February 2013

Tribune Hires Investment Banks to Weigh a Sale of Its Top Newspapers

The Tribune Company has hired investment banks to weigh a sale of its top newspapers, including The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, the media conglomerate said. The company, which emerged from bankruptcy late last year, has retained JPMorgan Chase and Evercore Partners as advisers, said Gary Weitman, a spokesman for Tribune. Weitman said the move was prompted by unsolicited expressions of interest in the newspapers from various suitors.

Internet Gambling Scores Its Biggest Win – in New Jersey

New Jersey became the biggest state yet to allow regulated online gambling, establishing a template that proponents hope other states will follow for a business that federal authorities long treated as a criminal enterprise.

The new law allows Atlantic City's casinos to run websites that take bets on games such as blackjack, slots and poker. It also could help legitimize online-gambling companies whose executives the U.S. Justice Department once targeted for offering the same kind of Internet wagers. The law, passed by the legislature and signed by Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ), for now requires bettors to be physically present in the state, which industry executives and regulators believe can be verified with technology that tracks a user's location. But bets could conceivably be placed from any device with an Internet connection. New Jersey's move marks a significant turning point in the debate over online gambling in the U.S., which has been raging for more than a decade. But while it could encourage similar measures in other states, big hurdles remain to widespread acceptance of such gambling.

Clearwire to Tap Sprint Financing

Clearwire plans to tap financing made available by Sprint Nextel, people familiar with the situation said, in a move that further complicates Dish Network’s effort to buy the wireless broadband operator.

The move is the latest in a three-way standoff between the companies as the wireless industry consolidates. Clearwire, which is struggling financially, needs access to cash and is trying to get the highest price for its long-suffering shareholders. Sprint meanwhile hopes to gain control of Clearwire's vast holdings of spectrum to bolster its own service. And Dish, which holds billions of dollars of spectrum but has no cellphone network, is looking for a way into the wireless business.

AT&T eyes a mobile revolution in Europe

With political deadlock in Italy triggering fresh concerns about the eurozone economies, few chief executives would consider Europe a growth opportunity just waiting to be seized. Not so Randall Stephenson, chief executive of AT&T, the biggest US telecoms operator, who told the Financial Times that he anticipates a “mobile internet revolution” in Europe, which has lagged behind the US in adopting faster mobile internet technologies.

“I’m more convinced than ever that the US model, in spite of a lot of concerns about the regulatory climate and spectrum policy, will be replicated here,” Stephenson said at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona. “The mobile internet revolution will take off to the same extent that it has in the US and, if you believe that, and I do, then [the question is]: how can you participate?”

Wireless connections creep into everyday things

A car that tells your insurance company how you're driving. A bathroom scale that lets you chart your weight on the Web. And a meter that warns your air conditioner when electricity gets more expensive. Welcome to the next phase of the wireless revolution.

The first wave of wireless was all about getting people to talk to each other on cellphones. The second will be getting things to talk to each other, with no humans in between. So-called machine-to-machine communication is getting a lot of buzz at this year's wireless trade show. Some experts believe these connections will outgrow the traditional phone business in less than a decade. Companies are promising that machine-to-machine, or M2M, technology will deliver all manner of services, from the prosaic to the world-changing.

NAA Supports Delaying Media Ownership Vote

The Newspaper Association of America has also given its blessing to a brief delay of a vote on media ownership rules so that the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council can complete a study on the impact of cross-ownership on minority ownership.

Ex-Rep Plans To Finger Media at Violence Hearing

Former-Rep Sandy Adams (R-FL) plans to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee it should be looking at violent media -- video games, movies -- and mental health rather than looking to limit gun or ammunition ownership.

That is according to a copy of prepared testimony for the committee's Feb. 27 hearing on the proposed assault weapons ban. Adams is not testifying for any group, but instead identifies herself as a "mother, sheriff's deputy and former legislator." She is strongly opposed to gun control, according to the testimony. "It is not time for feel good legislation so you can say you did something; it is time for a true discussion about the culture of violence and how to prevent violent crime," she plans to tell Congress "I believe the combination of violent video games to [sic] violent movies, the desensitizing of death, blood and gore in their everyday lives is only making the culture more violent," she says. "Taking guns from law-abiding citizens while leaving them defenseless against violent criminals, who by their very definition do not abide by the law is not the answer and it is definitely not the right thing to do."

Pandora turns up volume on royalties debate

Pandora is trying to rally the conservative troops. The Internet-radio giant’s founder, Tim Westergren, told The Heritage Foundation his company is struggling against “discriminatory” laws that leave Pandora and other businesses like it paying higher royalties.

“Our objective is not to pay as little as we can,” Westergren noted as he called for legislation. “We just want something that is fair.” His appearance was part of Pandora’s all-out Washington push to secure a rewrite to royalties rules in a way that makes Internet radio streaming more financially manageable. The campaign has taken the company’s founder on something of a nationwide speaking tour, which synced up with The Heritage Foundation’s regular Blogger Briefing. In a sense, Pandora knows the clock is ticking: Its rates come up for review entering 2014, and ahead of that process, the company is backing hotly debated legislation that effectively would reduce payments by altering the standard through which rates are calculated.

Facebook Nudges Users to Catalog the Real World

More than one billion people visit Facebook each month, mostly to see photos and messages posted by friends. Facebook hopes to encourage some of them to do a little work for it while they’re there.

By asking people to contribute data—from business locations to book titles—and to check one another’s work, Facebook is building a rich stock of knowledge that could make its software smarter and boost the usefulness of its search engine. “We’re trying to map what the real world looks like onto Facebook so you can run really expressive and powerful queries,” says Mitu Singh, product manager for Facebook’s entities team.

Vivendi's Telecom Hang-Ups

Vivendi wants to turn itself from a telecom-heavy conglomerate into a media company focused on music, television and games. That seems like a smart move.

Vivendi isn't short of media-investment opportunities. One option is to buy the 39% of U.S.-listed games publisher Activision Blizzard it doesn't already own, swapping annual dividends worth $200 million for $1.6 billion in operating cash flow. That could allow Vivendi to raise dividends by €1 billion to €2.4 billion, says Credit Suisse. Another option is to buy other games publishers to merge with Activision. But Vivendi needs to sell its telecom assets before it can start spending. The snag is that natural bidders for GVT such as Telecom Italia and Telefónica are also under pressure to deleverage, leaving Vivendi reliant on financial sponsors and satellite operator DirecTV. And a sale of the Maroc Telecom stake is potentially complicated by government influence in Morocco.

Benton

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