Hulu.com -- a joint project of News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, viewers can check out recent editions of, for example, The Daily Show or Man Caves, among many other programs normally viewed on cable networks such as Comedy Central or the DIY Network. Viewers need a computer and a high-speed Internet connection to catch these programs, but they don't need a cable subscription (or even a television!).

Video chain Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI) reported earnings earlier this week for the fourth quarter. While there were some positive aspects to the story, I can tell you that the stock is not a buy at all, at least not from where I sit.

Okay, let me throw some of the good stats out at you. According to the press release, Blockbuster's same-store sales, or comps, are doing well. In Q4, domestic comps rose well over 4%. Free cash flow was positive. And earnings on an adjusted basis calculated out to $0.40 per share. That was a huge beat, since analysts were looking for $0.25 per share.