The boobs who watch Comedy Central and MTV on Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC) will not have their viewing pleasure interrupted. Viacom (NYSE: VIA), the parent of the two content networks, has come to a financial deal with TWC to keep the programming on the air. Viacom wanted more money for having its shows on the cable system. It looks like it got that additional cash.

According to The Wall Street Journal, "Viacom had publicly threatened to pull its networks off Time Warner Cable's system on New Year's Eve in a bid to win higher payments from the cable giant in its negotiation over carriage fees."

Both parties can claim that they walked away with something good. Viacom gets more money for its programming. TWC keeps shows that are appealing to its paid subscribers. That means that what TIme Warner customers pay for the service over time will probably go up to offset the higher fees to Viacom, but not more than a dollar or two a month.

It is too bad that the programming was not taken down. People in front of their TVs, sitting in lounge chairs six or seven hours a day, might have been forced to get up and exercise or volunteer to help the poor. Instead they get the intellectual benefit of watching Beyonce and Britney Spears.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Time Warner Cable and Viacom cut a programming deal originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of our Battle of the Brands feature. Let us know which brand you prefer, and check out other Battle of the Brands posts.

The battle between QVC and HSN is really about celebrity entrepreneurs.

QVC counts the likes of Joan Rivers and Marie Osmond in its stable of shills. Suzanne Somers and Susan Lucci hock their wares on HSN, which is owned by Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ: IACI) conglomerate.

Somewhere around the 1980s or 1990s, Rivers lost her sense of shame and began opening up about everything, including her numerous plastic surgeries. Rivers still is hysterical. Typical is a recent blog post about Passover in which she joked that people eat Matzo (unleavened bread) "Because, you pig, you inherited your mother's big, fat thighs and you should lay off the carbs for at least one day every year."

Anyway, you just gotta love Rivers. She's survived her husband's suicide, the scorn of Johnny Carson and the ridicule of celebrities on the red carpet. Granted that I won't be buying products such as the Joan Rivers Lilly of the Valley Bee Pin, which according to the QVC website "shines with orange and green epoxy enamel and cream simulated pearls as the buds."

Sounds lovely, no?

Continue reading Battle of the Brands: QVC vs. HSN (Joan Rivers vs. Suzanne Somers)

Battle of the Brands: QVC vs. HSN (Joan Rivers vs. Suzanne Somers) originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Reports that Britney Spears was in a minor accident over the weekend with her Mercedes is another in a long line of mishaps for the pop star. Why this qualifies as news is beyond me, and it's my feeling that Britney should just be left alone. The media have succeeded in driving her into a virtual nervous breakdown, for what? To sell a few more papers, or attract a few more viewers. Should the media be in the business of ruining people?

According to the AP report: "Spears was in stop-and-go traffic when her car struck a 2006 Nissan in front of her that had stopped. The Nissan then pushed forward into another vehicle. No damage was noted to any of the vehicles."

The one winner in this latest Spears' episode may be Daimler AG (NYSE:DAI), maker of the famed Mercedes. As with most automakers the company has been struggling, and sales have been sagging. There is no question that they could use the free PR. After all, Britney drives the car, and it escaped the crash without a dent.

Despite recent troubles, investors looking for a contrarian play may want to take a look at Daimler. Their new strategy of trying to gain market share in Russia and in China to help offset US weakness, seems to be a smart move. With a growing upper middle class in both of these countries, the need to own a Mercedes will be strong, as it will be perceived as a status symbol.

Maybe the media can start focusing on global wealth creation, and leave Britney alone.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. DISCLOSURE: Writer's fund has no position in any stock mentioned, as of 4/14/08.

Will Britney's crash sell more cars for Daimler? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The New York Times reports that despite a fortune ranging from $50 million to $125 million, the battle for mentally unstable Britney Spears's money is raging. She's a shrewd business person -- generating cash from royalties, concerts, clothing, perfume, corporate promotions and real estate.

But she's also spending a lot of that money. She takes in $720,000 a month but mainly from royalties, but earns "only" $13,000 a month from investments. Her spending includes $102,000 a month for entertainment, gifts and vacation and $16,000 for clothes. Yet court documents reveal that members of Britney's household have been paying for her medicine, food, and other day-to-day needs.

While Britney makes some money from her albums -- she received a $4 million advance on her latest Blackout -- the real money is in concerts and the clothing and other items sold there. Her five major tours have sold some $140 million in tickets but her take -- after deducting costs for arena rentals, equipment, crew and all those backup dancers -- is much smaller. The real money is made from the sale of T-shirts, key chains, dolls and other Britney-branded goods.

Continue reading Battling for Britney's bucks

Battling for Britney's bucks originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 25 Feb 2008 13:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Renowned equity analyst Perez Hilton has apparently discovered the real reason investors sold off shares of Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) today. No, it has nothing to do with the weak jobs report, as you may have been thinking.

Maybe its because Wall Street traders are worried about how Britney Spears' hospitalization will will effect sales. The former teen princess is nearly always seen with a latte in hand and, unless Starbucks delivers to the hospital, sales in the LA area could plummet!

But there may be a contrarian play on this news: Starbucks locations in the LA area are less likely to be overrun by Spears and her posse, driving away other customers, and efficiency and sales per square foot could soar!

And the company will have to pay lower insurance premiums because the risk of baristas being attacked with umbrellas is significantly lowered by Ms. Spears' hospitalization.

Britney Spears hospitalization sends Starbucks shares tumbling originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

BloggingStocks readers and AOL Money & Finance visitors have spoken, and below are the Best & Worst of 2007. (See the individual posts for full results.)

Company of the Year: Google, internet search provider turned diversified services giant, received 51% of the vote, beating such strong contenders as Apple and Coca-Cola.

Hottest Gadget of the Year: After all the hoopla surrounding the launch of the iPhone, it's no big surprise that it tops this category, with 47% of the vote, besting second place finisher the Nintendo Wii.

Dumbest Celebrity Feud: Rosie O'Donnell's squabbles with Donald Trump (and also with Elizabeth Hasselbeck) garnered 66% of the vote, easily beating out the back-and-forth between Britney Spears and her ex, Kevin Federline.

Hottest Car of the Year: The Cadillac CTS led with 43% of the vote, easily beating the BMW M3 and others in this category.

Dumbest Moment in Business: JetBlue's stranding of passengers on a cramped, grounded airliner for hours netted 51% of the vote.

Continue reading Best & Worst of 2007: Final results

Best & Worst of 2007: Final results originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Why Jamie Lynne Spears' pregnancy matters to investors

Why Jamie Lynne Spears' pregnancy matters to investors originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 19 Dec 2007 05:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Madonna has been a trend setter for three decades and has built, not just a music empire, but a financial one. She is brash and savvy. The "Material Girl" who popularized wearing undergarments as formal wear and accent pieces has made another splash this year, not with her music or wardrobe, but with her new record contract.

She has abandoned the major record labels to sign on with a concert promotion machine for $120 million. Goodbye long-time record label, hello Live Nation (NYSE: LYV). In October, the iconic and very wealthy 49-year-old Madonna signed her biggest contract to date, and one Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG) would not match.

Live Nation, the concert promoters, have acquired her touring and recording rights. Her first album was released in 1983, 26 24 years ago, and she has been going strong ever since. According to published reports: "The rights to Madonna's tours, which continue to be highly profitable, will now be owned exclusively by Live Nation. Last year's Confessions tour featured eight sell-out performances at Wembley Arena, which is managed by Live Nation. The tour grossed $260m."

Specifics include an $18 million signing bonus and an additional advance of $17 million in cash and shares for each of the three albums in the ten-year deal. If Madonna goes on tour, she will get up to 90 percent of the profits, with only 10 percent reaching Live Nation.

Continue reading Money Winners of 2007: Madonna, the material (underwear) girl

Money Winners of 2007: Madonna, the material (underwear) girl originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 14 Dec 2007 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We recently took a look at the Best & Worst of 2007 in sixteen categories and asked you to vote for your favorites, as well as sharing the reasons for your picks and any other contenders we may have overlooked. And voting is off to a strong start, with more than 100,000 votes in each category so far.

Some categories have shaped up to be close races. Chuck Prince, Bill Ford, and Bob Nardelli each have a little less than a third of the vote for Best CEO Departure of the Year. Britney Spears and Michael Vick are neck and neck as the Celebrity Most Likely to Lose It All, while Lindsey Lohan's relatively low profile recently has garnered her just 6 percent of that vote. In the Most Shameless Attempt at Cashing in on '15 Minutes', Sanjaya Malakar has a slim lead over Howard K. Stern/Larry Birkhead, but poor Chris "Leave Britney Alone!" Crocker has gotten no respect with a mere 6 percent of the vote. McDonald's has a small lead as the Hottest Chain Restaurant, thought Chipotle isn't far behind with more than a quarter of the vote. And while the iPhone has the lead now as the Hottest Gadget of the Year, it and the Nintendo Wii have been trading places as the front runner.

Continue reading Best & Worst of 2007: Early voting results

Best & Worst of 2007: Early voting results originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 08 Dec 2007 16:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Yahoo!'s most searched term: Britney Spears originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 05 Dec 2007 14:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post was part of the AOL Money & Finance Best & Worst of 2007 feature. The voting has now closed and readers have chosen Rosie O'Donnell's war of words with Donald Trump and others as the dumbest celebrity feud of the year. Be sure and let us know in the comments if you are pleased with this result.

Back in the day of the (fictional) Capulets and Montegues or the (real) Hatfields and McCoys, "feuds" were not something to be taken lightly. They separated men from boys and resulted in certain bloodshed. These days, tabloids will report on a new "celebrity feud" each week, as our nation's most rich and famous lash out at one another in the press or on live television.

Sometimes, there are justified reasons for unrest among pop culture's elite ... a cuckolding, perhaps, or a vicious custody battle (I blame Alec Baldwin's recent poor judgment on stress, but maybe he gets off lightly in my book because he's so brilliant on 30 Rock). At any rate, here's some of the most high-profile fights that took center stage in 2007.

The American public twice served as judge and jury for Rosie O'Donnell this year. Late last year, the comedienne found herself in a war of words with "The Donald" (Trump), after O'Donnell criticized the billionaire's handling of a scandal involving the Miss USA Pageant, of which Trump holds the rights. Name-calling and mudslinging ensued, and O'Donnell colleague Barbara Walters caught some shrapnel. Months later, on the May 23 episode of The View -- on which the liberally minded Rosie served as one of four co-hosts -- she got into a heated (split-screen!) debate with Elisabeth Hasselbeck, the "conservative" member of the hosting panel. Tempers flared and Rosie ultimately walked out on her contract with the program, which was set to expire a few months later anyway. Whoopi Goldberg and Sherri Shepherd have since picked up hosting duties.

Continue reading Best & Worst of 2007: Dumbest celebrity 'feuds'

Best & Worst of 2007: Dumbest celebrity 'feuds' originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 01 Dec 2007 08:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post was part of AOL Money & Finance's Best & Worst of 2007. Voting has now closed and readers have chosen Sanjaya Malakar as the most shameless attempt to cash in on the proverbial 15 minutes of fame. Be sure to let us know in the comments if you are pleased with this result.

When Andy Warhol observed nearly 40 years ago that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes," the man wasn't kidding. While the toe-headed artist couldn't have predicted the rise of the internet or reality television in 1968, this pair of media outlets now enables anyone with a webcam and a dream to put themselves on the map for one brief shining moment (or even several). Below are some of the folks we hated to love as they flitted across the pop-culture radar this year.

For about six weeks or so, the main topic of discussion at the nation's water coolers was the hairdo of a mild-mannered 17-year old. Sanjaya Malakar -- a contestant on News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) FOX Network's American Idol -- divided a nation with his questionable talent and his ever-changing coiffure. Howard Stern launched a campaign, the goal of which was to discredit the show with a Sanjaya victory. Sanjaya took it all in stride ... the tongue-lashings from Simon Cowell, the hatred from America's bloggers, the worldwide attention. But underneath it all, he was a sensitive teenaged boy, one who couldn't quite blink back the tears when he was mercifully ousted from the competition. From that point on, the Idol season wasn't the same. I barely remember who won.

Continue reading Best & Worst of 2007: Shameless attempts at cashing in on '15 minutes'

Best & Worst of 2007: Shameless attempts at cashing in on '15 minutes' originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

A change in chart rule puts Eagles on top of Billboard originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 07 Nov 2007 19:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Britney Spears set to top charts in Eagles potential absence originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Continue reading Top 10 reasons for the market's decline: Bernanke, Britney & you

Top 10 reasons for the market's decline: Bernanke, Britney & you originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It seems as though no one can resist the temptation of the Britney Spears-bashing bandwagon: not even the most-revered financial newspaper in the world. Attacks from the tabloids and the likes of Perez Hilton have been relentless for years, but The Wall Street Journal's review (subscription required) of her new album is fairly scathing. Here are some of the high (low?) points:

A phalanx of producers and backing vocalists exert more of an influence on a disc that's not quite a mess but only occasionally rises above a muddle... as a vocalist, Ms. Spears sounds weary, snide and at times disconnected. On some songs, her voice seems grafted to the material as if an afterthought... At the bottom register, her voice is a throaty bleat... With "Blackout," Ms. Spears fails to deliver a recording that will re-establish her as a dominant pop star rather than a 25-year-old woman who seems bent on self-destruction...

The Journal doesn't seem to have anything positive to say about Spears, and the good things it does say about the album refer mainly to the production and background vocalists.

But all of this raises an interesting question: why is The Wall Street Journal reviewing a Britney Spears album anyway? Is that really her demographic? With the exception of Alan Greenspan, how man Journal readers will even consider buying her new album?

But then again, the financial press has a well-deserved reputation for calling stock sells precisely at their bottoms. So perhaps Britney's career is ready to rebound.

Britney Spears gets slammed ... by The Wall Street Journal originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's been three weeks since our Money Face-Off feature ran here at BloggingStocks and on AOL, offering you the opportunity to share who you though had the financial edge in a series of twenty head-to-head match-ups. So I thought I'd take another look and see how things have worked out.

It's hard to pick just one big winner. In terms of the largest lead over a rival, Ivanka Trump easily beats Paris Hilton with 89% of the vote. Others holding big leads over their opponents include Tiger Woods, Warren Buffett, Steven Spielberg, and Rupert Murdoch.

In terms of receiving the most votes, the clear leader is the Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart match-up, with just short of 150,000 votes. Other big vote getters were Tiger Woods vs. David Beckham, Rudy Giuliani vs. Michael Bloomberg, and Bill Gates vs. Steve Jobs. In terms of the liveliest discussions in the comments, the winners are Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart, Erin Burnett vs. Maria Bartiromo, and Bono vs. Angelina Jolie. Also check out the comments for the J.K. Rowling vs. J.R.R Tolkien, Tiger Woods vs. David Beckham, and Ivanka Trump vs. Paris Hilton posts.

As for the face-off posts here that got the most attention, the clear winner is Erin Burnett vs. Maria Bartiromo, with more than 13,000 hits. Lindsay Lohan vs. Britney Spears and Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart also attracted lots of readers.

Results for all the face-offs follow below, but keep in mind that the voting is still open. It's not too late to add your vote or let us know what you think.

Continue reading Money Face-Off Big Winners: Oprah, Tiger Woods, Ivanka Trump, Erin Burnett

Money Face-Off Big Winners: Oprah, Tiger Woods, Ivanka Trump, Erin Burnett originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 06 Oct 2007 12:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Forbes list of celebrity faces: Britney Spears no longer sells tabloids originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

It's been a week since our Money Face-Off posts ran here on BloggingStocks, and less than that since the Money Face-Offs were featured on the AOL welcome page, and the response has been terrific. Many of the face-off polls have had more than 50,000 votes, a couple of them approaching 100,000.

The biggest response came to the Oprah Winfrey vs. Martha Stewart match-up. So far, about 75 percent of respondents feel that Oprah is the more successful media magnate. Not that much surprise there, as Oprah's fans are legion. Interestingly, though, of the twenty-some comments the post has received, most of them are pro-Martha.

Another clear leader is Bill Gates over rival Steve Jobs. About three quarters of poll votes have gone his way, despite all the buzz recently about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and the popularity of its products. Maybe readers are just happy that Gates is stepping down. Let us know what you think.

Alan Greenspan seems to be everywhere these days, promoting his new book, including Comedy Central's The Daily Show and NPR's Fresh Air. In our match-up of the current and former Fed chairs, Ben Bernanke vs. Alan Greenspan, more than 70 percent of respondents have voted for Greenspan. Comments to the post are mixed, but seem to me to focus on Greenspan, whether pro or con.

Continue reading Money Face-Off recap: Oprah and Tiger and Buffett, oh my!

Money Face-Off recap: Oprah and Tiger and Buffett, oh my! originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Sat, 22 Sep 2007 15:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Britney Spears

Britney Spears in Playboy, Vanessa Hudgens nude: How naked stars earn money -- even when they're not originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.