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Bertelsmann, the German media company, and Pearson, its UK rival, are merging Random House and Penguin, their respective publishing units, in response to the rapidly developing challenges of the e-book revolution.
In a move likely to trigger more consolidation, the companies said 53 percent of Penguin Random House would be owned by Bertelsmann, and the other 47 per cent held by Pearson, which also owns the Financial Times. Both media companies had agreed to hold their stakes for at least three years and it was likely that Bertelsman would seek to increase its shareholding thereafter, according to a person briefed by the German side. Both Bertelsmann and Pearson were also said to have the right to trigger an initial public offer after five years.
Penguin and Random House agree merger
Swing state residents may be growing weary of the barrage of political ads, but this election season has been a boon to local TV stations.
President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, the two parties and the 10 largest independent groups have spent more than $610 million on presidential TV ads so far this year, according to the Wesleyan Media Project, which obtained data from ad tracking firm Kantar Media/CMAG. More than 915,000 presidential ads have aired on broadcast and cable television since June 1. That’s a 44.5 percent increase from the same period in 2008, and a 43.7 percent increase from 2004. Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, said the ad buys this year are concentrated in the handful of swing states that will likely decide the election.
The top markets for ad buys are Denver; Las Vegas; Tampa; Cleveland; Orlando; Washington (DC); Miami; Columbus; Cincinnati and Norfolk (VA), according to the data from Kantar Media.
Local television stations in swing-states cash in on deluge of political ads
Despite repeated warnings from President Barack Obama and his party that a flood of unrestricted donations from conservatives to outside groups would swamp them, the White House and its allies are at least holding their own.
Over the last month, the pro-Obama forces have run more ads and, more critically, have reached audiences in roughly the same numbers as Mitt Romney and the group of well-financed conservative super PACs working to elect him. A review of data from the last 30 days from Kantar Media/CMAG, which tracks political ad placements, shows that 160,000 commercials supporting the president have run, compared with 140,000 for Mr. Romney. And the Obama campaign and its supporters have broadcast more ads during the morning news and prime-time periods when television viewership is highest. Though the disparity has started to narrow somewhat over the last week, with Republicans gaining a decisive advantage in places like Cleveland and Des Moines, the story in battleground states has been the same for much of the last month: even at their most effective, the super PACs have helped Romney fight only to a draw.
President Obama Is Even in TV Ad Race Despite PACs
Every late-night television producer has been chasing Mitt Romney for weeks to try to secure a guest appearance, with no success so far.
Romney also has declined invitations from a host of other media outlets who have landed President Obama for interviews, including MTV and NBC News, which was given two days of access to the president during his campaign tour last week. The opposite has been true for President Obama, who has taken advantage of the open invitation from the late-night shows to make extended guest appearances on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” on Comedy Central, and Jay Leno’s “Tonight Show” on NBC, racking up strong ratings in each case.
As President Obama Accepts Offers, Late-Night Television Longs for Romney
Cybersecurity legislation faces long odds of passing Congress this year despite forceful calls for action from the White House and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
There are several roadblocks that could prevent a bill from even reaching the Senate floor, and observers say Congress will likely punt the issue to next year. One of the chief complicating factors is the packed docket of legislation the Senate needs to complete before adjourning at the end of the year. "It's so hard. The timing is bad [and] the amount of work that has to be done in the lame duck is so substantial," said Stewart Baker, a partner at Steptoe & Johnson and former assistant secretary for policy at the Department of Homeland Security. Another key question mark is whether both parties have the political will to hammer out a compromise.
Cybersecurity bill likely dead
Although the DVR is a blessing for couch potatoes, it is more of a mixed blessing for the television industry. The upside is that the DVR enables people to watch more television and gives executives another measuring stick to determine hits and flops instead of living and dying with overnight ratings. The downside is that although DVRs enable viewers to catch shows they might otherwise miss, if someone is watching a recorded program it means they are not watching live TV. Networks still put great effort into designing lineups that will keep viewers tuned in to live TV. DVRs and other platforms have the potential to blow traditional viewing habits out of the water. And if viewers are using their DVRs more to watch TV, it also means they can easily skip through commercials, which has many advertisers worried.
Higher DVR usage becomes a mixed blessing for TV industry
English Premier League soccer games will move to NBC from Fox and ESPN next year. NBC will pay about $80 million a year over the next three years for the rights to the soccer games, according to a person familiar with the situation. The games will be aired on the NBC broadcast network, the NBC Sports Network and possibly on some of NBCUniversal's other cable channels, such as Bravo and USA. NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus said that the games draw a "couple hundred thousand" viewers in the U.S. now and that he expects to increase that number over time. "Did we pay more than the others before, yes," he added. "But we think the value is there."
Premier League Soccer to Move to NBC in $80 Million Deal
Vodafone’s Vittorio Colao needs to decide whether Vodafone stays in its US wireless venture with America’s Verizon, or whether it takes a step back and employs its capital elsewhere.
The decision to establish a new mobile telephony company between Vodafone and what was then Bell Atlantic back in 1999 was a brave and visionary step. Verizon Wireless has proved to be strategically astute (in a defensive sense) and it also has shown itself to be highly profitable, even if it has proved difficult to turn those profits into hard cash. But this mobile marriage between Vodafone and what is now America’s Verizon Communications has also been a management nightmare for Colao and his predecessors at the British company, Sir Chris Gent and Arun Sarin. The ownership split is 55 percent Verizon, 45 percent Vodafone. So whether it’s the choice of technical standards, the distribution of dividends, or pretty much anything else, Verizon calls the shots.
Vodafone must decide on Verizon venture
[Commentary] More than 30,000 people have been killed in a conflict sparked 19 months ago when the military arrested 15 teenagers writing graffiti – “The people want the downfall of the regime” – that revealed an unspoken truth. Since then, peaceful protests have largely given way to a civil war that’s also spilling over Syria’s borders. Russia and the United States can’t agree on what to do, so little is done from the outside. That leaves either more violence to resolve the conflict or something else.
What might that something else be? Perhaps it is the parallel war being waged by the opposition on YouTube to convince the remaining Syrians who support Bashar al-Assad that the regime now survives only on a thin tissue of lies. One of the more popular chants during demonstrations has been “Syrian media is a liar!” To challenge the state’s censorship and its massive propaganda machine, the opposition has smartly used the Internet, relying on satellite connections to upload videos on YouTube. Many Syrians rely heavily on their satellite dishes to watch these daily depictions of what the regime actually does. The effect is powerful. A string of myths has been knocked down.
Syria's YouTube 'war' could win the war
Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Mobile USA, and MetroPCS Communications have filed applications seeking Federal Communications Commission consent to the transfer of control of Personal Communications Service licenses and leases, one lower 700 MHz license, as well as international 214 authorizations, held by MetroPCS and its wholly-owned and controlled subsidiaries and by T-Mobile and its wholly-owned and controlled subsidiaries to a newly combined entity.
Under the agreement to combine T-Mobile and MetroPCS, Deutsche Telekom’s indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary, T-Mobile Global Holding GmbH (“T-Mobile Holding”), would transfer all of its ownership interests in T-Mobile to MetroPCS, and MetroPCS would then issue stock to T-Mobile Holding or its designee. The agreement would result in Deutsche Telekom and existing MetroPCS shareholders ultimately holding 74 percent and 26 percent ownership interests, respectively, in the newly combined entity. The newly combined entity would be named T-Mobile US, Inc., and both the MetroPCS brand and the T-Mobile brand would be retained, offered through separate business units. The Applicants state that the proposed transaction would combine complementary spectrum portfolios that, in some markets, would result in larger blocks of contiguous spectrum to allow for higher speeds, throughput rates, and increased capacity, and in other markets, would augment the spectrum holdings of the combined company to enable broader and more robust Long Term Evolution deployment. The Applicants further state that the proposed transfers would allow the newly combined company to make more efficient use of the spectrum and offer improved services to consumers across the country.
Preliminary review of the Applications indicates that T-Mobile and MetroPCS would combine their AWS-1 and PCS spectrum, as well as one lower 700 MHz license, in 248 Cellular Market Areas across the nation. Post-transaction, in markets in which there is geographical overlap the merged entity would hold a maximum of 110 megahertz of spectrum covering approximately 141 million people, or 46 percent of the population of the mainland United States. In addition to the applications filed proposing to transfer control of MetroPCS’s licenses to the combined company, T-Mobile has filed applications proposing what it characterizes as pro forma transfers of control of all of its licenses and authorizations to the newly combined entity. Those applications are included on this public notice as well.
Interested parties must file petitions to deny no later than November 26, 2012. Persons and entities that file petitions to deny become parties to the proceeding. They may participate fully in the proceeding, including seeking access to any confidential information that may be filed under a protective order, seeking reconsideration of decisions, and filing appeals of a final decision to the courts. Oppositions to such pleadings must be filed no later than December 6, 2012. Replies to such pleadings must be filed no later than December 17, 2012. All filings concerning matters referenced in this Public Notice should refer to WT Docket No. 12-301 and reference the specific file numbers of the individual applications to which the filings pertain.
FCC Sets Pleading Cycle for T-Mobile/MetroPCS Merger