Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) just added some lagniappe to its Zune Pass music subscription: effective now, 10 tracks a month can be downloaded for keeps. It's a nice gesture for subscribers—I am one so can attest to that—but it's also a very real PR effort to goose interest in the...
For most of the sports-viewing world, the big news in the deal announced today between ESPN (NYSE: DIS) and the Bowl Championship Series is the price tag—an estimated $500 million—and the apparently inexorable move of major sports from free over-the-air broadcast to subscription-supported cable. But, as we suggested yesterday,...
Sorry I didn't start a pool on how long it would take the usually voluble Mark Cuban to move past that first relatively low-key—for him—response to the SEC's charges of insider trading yesterday. Well, technically, he isn't doing the talking. Instead, Tuesday's salvo posted on Cuban's Blog Maverick...
FiLife, the IAC-Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS) personal finance joint venture, is flipping top execs: Dave Kansas, who signed on in early 2007 when the venture didn't have a name, is stepping aside as president for an editor-at-large role. In his place, Ezra Kucharz, the former Oberon Media EVP and...
The never-ending effort to make every possible cent from Life magazine continues with today's launch of the Life Photo Archive on Google (NSDQ: GOOG) a project nearly two years in the making. The 10 million-plus images—many of them iconic and 97 percent not available to the public before—will show...
For most of the sports-viewing world, the big news in the deal announced today between ESPN (NYSE: DIS) and the Bowl Championship Series is the price tag—an estimated $500 million—and the apparently inexorable move of major sports from free over-the-air broadcast to subscription-supported cable. But, as we suggested here...
The details are still sketchy and the official announcement has yet to be made by ESPN (NYSE: DIS) and the Bowl Championship Series Group but Fox Sports said today that it will not be hosting the premiere college football games after its current contract expires in 2010. That leaves...
*ESPN* founder Bill Rasmussen's nascent College Fanz Sports Network is expanding with the acquisition of Victory Sports Network, which bills itself as the "dominant voice" of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics NAIA. No financial terms were disclosed. Based in Grand Island, Neb., VSN started in 2002 to cover...
Mark Cuban's personal response to insider trading chargers filed today by the SEC is limited to one line on BlogMaverick: "I wish I could say more, but I will have to leave it to this, and let the judicial process do its job." His official statement in the press...
Change is on its way to the alphabet agencies with media, telecom, tech and internet oversight—but it's taking two tracks. While the Obama-Biden transition team fits potential appointees to posts, review teams are diving in deep at the agencies and departments to provide the kind of info needed to...
Tony Ponturo, one of the most powerful figures in media and sports marketing, will retire from Anheuser-Busch at year's end. Ponturo, VP-Global Media & Sports Marketing, has been responsible for managing A-B's hundreds of millions of marketing dollars—the company spends more than $100 million annually on the NFL alone—and,...
The SEC has charged internet entrepreneur and NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban with insider trading over shares of Mamma.com. The high-profile complaint—the press release leads SEC.gov at the moment—alleges that in June 2004, Cuban sold 600,000 shares of the search engine company's stock within hours of receiving confidential...
Change is on its way to the alphabet agencies with media, telecom, tech and internet oversight—but it's taking two tracks. While the Obama-Biden transition team fits potential appointees to posts, review teams are diving in deep at the agencies and departments to provide the kind of info needed to...
Jeffrey Immelt's latest tack to convince people that NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) parent General Electric is staying in the media business—talk about buying more media assets. The GE chairman and CEO told the FT "There are going to be some opportunities in media consolidation, in infrastructure, oil and gas,...
The Dow, with its first sub-8,000 close in five years, wasn't the only index with a record-you-don't-want day: the ContentNextDex, our own index of media, tech, mobile and entertainment stocks, dropped nearly 6 percent to 507.32—the lowest close since we launched it officially in September 2007. Compared with the...
In case you didn't believe him the first 20 times, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer repeated today at the company's annual shareholders' meeting that he has no intention of making another offer for Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO). Ballmer's words, reported by MarketWatch: "Let me be as clear as I...
Six months after announcing an action sports joint venture built on the Action Sports Tour, divisions of NBC Universal (NYSE: GE) and Viacom (NYSE: VIA) are already revamping the concept—name and all. Meet Alli, the Alliance of Action Sports, a combo of former AST events like The Dew Tour...
Another senior executive departure from Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO)—Toby Coppel is leaving after 18 months as EVP and MD for Europe and Canada, Kara reports. Speculation may continue over Yang's successor but a replacement for Coppel was announced at the same time—Rich Riley, now SVP of Yahoo Europe's Advertiser &...
You may have noticed over the years that a fair amount of our information on fundings comes from PEHub via its access to paper filings from the SEC. The paper versions of the Form Ds, as PEHub's Dan Primack explains, weren't duplicated in online database EDGAR; PEHub, now part...
You may have noticed over the years that a fair amount of our information on fundings comes from PEHub via its access to paper filings from the SEC. The paper versions of the Form Ds, as PEHub's Dan Primack explains, weren't duplicated in online database EDGAR; PEHub, now part...