ITV

Tag: AOL Time Warner

  • Film, music industries offer cyber copyright guide

    Film, music industries offer cyber copyright guide

    LOS ANGELES : The US movie and the music industries have published a guide to help companies prevent copyright abuse on their computers and plan to distribute it to Fortune 1000 companies.
     

    “A Corporate Policy Guide to Copyright Use and Security on the Internet,” requests that companies take steps to ensure their computer and Internet systems are not being utilised for film and music piracy.

    The groups – the Recording Industry Association of America and The Motion Picture Association of America, represent the film and music arms of the world’s biggest media conglomerates, including Bertelsmann AG , EMI Group, AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, Sony, News Corp. and Walt Disney.

    A Reuters report indicates that the movie and music industries have been aggressive in pursuing copyright infringement litigation against renegade services like Napster.

    The groups said they issued the guide to raise awareness at the corporate level of illegal activities that may be taking place on company networks. The guide requests that companies advise employees against copyright abuse on computer systems in the workplace and warned that such unauthorized copying is illegal, can tarnish corporate reputations and increase security risks for computer systems and put organisations at risk of legal liability.

    The International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the trade body for the record industry worldwide, drafted the brochure for top European companies and is spearheading the effort overseas.

  • AOL Time Warner loses $ 99 bn, Ted Turner

    NEW YORK: There’s plenty happening at AOL Time Warner.
    The company yesterday sold a key 8.4 per cent stake in Hughes Electronics, the parent company of DirecTV, the largest pay TV satellite broadcaster in the US, that Rupert Murdoch’s been eyeing for a long time. 
    Outgoing vice chairman Ted Turner The sale, part of AOL Time Warner’s strategy to reduce its ?16.25bn debt, came shortly before the media giant announced a massive $44.9 billion fourth quarter loss due to a huge charge for the shrinking value of its America Online unit.The company also announced the stepping down of vice-chairman Ted Turner by May this year.
    The annual loss of $98.7 billion for 2002 suffered by AOL Time Warner is roughly equal to the price that America Online paid for Time Warner Inc. in the merger that created the company two years ago. Revenue for the fourth quarter ended 31 December increased eight per cent, to $11.4 billion, from the same period last year, compared with Wall Street estimates of $11.2 billion, reports say.
    While earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (ebitda) fell 11 percent at the troubled America Online unit, it rose at all the company’s other divisions, with 13 percent gains at both its studios and cable operations, a 46 percent rise in its networks, a 25 percent rise in its music division and a 21 percent gain at publishing, say reports. 
    Company-wide revenue rose to $11.4 billion from $10.6 billion, as strong box office and DVD sales and improving ad revenue from old line media such as television and magazines overcame declining revenue at AOL. America Online saw a continued decline in revenue due mostly to a long-term fall in advertising and commerce revenue. It also saw a 176,000 decline in the quarter in the number of AOL subscribers in the United States, leaving the service 26.5 million U.S. customers, the first quarterly decline the unit has ever had. 
    CEO Richard Parsons told analysts yesterday that efforts to turn around problems at AOL and cut debt and overall costs in the coming year, “will allow us to return to a growth in cash flow and ebitda.” 
    The New York-based company took a charge of $45.5 billion to reflect the loss of value at its various business units in the quarter, more than twice what some industry analysts had expected. The America Online unit took the brunt of the charge, about $33.5 billion, but the cable operations caused $10.5 billion of that, while the music segment booked $1.5 billion. 
    AOL Time Warner, which owns Time magazine, the Warner Bros. movie studio, CNN, CNN/Money and other properties in addition to its troubled AOL online service, had taken a $54.2 billion charge earlier in the year, mostly to reflect the impairment to goodwill on its balance sheet, according to reports.
    Turner’s stepping down as vice president on the other hand, follows a series of shakeups at the company. AOL Chairman Steve Case had announced earlier in January that he would resign that post in May. 
    Hughes, controlled by General Motors, has reached agreements with News Corp and Echostar in the past two years but both deals fell through. AOL Time Warner sold its Hughes holding for about ?500m to US stockbroker Bank of America, which is expected to put the block of shares up for sale. AOL Time Warner’s decision to sell the stake now, rather than wait for a value enhancing deal, was read by analysts as a sign the group needs to move urgently to reduce its debt. 
    The sale also set off speculation that the media giant does not believe a Hughes deal with either Murdoch or Ergen could come about shortly. The Hughes stake was acquired in 1999 by America Online before its groundbreaking merger with Time Warner. Hughes was to deliver America Online’s high-speed internet services to TV sets via satellite as part of the deal.

  • Bloomberg Television debuts in China

    BEIJING: Bloomberg Television has been awarded one of the two fresh licenses issued so far this year by the Chinese broadcast regulator, to distribute its English-language finance news and information channel on the Chinese government-run direct-to-home satellite TV platform. 
    The green signal gives the channel access to hotels, foreign housing compounds and government offices in the world’s fastest growing financial market.
    Under the agreement, the China International Television Corporation (CITC), the commercial arm of the nation’s broadcasting regulator, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), has granted Bloomberg Television a national license to commence broadcasting its 24-hour Asia Pacific feed this month on the SinoSat platform.
    Star TV was the first foreign television company to win the rights to broadcast into China, along with AOL Time Warner, which also gained permission to launch a channel in a limited area in Guangdong.
    Bloomberg Television’s total household viewership in the Asia Pacific region has increased by 77 per cent in the past 18 months, with 24 million households throughout the region now receiving the channel’s market-moving financial news, analysis and information, claims the company. The channel’s hotel distribution more than doubled during the same period, it says.

  • Warner Bros licensing agent for UEFA EURO 2004

    CALIFORNIA: Kicking off a major international licensing agreement, the Union of European Football Association (UEFA) has announced the appointment of Warner Bros. Consumer Products as the exclusive worldwide licensing agent for UEFA EURO 2004 to be held in Portugal 12 June – 4 July 2004.

    Warner Bros. Consumer Products, a division of media conglomerate AOL Time Warner, will use its European branches for creating licensed toys and apparel, a premium catalogue and a mascot for a strong retail presence at UEFA EURO 2004.

    With this partnership, UEFA and Warner Bros. Consumer Products are looking to create a strong licensing and retail presence in the international sporting world. Under the deal, Warner Bros. Consumer Products will be in charge of the on site retail operation in Portugal during UEFA EURO 2004 where 16 of Europe’s top football teams battle it out on the field for the championship. The UEFA European Football Championship is held every four years and is the largest European football event, as televised matches from UEFA EURO 2000 captured a worldwide audience of over seven billion.

  • HBO production unit getting into high gear

    HBO production unit getting into high gear

    MUMBAI: HBO is re-invigorating its old production unit, HBO Independent Productions, by reviving the business of creating series for broadcast networks. 

    The cable channel, which produces Everybody Loves Raymond for CBS, had turned its attention away from that business to concentrate on its own shows.

    Among the major new initiatives the AOL Time Warner unit is getting into is with ailing US television network ABC, which is searching for programming that will bring it some worthwhile ratings. HBO and ABC are expected to announce an agreement as per which shows created by HBO will air during ABC’s prime-time schedule. The alliance is expected to kick into high gear by late next year when the shows that HBO is creating go on air. 

    In the early 1990s, HBO Independent Productions created series like Roc and Martin for the Fox network. However, in the recent past, it chose to focus more on creating original series for its own channel. 

    Reports indicate that ABC will finance the two-year agreement during which HBO will develop shows specifically for ABC. HBO is also free to offer a rejected show to other networks.

    In the recent past, HBO has gained critical attention and ratings for shows such as the mafia saga The Sopranos and Six Feet Under which earlier this year got a couple of Golden Globe Awards. . 

    ABC has seen its ratings plummet over the past couple of years and hence the need for a slew of fresh programme initiatives. Reports indicate that ABC is pushing its development schedule this year and already has more than 15 new projects in development for next fall. They do not include potential programmes from HBO. 

  • Israel gives all-clear to cable ops to dump CNN

    Israel gives all-clear to cable ops to dump CNN

    The Israeli government is calling it a purely “business decision”, but the timing is curious to say the least. Israel’s cable operators have been given the go ahead to drop CNN International from their networks.

    The move comes at a time when CNN has come under increasing fire in the Jewish state for allegedly leaning towards the Palestinians in its coverage of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its endless cycle of violence.

    The roots of this turnaround in Israel’s perceptions of the AOL Time Warner news network: CNN founder Ted Turner outraged Israelis and American conservatives in June when he accused both the Israeli and the Palestinian leaders of committing acts of terrorism.

    The Israeli government claims though that the decision is unrelated to the network’s coverage and is purely a business decision. The three main Israeli cable companies have said they would pull the plug on CNN unless they found a mutually agreeable financial arrangement before the expiry of the current contract in November.

    Officially, the channels are saying they cannot afford CNN’s prices in the current economic climate – the decision follows months of tough contract negotiations.

    The likely beneficiary of the fallout looks to be CNN’s main US competitor, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News. The three cable companies have recently begun to offer their customers Fox News, reports say.

  • Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff ousted

    Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Middelhoff ousted

    MUMBAI: German media giant Bertelsmann’s chief executive Thomas Middelhoff was forced to step down yesterday due to a fierce dispute over his strategy. 

    A report from Reuters states that Germany’s privately-owned media giant would replace Middelhoff with its media services head Gunter Thielen. Middelhoff’s attempts to modernise and take the secretive newspaper and book publisher public in an attempt to challenge fellow media conglomerates AOL Time Warner and Disney faced stiff opposition from Bertelsmann’s old guard. The report indicates that differences regarding the future direction of the company between Middelhoff and the company’s chief shareholders were mounting. 

    The announcement comes close on the heels of the resignations of Vivendi Universal chief executive Jean-Marie Messier and AOL Time Warner chief operating officer Robert Pittman earlier this month. 

    A report in a German newspaper indicated that Middelhoff would head the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom. 

  • Zee Telefilms shows an improved bottomline in Q1 2002

    Zee Telefilms shows an improved bottomline in Q1 2002

    Higher subscription revenues and a tight control on costs enabled Indian media major Zee Telefilms Ltd (ZTL) to notch up a better better bottomline in Q1 2002-2003 as compared to Q1 2001-2002. Net profit is up 31 per cent to Rs 476.7 million (Rs 363 million in the corresponding previous financial quarter). Things are not that rosy on the turnover front with total revenues rising a minuscule 6.5 per cent to Rs 2488 million (Rs 2335 million).

    The major contributor to the turnover rise is the 52 per cent jump in subscription revenues to Rs 1015 million (Rs 667 million). The fact that subscription collections are rising is an indicator that the company’s pay TV strategy is bearing fruit. ZTL has a joint venture with AOL Time Warner to distribute its channels in India.

    On the expenditure front, total expenses have stayed put at last year’s Rs 1730 million. The management appears to be working on getting better systems in place as administrative and other costs have gone down. The drop has gone into investments in programming and transmission, costs for which are up by only 7 per cent.

    ZTL’s financials take on a different hue when Q1 numbers are compared to that of Q4 2001-2002. Net profit as against that period is down 21.5 per cent (Rs 599.1 million in Q4 2002). Total income is also down 23.3 per cent (Rs 3.24 billion in Q4 2002).

    The market seemed to have not taken kindly to its financials as the stock dropped to Rs 117 after touching an intra-day high of Rs 122 with more than 3.3 million shares changing hand on the Bombay Stock exchange 

    During the quarter, the Company has completed all formalities for acquiring a controlling stake in ETC Networks Limited (ETC), says a company release. It adds that the transfer of ETC promoter shares in favour of Zee Telefilms is under process and hence during the first quarter, financials of ETC have not been consolidated with that of the Company.

    Additionally, Zee Telefilms, acting in concert with Padmalaya Enterprises Pvt Ltd (PEPL) has acquired, by way of preferential allotment 20,00,000 equity shares of Padmalaya Telefilms Limited (PTL) at a price of Rs. 142.2 per share. The company states that PEPL had made an open offer to acquire upto 20 per cent equity shares of PTL.

    The open offer closed on 5 June 2002 and 19,25,031 shares of PTL were tendered and accepted. It adds that payment has been made to all shareholders who have tendered their shares in the open offer. Zee has funded PEPL to enable it to acquire the above shares.

    The transfer of promoters 22,50,000 shares of PTL to PEPL is under process, it says. With this acquisition, the Company will have a 63.3 per cent equity stake in PEPL and PEPL will have 49.60 per cent stake in PTL

  • CNN warms to India-specific news channel?

    CNN warms to India-specific news channel?

    It all seems to be happening on the news channel front. The latest on this is that global news channel CNN International, whose parent company is AOL Time Warner, is reported to be seriously looking at launching an India-specific channel in the not-too distant future.

    This was revealed to indiantelevision.com this evening by a senior executive of CNN Asia Pacific. The channel executive said CNN may either go solo or in partnership.

    CNN has in the recent past reportedly been in talks with the Prannoy Roy-led NDTV to start an Indian service, but apparently the two have decided not tie the nuptial knot and have decided to go their own ways. NDTV is currently going through its own pending divorce pangs with Star India, which has decided to set up its own infrastructure and news channel under Ravina Raj Kohli. 

    CNN had earlier been in serious talks with the leading Indian news network, the Living Media-run Aaj Tak. Industry sources say CNN and Aaj Tak had wooed each other for a while, and a pre-nuptial agreement had almost been signed, but differences on certain issues resulted in the arrangement falling flat.

    With the two potential matches not turning out right and the woes of its own parent AOL Time Warner globally, the news was that CNN had put its India news channel marriage and conception plans on hold. But now with the CNN Asia Pacific exec saying that the US news network is still hungering after an India foray, the action in the news business is likely to hot up further.

  • Star applies for DTH licence? Altaf Ali Mohammed says no

    Star applies for DTH licence? Altaf Ali Mohammed says no

    The past few weeks have witnessed some hectic lobbying for easing up of the bug bear clauses as far as DTH regulations are concerned. Star TV Asia chairman James Murdoch, and News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch have made whistlestop visits to India for meetings with information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj. Murdoch Jr in fact in a public address at Ficci Frames blasted any move to legislate conditional access, and privately made a pitch for DTH with Swaraj.

    At around the same time there was also the buzz that Zee TV was considering a joint DTH venture with AOL Time Warner, which was denied later by both its Turner India boss Anshuman Mishra and Zee Group chairman Subhash Chandra. 

    Now the unconfirmed news emanating from Delhi is that Star India has applied for a DTH licence (or is seeking to do so in the very near future) through a company called Space TV. The fact that Star India is indeed thinking of such an initiative is an indicator that the government may be backtracking on its tough stance on quantum of foreign equity permitted, and cross media restrictions in DTH ventures. Star India was the first mover in DTH in India through ISkyB in 1997 but had its foray scuttled by a skittish government and rivals. The government issued a ban on distribution of Ku-band reception equipment and the regulations were eased up only a year and a half ago when it issued DTH guidelines which placed a cap on foreign equity and cross media equity of 20 per cent. No one applied for a licence, because TV companies and others found the DTH guidelines too draconian. 

    When contacted Star India denied that it had made any move in recent times on its part to apply for a DTH licence. Altaf Ali Mohammed, president digital platforms group, who oversees its DTH project and is currently operating out of Dubai, said: “We continue to explore the DTH option but we have made no firm decisions on that score.” 

    Market sources insist otherwise. “The reason Star wants to clam up on its decision is because it does not want a repeat of the ISkyB disaster of 1997,” says an industry observer.