Media Money with Julia Boorstin
featured
Ashton Kutcher says he will invest only in companies that have a mobile component. He made the revelation in an interview I hosted on-stage at the CTIA wireless conference.
» Read More
More
Cannes & the Music of Politics
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
The Cannes Film Festival is about halfway through, and it's not just about starlets and red carpets -- real business gets done. Cannes is where American filmmakers go to meet with buyers from "foreign properties" to sell their international distribution rights. Often, independent filmmakers will sell foreign rights before the film is made, to finance production -- selling on the strength of the stars and the concept.
»Read more
Writers Guild Strike Looms
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
The Writers Guild of America warned the movie studios and TV networks that they're going to persist with demands for a bigger cut of new-media revenues.The WGA put out its 25-item "pattern of demands," which emphasize that writers must be compensated appropriately when their work is played on digital platforms like the internet or cell phones. That includes work created specifically for those new platforms, or content created for traditional media and repurposed for the new media world.
»Read more
Is Social Networking Yahoo's Holy Grail?
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
Ever since News Corp snapped up MySpace, media companies are on the lookout for other hot social networking sites. And now Yahoo is hoping to score a similar, if smaller, win in the U.K. Yahoo is working on an acquisition of Bebo, the popular British social networking site.This is the first paragraph/short story.
»Read more
Out Front of the Upfronts
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
This week of TV "upfront" ad sales is arguably the most important week of the year for the networks -- they're aiming to sell 75 percent of their annual ads. Last year, that amounted to about 9 billion dollars. This year, it's expected to be roughly flat -- that's what the analysts are telling me. But considering the fact that ratings are down from last year, the price advertisers are paying per ratings point is actually inching up!
»Read more
A Hollywood Billion Gets to Work
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
Summit Entertainment, a new studio launched two weeks ago with $1 billion in financing led by Merrill Lynch, just unveiled its slate of new development projects -- nine that will go into production this year -- with two films going into production this summer. The plan is to release ten to 12 films a year through its domestic pipeline, and they're not wasting any time.
»Read more
News Corp Earnings
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
Will Murdoch convince the Bancroft Family to sell Dow Jones? Will he sweeten his already oh-so-sweet $5 billion offer for the Wall Street Journal's parent?There's no better place to find the future than in the past -- in News Corp's case, fiscal third-quarter earnings. Net income increased 6.2%, led by the movie division whose revenues grew a whopping 82% to $410 million, a record for the quarter.
»Read more
More Media M&A Madness
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
Reuters received a takeover approach by a third party, but wouldn't say who. Those in the know say its Thomson group, the financial news company that aggregates information, like which analysts cover which company -- a service that we here at CNBC use quite often.
»Read more
Sony's Spidey Kicks Off Summer
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
"Spider-Man 3" is breaking records, and it hasn't even opened in the U.S. yet; it premiered in Tokyo in April, and opened in 16 Asian and European countries on Tuesday, bringing in $29 million dollars on its first day alone.Throughout Asia, the film opened bigger than the first and second films in the series; in some countries, it out-grossed the combined opening day of Spidey 1 and 2. And in some countries, the movie broke records for the biggest single-grossing day ever.
»Read more
Media Mayhem
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
The moguls are on a buying spree...The latest: Ron Burkle is eyeing tabloid publisher American Media. After he lost the LA Times to Sam Zell, who snapped up the Tribune company (Burkle made a bid with Eli Broad), he's turned to more low-brow fare. American Media has Star, National Enquirer, and less well-known names like Flex and Muscle & Fitness. It's also got tons of debt.
»Read more
Blockbuster Season, Valenti, Baldwin & Newspapers
Posted By: Julia Boorstin
The beginning of the second quarter of 2007 had a slow start at the box office. The first five weeks of Q2 were down 7.2% from the same period a year ago. But this week, all of that will change with "Spider-Man 3" opening on a whopping 4,000 screens on Friday, starting with some midnight screenings Thursday night.
»Read more
About Media Money
Media Money keeps you ahead of the curve in the ever-changing but always exciting media business. From Hollywood to Bollywood, digital explosions to perils in publishing, Julia Boorstin brings you the insight you need to better understand this evolving but ever entertaining industry.
-
Working from Los Angeles, Boorstin is CNBC's media and entertainment reporter and author of CNBC.com's "Media Money" blog.