Walt Disney Co. investors will be paying more attention than ever to the media giant’s huge but challenged television business as the company reports fiscal second-quarter financial results Tuesday.
The Wall Street Journal reports the future of Disney’s TV division, particularly ESPN, has long been the focus of anxious Wall Street analysts since its growth started slowing two years ago amid subscription declines for pay-cable packages. Wariness is even higher now, though, after a top executive at Time Warner Inc. last week warned about an advertising slowdown and after the biggest-ever first-quarter decline in pay TV subscriptions.
Investors will want to know whether the many deals Disney has signed with low-price “slim” internet TV bundles like YouTube TV are ameliorating subscriber declines. They also will be looking for an update on the “over-the-top” digital ESPN product Disney has said it would launch by the end of the year.
Disney is expected to report net income of $1.41 a share for the quarter, according to the consensus of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, compared with $1.30 a share a year earlier. Revenue is expected to be $13.45 billion, up from $12.97 billion a year ago. Disney doesn’t provide earnings guidance.
(Reuters) -- Comcast Corp launched a new cloud-based service on Monday that allows users to control and monitor their Wi-Fi usage as the largest cable provider in the U.S. looks for ways to boost consumer loyalty in its broadband business.
The service, called XFi, allows users to set up their home Wi-Fi, shut off children's devices at bedtime, and troubleshoot problems from an application on their mobile phones, website or television. It is now available for free to 10 million of Comcast's Xfinity Internet customers with compatible WiFi devices.
Comcast is trying to improve the home Wi-Fi experience at a time when its customers are connecting a growing number of devices. The Philadelphia-based company says that by 2020, Americans will have an average of 50 connected devices in their homes.
Its efforts come at a time when broadband subscribers are outnumbering video customers as more consumers drop their cable packages or never subscribe in the first place. In 2016, Comcast had 24.7 million high-speed Internet customers and 22.5 million video customers, according to a filing.
On the company's post-earnings conference call, Chief Executive Brian Roberts said last month that "we have more broadband customers than we do video, and the rate of that growth is pretty exciting in broadband." Comcast's broadband business grew 10.1 percent in the first quarter ended March 31.
In creating XFi, the company hopes to reduce churn, or customer defections. Chris Satchell, chief product officer, said in an interview that half of the customer complaints Comcast receives about Internet service are actually about Wi-Fi.
"We want the connectivity in the home to be as good as connectivity to the home," Satchell said.
ABC has a deal in place with producers FremantleMedia and Core Media Group to revive “American Idol.”
According to Variety, the broadcast network and the production companies have settled on a framework for an agreement to bring back the long-running singing-competition series. According to sources, the Alphabet is eyeing a March premiere for the show, which would potentially air on Sunday nights, where ABC has struggled in recent seasons against NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” and programming on Fox and CBS that benefits from a strong NFL lead-in. The Alphabet is the only broadcaster of the Big Four that does not have an NFL package.
Yet to be decided is whether or how longtime host Ryan Seacrest could return to the franchise. Seacrest last week was announced as the new co-host of ABC syndicated morning program “Live!” with Kelly Ripa. He is relocating to New York for the role — a move that presents a substantial obstacle to a return as host of “Idol,” which has always filmed in Los Angeles.
Ripa and Seacrest
ABC, which has yet to close the deal, had passed on “Idol” after hearing a pitch for it earlier this year. At that time, as Variety reported exclusively, NBC had emerged as the lead network to pick up a revival being shopped by FremantleMedia, which has insisted on a minimum 25-hour order from any broadcast partner.
But the Peacock backed away from a deal, concerned that “Idol” could negatively impact singing competition series “The Voice,” and turned off by a high asking price from the producer. The ABC deal would preclude the involvement of original judge Simon Cowell, who was rumored to be a possibility to rejoin the show at NBC, where he produces “America’s Got Talent” and has an exclusive agreement.
Last week, the 4-2year-old Seacrest vbecame Kelly Ripa's new cohost on ABC's morning show Live! He relocated to New York City for the gig. If he returns to Idol, which films in Hollywood, he would likely have to travel from coast to coast several times a week.
A source tells Us Weekly that Seacrest's main priority is Live!, in addition to his work with iHeartMedia; KIIS 102.7 FN and his syndicated radio shows. "That said, Ryan has a lot of affection for Idol given the significance to his career, and it taps into the things he loves — a live show, pop music, discovering new talent, etc.," the insider adds. "There have been no formal discussions with Ryan about his involvement but he may well be open to it ... in the right capacity and if it fits in with his other commitments."
Meanwhile, Kelly Ripa is said to be livid after having just discovered that the real reason she’ll be sitting next to Ryan Seacrest on Live! doesn’t just have to do with the success of her show: An insider told RadarOnline.com that ABC locked in her new co-host because they are plotting to bring American Idol to the network!
“It’s like Kelly has been betrayed all over again. Ryan wasn’t her first choice, but she was convinced by the network that he would bring in a list guests and ratings,” a source told Radar exclusively. “Now she has found out that it is all about Idol and not really just about her!”
A conservative columnist who was suspended by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after she defended the National Rifle Association from comparisons to ISIS fired back with her resignation and a series of targeted tweets.
According to The NYPost, the newspaper on Friday suspended Stacy Washington after a column entitled “Guns and the Media” disputed an anti-NRA article that argued since more Americans die from guns than from ISIS, the Second Amendment advocacy group is the greater danger.
“[W]hen has a member of the NRA ever decapitated, set on fire, tossed from a rooftop or otherwise terrorized another American? The linkage is not only rife with improper context; it is false on its face,” Washington wrote in her column, which also decried the lack of conservatives in U.S. newsrooms.
“This failure to represent the opposing, especially conservative, view is an increasingly apparent deficit in the news reporting apparatus in our country.”
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch asserts that Washington was not suspended for the views expressed in her column, but for failing to disclose her promotional work and professional affiliation with the NRA. Washington has appeared several times as a co-host and commentator on “Cam & Company” on NRA TV and contributed to an NRA documentary in August 2016. However, she has never been paid by the NRA.
Following her suspension last Friday, Washington mounted a Twitter broadside at her Post-Dispatch editors, insisting she is not a paid “shill” for the NRA and noting the irony of a column calling out the lack of conservatives in the mainstream media getting a conservative suspended from a mainstream newspaper.
The sexual harassment scandal enveloping Fox News now poses a threat to parent company 21st Century Fox’s deal to take full ownership of the European satellite TV service Sky.
Douglas Wigdor, the attorney whose firm represents 20 plaintiffs in sexual harassment and racial discrimination cases against Fox News, has been invited to appear before the Office of Communications, also known as Ofcom, the British regulatory body reviewing whether Fox should buy Sky.
“I am pleased that Ofcom has invited me to appear in London next week on behalf of our 20 clients and look forward to sharing the information that I have come to learn about 21st Century Fox through the dedicated men and women that I am privileged to represent,” Wigdor said in a statement.
According to The LA Times, the development highlights how a scandal that has prompted the resignations of top Fox News executives and star host Bill O’Reilly has become a major headache for 21st Century Fox, potentially disrupting a long-sought deal.
The New York-based Murdoch family-controlled media company for years has had ambitions to control Sky, Britain’s satellite pay-television juggernaut that boasts exclusive rights to soccer and other sporting events. Sky also sells broadband Internet service, an online streaming plan and a Sky-branded phone service. Fox currently holds a 39.1% interest in Sky, but Rupert Murdoch and his sons are determined to consolidate Fox’s ownership.
21st Century Fox, formerly known as News Corp., made its first attempt to buy Sky in 2010 for $12 billion, but pulled back following revelations that reporters and operatives for its London tabloids had hacked into cellphone messages left for members of the royal family, celebrities such as Hugh Grant and even crime victims.
Now, another controversy imperils Fox’s plans. Federal investigators have widened their probe into how Fox News handled the financial reporting of payments made to settle sexual harassment claims. The probe includes a review of ousted Fox News Chief Executive Roger Ailes’ actions while he ran the top-rated cable news operation, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation who are not authorized to discuss it.
Lisa Bloom and Wendy Walsh
Wigdor’s testimony in Britain will follow an appearance by Wendy Walsh, KFI 640 AM Los Angeles radio psychologist who recently went public with her harassment complaint against Fox News. Walsh’s attorney, Lisa Bloom, confirmed that her client has been invited to speak before Ofcom on Monday.
Walsh alleged that Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly went back on a stated commitment to get her a position as a paid contributor at Fox News after she rejected his advances at a 2013 dinner meeting at the Hotel Bel-Air. The revelation of Walsh’s claim — along with the disclosure that $13 million had been paid to settle harassment claims made by other women against O’Reilly — led to the popular host’s April 19 firing. Read More Now
(Reuters) -- Australia proposed scrapping media ownership restraints on Saturday which could raise huge interest among moguls looking for acquisitions, especially in its ailing, third-largest free-to-air television network, Ten Network Holdings (TEN.AX).
Federal Communications Minister Mitch Fifield told reporters that restraints on media asset ownership would go under the new proposals that have to be approved by parliament.
The decades-old 75 per cent reach rule and the two-out-of-three laws prohibiting a media proprietor from reaching more than 75 per cent of a free-to-air broadcast audience in any area or owning print, radio and free-air assets in the same city, would be scrapped.
"The idea behind the abolition of the two out of three rule is to give Australian media organizations the opportunity to configure themselves in the way that best supports their viability," Fifield said in Melbourne.
"I am agnostic when it comes to which organizations look to partner with other organizations.
"They are commercial matters for them. But what we are told, repeatedly, by Fairfax, by News Ltd, by Ten, is that the abolition of that rule will create real opportunity for media organizations to better configure themselves."
The Sydney Morning Herald said the reforms, if passed, "will open the door for a major round of mergers and acquisitions".
Rupert Murdoch last month edged a step closer to taking full control of Sky PLC in Britain after the European Commission said it had no issues with an $14.5 billion bid made by Murdoch's Twenty First Century Fox (FOXA.O).
All three of Australia's free-to-air television networks are under pressure as consumers increasingly view content online through streaming services like Netflix (NFLX.O) and Amazon.com Inc's (AMZN.O) Amazon Prime. But with a small market share and modest advertising revenue, Ten is in the weakest position.
Free TV Australia, the industry group that represents free-to-air networks, has argued that the proposed changes are necessary to enable the industry to compete against encroaching foreign tech giants including Facebook and Google.
Ten's operations are wholly reliant its key shareholders guaranteeing a $250 million credit facility due to expire in December.
Those guarantors are Australian television mogul Bruce Gordon, Crown Resorts (CWN.AX) casino magnate James Packer and Murdoch's son, Lachlan, who has a 7.7 per cent direct interest in Ten.
Further enhancing the appeal of owning a free-to-air television network is Fifield's proposal to abolish the existing television license fee structure which earns the government $130 million a year.
Fifield said this would be replaced with a more modest annual fee for the broadcast spectrum which would save free-to-air networks $414 million over five years. He said the government would make up the lost revenue through other budgetary measures.
The northeastern New Mexico cattle ranch where radio personality Don Imus and his wife, Dierdre, once ran a summer camp for cancer-stricken children has failed to find a buyer since it went on the market in 2014.
Imus, 76, hosts the talk show Imus in the Morning, broadcast throughout the U.S. by Cumulus Media Networks. In the late 1990s, he co-founded Imus Ranch to give kids with cancer and other serious illnesses “the experience of the great American cowboy,” according to documents from the nonprofit.
According to the Santa Fe Mexican, the 2,400-acre property in San Miguel County near Ribera originally went up for sale with a $35 million asking price, which was reduced repeatedly to just under $20 million when it didn’t sell.
Asked why the property hasn’t had any takers, Santa Fe-based real estate broker Craig Huitfeldt pointed out that the ranch caters to a very specific kind of buyer.
A 14,000-square-foot grand hacienda features dozens of rooms, a swimming pool and commercial-grade kitchen, according to the online listing. More than a dozen structures on the property include bunk houses, multiple horse barns, rodeo grounds and a greenhouse.
“It’s a very unique property,” Huitfeldt said. “It’s set up as a hotel facility more than anything. It takes a very specific user that is very charitable in order to run the ranch.”
Until 2014, the working ranch in summer hosted hundreds of kids, offering them a chance to work with horses and cattle, stay in the massive hacienda, and explore a mock Old West main street built on the property.
Imus told The Albuquerque Journal in 2014 that reasons for the decision to sell the ranch included his health and the multimillion-dollar annual expense of running the property.
According to the Imus in the Morning website, once the Imus Ranch is sold, the proceeds will be contributed to The Imus Ranch Foundation, which was formed to transfer all donations previously devoted to the nonprofit to various other charities.
The property will be auctioned online through Thomas Industries, beginning June 15. The starting bid is $5 million. Interested parties should contact Huitfeldt. Each bidder must submit a $100,000 refundable deposit.
Univision radio station KXTN 107.5 FM released radio personality Bigg Boyee as the station’s morning show host. Bigg Boyee was noticeably absent from the Tejano radio station’s airwaves on Friday morning and the longtime radio personality confirmed to Tejano Nation on Saturday that he was released from Univision, reports Tejano Nation.
Bigg Boyee took over the KXTN morning show in October 2015 and has spent 13 years with Univision, both in San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley. He was previously KXTN’s afternoon personality before moving to the morning show on Classic Hip Hop station Yo 95.1 (KMYO-FM) in February 2015, now Latino Mix 95.1. He began at KXTN in 2008 as the station’s night show host.
No statement has been released as of yet from Univision on Bigg Boyee’s departure or who will be the replacement host on KXTN’s morning show.
The parent company of USA TODAY said it had asked the FBI to investigate a wave of fake Facebook accounts so large it accounted for half of the newspaper’s following on the social media platform.
Facebook purged millions of those fake accounts from USA TODAY and other publishers three weeks ago, the latest salvo in the social giant’s battle against scammers and spammers seeking access to its platform and its 1.94 billion users.
Those axed accounts included more than a third of USA TODAY’s approximately 15.2 million Facebook "likes" at the time. Executives of Gannett Co., parent of USA TODAY and 109 local news properties, said Thursday millions of its remaining followers also were fake, and it continued to accumulate a thousand phony followers a day.
Facebook on Friday said it's detected additional suspicious activity since its April fake-account crackdown, some of which look similar to the campaign it disrupted in April. Others more closely resemble common fake profiles that post spam comments and attempt to look legitimate by engaging with businesses' Facebook pages.
Facebook has said in filings with the Securities and Exchange commission that it estimates about 1% of its monthly worldwide active users are "misclassified" accounts, which it says includes both fake accounts and those that don't abide by its terms of service, such as people creating accounts for their pets. The company believes the majority of these are outside of the United States. The company declined to say what the ratio between these types of misclassified accounts was.
The continued presence of phony accounts hasn't checked the social network's user growth, but they can cause confusion and havoc for individual users and companies. Fake profiles that masquerade as real people have also caused tragedy, such as the torture and killing of a university student in Pakistan after someone set up a fake Facebook account in his name that allegedly contained blasphemous content.
In USA TODAY's case, it's not clear why spam operators have targeted the media company's Facebook pages in droves.
Kenyon, who was born Michael Glover and grew up in the Lake City neighborhood of Seattle, suffered from congestive heart failure.
In 1967, Kenyon became the first SuperSonics beat writer for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. A decade later, he covered the arrival of the Mariners. In 1980, Kenyon was the city’s second sports talk show host -- after KIRO’s Wayne Cody -- on 570 KVI.
Kenyon also worked for KING radio, the Yakima Morning Herald, Tacoma’s News Tribune, the Hollywood Citizen-News and the Baltimore Sun, among other outlets.
Kenyon quit the P-I four times, including once because one of his stories wasn’t published. His track record on radio was similar, with one of his departures from KING being mid-show after a station manager gave unwanted input to Kenyon’s reporting.
“He often became a better story than the one he was writing,” wrote Dan Raley, a friend and another legendary Seattle sportswriter.
➦In 1899...voice actor Arthur Q. Bryan was born in Brooklyn. He is remembered best for his longtime recurring role as the wis ecracking Dr. Gamble on the NBC radio comedy Fibber McGee and Molly and for creating the voice of the Warner Brothers cartoon character Elmer Fudd. He was also the voice of Floyd Munson the barber and crony of NBC radio’s The Great Gildersleeve. He had a recurring role on The Halls of Ivy on both radio & TV. Bryan suffered a fatal heart attack Nov. 18 1959 at age 60.
➦In 1915...actor John Archer was born in small town Nebraska. He is best remembered as the radio voice of Lamont Cranston, The Shadow, for a year in the 1940’s. Later in life, as a resident of Greater Seattle he was a founding member of REPS, the Radio Enthusiasts of Puget Sound. He succumbed to lung cancer Dec. 3 1999 at age 84.
➦In 1936...radio &TV talk show host Tom Snyder was born in Milwaukee. He is best remembered for The Tomorrow Show, which followed the Tonight Show on NBC television in the late 1970s and ’80s, and The Late Late Show, following David Letterman on CBS in the 1990s.
Tom Snyder
Snyder had loved radio since he was a child and at some point changed his field of study from pre-med to journalism. He once told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Tim Cuprisin that broadcasting became more important to him than attending classes, and he skipped a lot of them. Snyder began his career as a radio reporter at WRIT (unrelated to the present-day FM station) in Milwaukee and at WKZO in Kalamazoo (where he was fired by John Fetzer) in the 1950s. For a time he worked at Savannah, Georgia, AM station WSAV (now WBMQ).
After moving to television in the 1960s, he was a news anchor for KYW-TV in Cleveland (now WKYC-TV) and, after a 1965 station switch, Philadelphia, and WNBC-TV and WABC-TV in New York City. He talked about driving cross country in an early Corvair from Atlanta to Los Angeles around 1963, where he landed a news job at KTLA, then on to KNBC-TV, also in Los Angeles, where from 1970 to 1974 he was an anchor for the 6 p.m. newscast working with KNBC broadcaster Kelly Lange, who was then a weather reporter before serving as a long-time KNBC news anchor. Lange later became Snyder's regular substitute guest host on the Tomorrow program, prior to the hiring of co-host Rona Barrett in the program's last year. Even after attaining fame as host of Tomorrow, Snyder kept his hand in news anchoring with the Sunday broadcasts of NBC Nightly News during 1975 and 1976.
He died July 29 2007 from complications associated with leukemia at age 71.
➦In 1940...singer/actor Ricky (Eric Hilliard) Nelson was born in Teaneck New Jersey.
He began in show biz as a child actor, playing himself on radio on his family’s long-running sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. When the show moved to TV he began singing at the end of each show, establishing himself as a record star. Hits include I’m Walkin’, Poor Little Fool, Lonesome Town, Never Be Anyone Else But You, Travelin’ Man, and Garden Party.
He, his fiancee & 5 others were killed in a plane crash Dec 31, 1985 enroute to a New Year’s Eve performance in Dallas. Rick was 45.
➦In 1959...the final broadcast of “One Man’s Family” was heard on NBC radio after being on the air 27 years. The Carleton E. Morse creation had completed 3,256 episodes since its beginnings in San Francisco back in 1932. ➦In 1962…Beatles manager Brian Epstein had a chance meeting with engineer Ted Huntly at a London record store. After Epstein related his discouragement about the Decca label rejecting the band, Huntly suggested he send a demo recording of the Beatles to EMI and, in particular, to one of their producers, George Martin.
George D Hay
➦In 1968...George D. Hay died at age 72.
He was the originator of the Grand Ole Opry broadcasts over station WSM in Nashville. The program, originally called the “Barn Dance,” was first broadcast on November 28th, 1925.
Hay was born in Attica, Indiana. In Memphis, Tennessee, after World War I, he was a reporter for the Commercial Appeal, and when the newspaper launched its own radio station, WMC, in January 1923, he became a late-night announcer at the station. His popularity increased and in May 1924 he left for WLS in Chicago, where he served as the announcer on a program that became National Barn Dance.
On November 9, 1925 he moved on to WSM in Nashville. Getting a strong listener reaction to 78-year-old fiddler Uncle Jimmy Thompson that November, Hay announced the following month that WSM would feature "an hour or two" of old-time music every Saturday night. He promoted the music and formed a booking agency.
➦In 1970...The Beatles released the "Let it Be" album to radio.
➦In 1982...Ron Lundy does last regular show at 77 WABC, prior to format change to Talk.
Ron was on the air in New York City starting in September 1965, first on the overnight shift at WABC before shifting to middays in 1966. He remained at WABC right up until its last day as a music station on May 10, 1982.
In February 1984, Lundy resurfaced at New York's oldies station WCBS 101.1 FM in the mid-morning slot, following former WABC colleague Harry Harrison. According to program director Joe McCoy, the station created the slot especially for Lundy, reducing other shifts from four hours to three.
Lundy retired from WCBS-FM on September 18, 1997.
He passed away at the age of 75 in Bruce, Mississippi on May 15, 2010.
