RupertMurdoch posts
FeedPosted Feb 1st 2010 8:30AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Time Warner (TWX), Walt Disney (DIS), News Corp'B' (NWS), Film
Did you think Mel Gibson had a chance this past weekend? Probably not. By now, we're all used to seeing News Corp.s (NWS) Avatar take the top spot. And for those keeping score, this is the seventh victory in a row for James Cameron (who, by the way, may offer lessons for entrepreneurs, according to Tom Taulli).
According to early estimates from Box Office Mojo, Avatar made another $30 million at domestic theaters over the past three days. At the time of this writing, the worldwide gross was just under $2 billion (it will definitely go over $2 billion, don't worry). Time Warner's (TWX) Edge of Darkness, starring the aforementioned Gibson, wasn't even close to a challenge for the 3-D aliens. Give it some credit, though: It came in second with $17 million.
Continue reading News Corp.'s 'Avatar' Isn't Ready to Step Down
Posted Nov 23rd 2009 9:00AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Internet, Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), News Corp'B' (NWS), Media World
Often, we confuse winning with being the best. This isn't always the case. There are plenty of ways to get ahead when you don't have the top product on the market. The smoke-filled backroom meetings may be a thing of the past, but the net effect lingers. This is exactly what went down, according to a Reuters report, when Microsoft (MSFT) had a chat with News Corp (NWS).
Microsoft suggested a relationship with News Corp which would involve the latter's yanking its news sites from Google (GOOG) ... for a fee, of course. This would cost the search engine giant -- which is also a news aggregation giant -- access to some hefty publications, including the Wall Street Journal, the Sun and the New York Post.
Continue reading Microsoft and News Corp talk about pushing Google aside
Posted Oct 19th 2009 8:40AM by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed)
Filed under: Apple Inc (AAPL), Amazon.com (AMZN), Sony Corp ADR (SNE)
For retailers, the crucial season is on its way. Blow the Christmas rush, and next year starts off on a miserable foot. Success, of course, also delivers a healthy dose of momentum -- and a little bit of wiggle room, important in what will continue to be a tough economy through at least the first half of next year. For booksellers, now contending with a new variable in the form of digital readers, e-readers will play a major role in defining the winners and losers. So far, it looks like Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is off to a great start, and it will take some genuine innovation for the competition to chip away at its market share.
Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS), once the leading names in literary retail, is expected to release its own e-reader this week. It will look a bit like Amazon's Kindle, according to Reuters, but with a touch screen intended to make the reader's experience easier. The price hasn't been disclosed yet, but rumor has it that it'll be higher than the Kindle's $259. BKS is staying mum on its plans in this space. There are others in the space, as well, including IREX Technologies, which is a spinoff of Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG), Asutek (tk: tk) and a project called FirstPaper that has Hearst behind it.
Continue reading Amazon in the lead, but Kindle competition is coming
Posted Jun 9th 2009 10:10AM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: Economic Data, Federal Reserve, Financial Crisis

The Congressional Oversight Panel announced in a report this morning that it feels
more bank stress tests are needed, especially if unemployment rates continue to rise. The group believes that the stress tests should be repeated periodically as long as banks continue to hold toxic assets.
The panel used a risk-modeling approach that is described as "reasonable and conservative," but added that it is impossible for an outside party to mirror the loss projections that form the core of the stress tests. The group noted that the "more adverse scenario" assumption for the U.S. unemployment rate in the tests has nearly been met in 2009. The yearly average for the unemployment rate stands at 8.5%, which isn't far from the 8.9% assumed in the first round of stress tests. The group recommended that the "Treasury publicly track the status of its stress test macro-economic assumptions (unemployment, GDP, and housing prices) and repeat the stress test if the adverse scenario assumptions have been exceeded."
Continue reading More bank stress tests needed?
Posted Jun 4th 2009 12:00PM by Mark Fightmaster (RSS feed)
Filed under: News Corp'B' (NWS)

It looks like it is out with the old, in with the old at
News Corp. (NYSE:
NWS), as former executive Chase Carey is
returning to the company in the role of deputy chairman and chief operating officer. Carey has served as the CEO of
DirecTV Group (NYSE:
DTV) for the past six years, but was the co-chief operating officer for NWS from 1996 through 2002. Carey will replace COO Peter Chernin, who announced in February that he would depart NWS when his contract runs out at the end of June.
It is no secret that NWS has struggled since the economic crisis started, as weakness in the company's catalog of DVDs have driven the stock lower. Carey helped the company become a "truly viable fourth broadcast network" by helping Fox land NFL games, and helping launch Fox News Channel, FX, and the National Geographic Channel.
Continue reading News Corp. appoints new chairman
Posted Feb 24th 2009 8:45AM by Douglas McIntyre (RSS feed)
Filed under: Viacom (VIA), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), News Corp'B' (NWS)
Sumner Redstone, who is the de facto head of Viacom (NYSE: VIA) and CBS (NYSE: CBS), was supposed to be the media baron who could not keep his top management. Now Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corp (NYSE: NWS), has joined the club. The president of his company, Peter Chernin, is leaving.
Murdoch may be gambling that he can keep his job for life and hand it to one of his children. Since he is 77 and none of his children may be qualified, that could be a bad gamble. At least Chernin could have kept the CEO's seat warm while one of Murdoch's offspring got some more on-the-job training.
The press has made the Chernin departure into a story about the earnings trouble at News Corp. In reality, its problems are not much worse than they are at most other big media companies. News Corp is burdened more than some of its peers because of its newspaper holdings. But, odds are that News Corp will make it out of the recession intact and in a position to take advantage of the eventual improvement in the ad markets.
Continue reading Rupert Murdoch: Another old man loses key management
Posted Feb 6th 2009 1:00PM by Peter Cohan (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, Marketing and Advertising, News Corp'B' (NWS)
News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) CEO Rupert Murdoch, at 77, has been around for a while. But it looks like that while may be too long after today's report on News Corp. earnings and outlook. That report suggests that Murdoch wildly overpaid for Dow Jones. But he wanted it and he got what he wanted. The questions for long-suffering shareholders is whether what Murdoch wants is good for them and whether he's the person to lead News Corp through the troubled waters ahead.
Prospects are for more pain. Analysts are estimating a 22% drop in News Corp.'s fiscal 2009 operating profit to almost $4 billion. And with its stock down 56% in the last year, what could Murdoch do to revive it? One possibility is to restructure the newspapers in a radical -- but obvious way -- put all the content online and sell search advertising to those who want access to all the readers. That would cut the cost of the newspapers tremendously.
Continue reading Is it time for a management change at News Corp?
Posted Feb 6th 2009 8:30AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, General Electric (GE), Time Warner (TWX), Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), News Corp'B' (NWS), Media World
News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), the big media conglomerate that competes with Disney (NYSE: DIS), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), CBS (NYSE: CBS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA) and General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, reported not-so-good earnings for the fiscal second quarter on Thursday after the bell.
Of course, not many companies are reporting good earnings these days, are they? News Corp. lost $2.45 per share due to impairment charges for goodwill and intangible assets. Throwing that aside, the company earned 12 cents per share. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, that came up well short of estimates of 19 cents per share. Net sales dropped 8%.
Continue reading News Corp.'s Q2 earnings get low ratings
Posted Nov 21st 2008 10:02AM by Douglas McIntyre (RSS feed)
Filed under: Bad News, New York Times'A' (NYT)
The New York Times (NYSE: NYT) reported that its October revenue got beat up again. If anything, it was worse than some previous months this year, but it's papers are caught in the vortex of a failing industry. For the month, advertising revenue was down 16.2%. Internet revenue only rose in the single digits, so online sales are not going to save the company.
In an odd way, the drop in revenue was the relative good news because the company also cut its dividend by a very large amount. The payout was cut by 74% to $0.06 per share. To make matters worse, the stock sold off 10% to a 52-week low of $5.72.
NYT has debt that is due next year. Its papers in New England, led by the Boston Globe, are losing as much as 20% of their ad revenue each month.
The company is controlled by the Sulzberger family, which has been in charge for over a century. One of the reasons the brothers and sisters, aunt and cousins have supported management was for the rich payout they received each quarter. Now, that is going away.
With an unhappy family, the company may be in play. Perhaps Rupert Murdock might buy it. NYT would make a nice bookend for The Wall Street Journal.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
Posted Nov 18th 2008 3:45PM by Brian White (RSS feed)
Filed under: Management, News Corp'B' (NWS)

When
News Corp. (NYSE:
NWS) CEO and media baron Rupert Murdoch speaks, people in the media business should listen. The 77 year-old tycoon has built an impressive array of media properties and is one of the few who gets it when it comes to how media should be created, by whom it should be created, and how it's consumed by different consumer segments.
Recently, Murdoch indicated that the deeply troubled newspaper industry can survive only if
editors and writers throw their egos out the window and regain the trust and loyalty of their readers. The once monopolistic newspaper industry now competes with the 24/7 internet news trade and its army of well-informed bloggers and citizen journalists. If the old guard doesn't believe this is the new competition, then I hope they have a second career all lined up.
Murdoch's words appear uncannily prescient: "My summary of the way some of the established media has responded to the internet is this: it's not newspapers that might become obsolete. It's some of the editors, reporters, and proprietors who are forgetting a newspaper's most precious asset: the bond with its readers." He goes on to say that the "paper on the porch" might go away, but daily news will not.
Continue reading Rupert Murdoch: The newspaper old guard is arrogant - and obsolete
Posted Nov 6th 2008 8:50AM by Steven Mallas (RSS feed)
Filed under: Earnings Reports, General Electric (GE), Time Warner (TWX), Walt Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), Sony Corp ADR (SNE), CBS Corp 'B' (CBS), News Corp'B' (NWS), Media World
News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), whose competitors include CBS (NYSE: CBS), Disney (NYSE: DIS), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC Universal, Sony (NYSE: SNE), and Viacom (NYSE: VIA), reported earnings for the fiscal first quarter on Wednesday after the market closed. The stock was down over 11% in the after-hours trading session.
What happened? Do you really need to ask? Hard times beget hard guidance, my friends. CEO Rupert Murdoch is trying to be honest with his shareholders. News Corp. is bracing for a slowdown in advertising and DVD sales. And as for the bottom line, the media conglomerate didn't beat estimates with its Q1 net income of $0.20 per share. Wall Street was looking for three more pennies.
Revenue increased 6%, at least. However, according to the press release, one of my favorite metrics dipped severely during Q1. Granted, this is only the first quarter, but net cash from operations took a hideous plunge of 70%. I'm sure Murdoch didn't like seeing that. One thing I hope he takes very seriously is the need to cut costs. He stated that this will be a priority.
Continue reading Rupert Murdoch did not deliver for Wall Street in Q1
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