'Project Runway' embroiled in fierce a lawsuit originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

MOST NOTEWORTHY:

• William Blair believes Pacer Int'l (NASDAQ: PACR) is in a favorable industry, with growth-specific opportunities and short-term concerns and started shares with a Market Perform rating.

• William Blair starting ComScore (NASDAQ: SCOR) with an Outperform rating, believing the online marketing research sector will have 20%+ growth over the next 3-5 years.

• Nollenberger believes Riverbed (NASDAQ: RVBD) is positioned to gain market share and is a technology and product leader, starting shares with a Buy rating and $55 target. BMO

• Capital initiated CBS Corp (NYSE: CBS) with an Outperform and expects the stock is $1.74/share for 2007 and $2.03 in 2008 with upside should there be a levered buyback...

• Life Time Fitness (NYSE: LTM) was started with a Buy rating and $67 target at ThinkEquity.

• Citigroup started Petrobras (NYSE: PBR) with a Buy rating.

• SMH Capital initiated Energen (NYSE: EGN) with a Buy.

• Keybanc started WABCO Holdings (NYSE: WBC) with a Buy rating.

Analyst initiations: CBS, EGN and RVBD originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 17 Aug 2007 10:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

In a broad and sweeping move that will send out reverberations similar in impact to the first sixteen bars of a Van Halen song, the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau announced that they shall have nothing further to do with a major attempt to commoditize television advertising time by making that time available for purchase in an online auction type venue. New York Times.com (registration required) reported that the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, a New York based trade group, has officially backed away from the proposition citing a quote from Sean Cunningham, president and chief executive of the cable association clearly stating that, "We don't believe that eBay is going to get this right."

Using the word "boycott," cable entertainment providers including ESPN, Discovery Channel, and Lifetime have officially exited the program, leaving the eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY) headed project without any air time to sell. A consortium of heavy hitters were backing eBay in the experiment and had committed up to $50 million to build and test the model. Now though, they may be left high and dry, wondering if they have hired eBay expertise for zero gain after all.

Perhaps the most powerful statement in this situation so far is the reluctance of Google to issue any statement at all regarding the cable television pullout, as evidenced in a Jupiter Research blog post by David Card. Being that Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is so deeply entrenched in the internet as an advertising sales vehicle, one must suppose that they have taken this development pretty hard. That is, of course, unless they approached it with a "wait and see" attitude right from the start. If no statement issues from Google in the coming week, we might be tempted to think that Google suspected that the effort could fail miserably from the time it got off the ground.

I warned of this development quite some time ago in a comment section right here on a BloggingStock eBay post. I cited the fact that the television advertising industry has had a very firm grip on what they are doing for about 50 or so years now. I find it silly to think that the program would be changed over night. Just because a few talking heads say they want to take over the sale of television advertising time won't make it so. Personally, I think trying to change the dynamics of how television advertising is sold would be something similar to trying to sink the USS Enterprise with a .22 pistol.

But that's just my opinion.

Cable Television declaration sets Google and eBay on their heels originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 14 Apr 2007 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

One of my best informants has whispered to me a startling rumor. You may wish to pay attention because this is the same source who gave me the tip some months ago about wireless data feed from PC to television. You may have noticed that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) just introduced a nice consumer friendly version of that concept.

This time, the rumor is a bit more powerful. It involves General Electric Co.'s (NYSE: GE) NBC taking interactive television to a whole new level. If you thought that American Idol was something to brag about as far as viewer involvement, you'd best hold on to your hat because if some form of what I'm about to reveal to you comes to pass, televised entertainment shall never be the same.

What's even more exciting is that this possibility presents the opportunity to create powerful cooperation between current televised programming dynamics and the explosive internet video venues such as Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube. The two media could come to mutually benefit from these scenarios. Neither the new standard nor the old guard would need bow to the other. Now, here's some faceting of the concept.

Continue reading Interactive television? You ain't seen nothin' yet!

Interactive television? You ain't seen nothin' yet! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.