The Second Session of the 106th Congress will convene today at noon.
MERGERS
Duet Creates Music Titan (USA)
Media: Time & Fortune Play Catch Up on AOL Deal (NYT)
Mergers in TV Industry Change Tone of NATPE Annual Gathering (WSJ)
INTERNET
Ready or Not: Voting Over the Web Arrives (WSJ)
Sorting Out Mail's Place in Internet Age (WP)
RADIO
The Money of Color (WP)
TELEPHONY/JOBS
AT&T's $2 Billion Cost-Cutting Drive Will Trim up to
25% of Executives (WSJ)
COPYRIGHT
3 Copyright Lawsuits Test Limits of New Digital Media (NYT)
INTERNATIONAL
Despite U.S. Heat on Belgrade, Radio Services Cut Broadcasts (NYT)
MERGERS
DUET CREATES MUSIC TITAN
Issue: Mergers
Time Warner is expected to announce today plans to combine its music
operation with Britain's EMI Records, creating a joint operation valued at
$20 billion. Together, the two companies will account for almost 25% of
global music sales. Time Warner has agreed to throw $1 billion into the deal
to gain ownership of the new company, to be called Warner EMI Music. Warner
brings to the deal talents like Madonna, Cher and Eric Clapton. EMI Records
will bring The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Janet Jackson. The new company
will dominate song licensing, since EMI Music Publishing is currently number
one and Warner/Chappell number two. The deal hasn't been greeted with
cheers from the regulatory or business community. "I'm very concerned about
this latest development," said presidential candidate John McCain. "This is
a merger that comes out of weakness rather than strength," says Dan O'Brien,
an analyst at Forrester Research. To take place, the deal will have to be
approved by the European Union and by US antitrust officials.
[SOURCE: USA Today (1B), AUTHOR: David Lieberman]
(http://www.usatoday.com/money/bcovmon.htm)
See Also:
TIME WARNER, EMI TO UNVEIL ALLIANCE FOR GLOBAL MUSIC VENTURE
[SOURCE: Washington Post (A10), AUTHOR: David Segal]
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18936-2000Jan23.html)
MERGER CAN EXPECT TOUGH REGULATORY LOOK
[SOURCE: USA Today (2B), AUTHOR: Paul Davidson]
(http://www.usatoday.com/money/mds7.htm)
TIME WARNER AND EMI UNVEIL PLANS TO MERGE MUSIC INTERESTS
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A3), AUTHOR: Martin Peers and Charles
Goldsmith]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB948665426777593601.htm)
MEDIA: TIME & FORTUNE PLAY CATCH UP ON AOL DEAL
Issue: Mergers/Journalism
"There's a balancing act when you cover yourself," said Norman Pearlstine
editor in chief of Time, Inc. "There's no perfect way around it. There's
conflict. There's potential for conflict. What did you know as a journalist
and what did you know as a business partner? In the end, you just sit down
and write in a way that does not violate corporate confidences." A look at
the coverage of the AOL Time Warner merger by weekly news magazines --
including Time Warner's own Time and Fortune.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C11), AUTHOR: Alex Kuczynski]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/columns/012400media-talk.html)
MERGERS IN TV INDUSTRY CHANGE TONE OF NATPE ANNUAL GATHERING
Issue: Mergers
This Tuesday will mark the beginning of National Association of Television
Programming Executives convention, or NATPE, the annual gathering that
brings together TV station program buyers and the sellers of syndicated
shows.
This year's convention is expected to be considerably less lively than those
of previous years. As a result of recent consolidations in the industry, the
majority of the country's biggest TV stations are in the hands of about two
dozen companies, most of which have already made their programming
purchases. "You can sell to over 100 stations with three phone calls," says
Rick Jacobson, president and chief operating officer of News Corp's
syndication unit Twentieth Television. According to the trade magazine
Broadcasting & Cable, a record low number of general managers are expected.
Only 37% of general managers surveyed by the magazine said they were
attending this year's show, compared with 51% a year ago. On the supply side
there are very few independent program suppliers left in the business to
hawk their shows at NATPE. Most recently, King World, whose shows include
"Oprah," was acquired by CBS, which is being acquired by Viacom.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B10), AUTHOR: Joe Flint]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB94866417644849176.htm)
INTERNET
READY OR NOT: VOTING OVER THE WEB ARRIVES
Issue: Political Discourse
For this year's presidential primary, some states, including Alaska and
Arizona, will be experimenting with Internet voting. "The Internet will do
to democracy what it did to business," predicts John Chambers, the CEO of
Cisco Systems and an Internet veteran. But there are also many concerns that
surround the prospect of Internet voting -- from Web hackers changing the
outcome of elections (Dewey Wins!), to disenfranchising those who can't
afford PCs or Internet connections. Because lower-income voters are less
likely to have Web access in their homes or offices, the Voting Integrity
Project, a voting-rights group, filed suit Friday in federal court in
Arizona to block Internet voting in that state. The group branded Internet
voting "a new millennium version of the literacy test." There are also fears
it will ultimately trivialize the serious civic responsibility. "You'll feel
more like a consumer than a citizen," says Rick Valelly, a Swarthmore
College professor. "If conglomerates like the proposed AOL Time Warner
succeed in blending the Net with TV," writes Mr. Webb, "viewers could click
straight from viewing mudslinging ads to casting their votes."
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (B1), AUTHOR: Tom Webb]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB94866728118791507.htm)
SORTING OUT MAIL'S PLACE IN INTERNET AGE
Issue: Internet
Postmaster General William Henderson has launched a reorganization of agency
headquarters to prepare the Postal Service for the age of the Internet. The
Postal Service fears that it could lose as much as $17 billion worth of
first-class mail to e-commerce competition in the coming years. "Such a
decline would be unprecedented in the service's history and would likely
create financial and performance challenges," the General Accounting Office
said in a recent report. One idea the agency has had is to set up an
Internet auction site to help retailers dispose of their goods. More likely
though is the agency's plan to continue to strike up deals with Internet
retailers so that consumers will have the Postal Service as a shipper option
in addition to UPS and Federal Express. Ulric Weil, a senior technology
analyst
at Friedman, Billings, Ramsey Group doesn't think the Postal Service will
disappear anytime soon. "Not everybody has a computer with a modem. We
have the great digital divide...The 50 percent who do not have computers
with modems still depend on first-class mail." To bridge that divide, the
Postal Service has considered providing each American household with an
Internet address to match up with their physical home address. If a home
did not have a computer link to the Internet, the agency would print out the
electronic message, put the paper in an envelope and hand-deliver it.
[SOURCE: Washington Post (A1), AUTHOR: Stephen Barr]
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18746-2000Jan23.html)
RADIO
THE MONEY OF COLOR
Issue: Radio
Fueled by years' of on-air Black issues advocacy, Catherine L. Hughes has
fashioned Radio One, Inc. into the largest African American-owned public
company in the country. Now the District-based company's goal is to
transform the 27-station chain into a national radio empire. Radio One is
growing faster than larger networks -- its stock price increased 166% last
year, bringing in $57 million in the first three quarters of 1999. The task
of a national expansion falls to Alfred C. Liggins, III, president and CEO
of Radio One and Hughes's son. Under his leadership the sound of the
stations have changed. Some listeners worry that the national market
initiative is changing the nature of the company as well. Liggins sees it
differently: "We want to be the premier vehicle for the urban market,
whether that is news, culture or entertainment. There's no limit to what
we want," he said.
[SOURCE: Washington Post Business pg 16, Author: Yuki Noguchi]
(http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/business/A18584-2000Jan23.html)
TELEPHONY/JOBS
AT&T'S $2 BILLION COST-CUTTING DRIVE WILL TRIM UP TO 25% OF EXECUTIVES
Issue: Telephony/Jobs
AT&T plans to cut $2 billion in cost cuts by the end of the year -- cuts
that may include the elimination of nearly one-quarter of the company's
approximately 600 officers and directors. Cost-cutting has become a critical
way for AT&T to maintain its earnings growth at a time when it is investing
billions of dollars in areas -- such as cable and wireless -- that will take
time to contribute significantly to the bottom line. Cuts are likely to
affect AT&T's slow-growing business and consumer long distance units the
most. AT&T CEO Bill Armstrong reportedly is particularly interested in
thinning some of the layers of management that have helped gain AT&T a
reputation as a slow-moving bureaucracy. "Anyone who knows AT&T well knows
that it is still a little management top-heavy," said a source close to the
situation.
[SOURCE: Wall Street Journal (A3), AUTHOR: Rebecca Blumenstein]
(http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB948665240123437196.htm)
COPYRIGHT
3 COPYRIGHT LAWSUITS TEST LIMITS OF NEW DIGITAL MEDIA
Issue: Copyright
What framework will govern the distribution of digital content? Three
lawsuits in play last week revealed a growing conflict between the
entertainment industry, which is struggling to protect its products and
profits, and consumer groups, which accuse the industry of interfering with
free speech and people's rights to control their viewing/listening
experience. "What's really going on in these legal skirmishes is a broader
conflict between traditional means of media distribution and digital means,"
said Mark Lemley, a professor specializing in Internet law at the University
of California at Berkeley. "The media companies have a legitimate concern
that the medium of the Internet enables piracy, but there is also an
unsavory concern that they are losing their traditional distribution
mechanism. The statutes are frighteningly complex, and it's not clear how to
apply them to the Internet. The result that we get when we work through the
statutes and figure it all out may not be the one that we want." The
lawsuits deal with: 1) MP3.com selling a service that allows customers to
store and listen to music collections from password-protected online
accounts and 2) the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 which made it
illegal to circumvent copyright-protection technologies but includes an
exemption that allows software developers to engage in "reverse
engineering" of copyright protection codes as they try to create products
compatible with the protection technology.
[SOURCE: New York Times (C8), AUTHOR: Sara Robinson]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/01/biztech/articles/24onli.html)
INTERNATIONAL
DESPITE U.S. HEAT ON BELGRADE, RADIO SERVICES CUT BROADCASTS
Issue: International
Radio Free Europe and the Voice of America have both cut back their
Serbian-language transmissions despite an Administration commitment to oust
Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic through support of opposition
media. In this fiscal year, the US will spend $25 million to support Serbian
"democratization" including direct and indirect aid to opposition and
independent media. The US is also trying to create an international
broadcasting ring around Serbia including aid and new transmitters for
stations in Bosnia and Montenegro. The directors of Radio Free Europe and
Voice of America blamed the cuts on budget restraints -- Congress did not
increase funding for either agency this year.
[SOURCE: New York Times (A3), AUTHOR: Steven Erlanger]
(http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/012400yugo-us-radio.html)
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