|
Television
With No Borders / We Preserve The Moment /
TVI Magazine is not responsible for the content of
external InterNet sites
FISHRGAME
_____________
Feature
Stories -
012005-01
010105-01
NEWS
CONVERGENCE
January
10, 2005 / The Talent Manager Grey Named Paramount
Chief
-----Viacom
Inc.'s co-president, Tom Freston, named talent
manager and producer Brad Grey as Paramount
Pictures' chairman and chief
executive.
-----Grey, 47, is set to
take over by March 1 for industry veteran Sherry
Lansing, who retires after 12 years as chief of the
studio.
Grey is being given
broad responsibilities over creative and business
issues. He will be charged with restoring
Paramount's luster, tarnished by a box-office slump
and management upheaval
----Paramount
also has been reluctant to gamble on expensive film
franchises such as "Harry Potter" that can
potentially generate huge profit.
Grey will report directly to
Freston.
- Delta to
Cut Ticket Prices by Up to
60%
-----Delta Air Lines
Inc. unveiled a stripped-down fare structure
that slashed domestic ticket prices by as much
as 60% and eliminated the unpopular Saturday
night stay-over requirement, moves that benefit
travelers but further threaten the troubled
airline industry.
- The action by the nation's
third-largest airline, which had been expected,
is the biggest effort in more than a decade to
simplify the industry's often Byzantine menu of
fares.
-----Atlanta-based
Delta capped all coach fares &emdash; including
last-minute walk-up prices often bought by
business travelers &emdash; at $499 each way.
Delta said it also would cap first-class seats
at $599 and trim the number of fares it
charges.
- US Airways and Northwest
Airlines Corp. swiftly matched Delta's reduced
fares in selected markets. Other airlines are
expected to follow, analysts said.
- Ex-Tenet Exec Pleads
Guilty in Referral
Case
-----A former Tenet
Healthcare Corp. hospital executive agreed to
plead guilty to a single count of criminal
conspiracy, the company said, making a deal
during her trial on charges that she helped
arrange kickbacks to persuade doctors to refer
patients to Alvarado Medical
Center.
-----Mina Nazaryan,
Alvarado's physician recruiter, had been
indicted on several counts of conspiracy and
other crimes and faced the possibility of more
than 10 years in prison. With the plea,
Nazaryan's sentence could be five years or
fewer, according to experts following the trial
in federal court in San
Diego.
-----A spokeswoman
for the U.S. attorney's office declined to say
whether Nazaryan would testify against other
defendants: Barry Weinbaum, Alvarado's former
chief executive, and the hospital's parent,
Tenet.
-----Lawyers for
Nazaryan and Weinbaum did not return phone calls
seeking comment. Tenet said in a statement that
the plea would not affect its efforts to defend
itself and Weinbaum.
- Payroll Growth for 2004
Totals 2.2 Million
Jobs
-----The nation's
payrolls grew slightly more slowly than expected
in December, but last month's gains pushed the
net number of jobs created last year to 2.2
million &emdash; the largest annual increase
since 1999, the government said.
- Nonfarm payrolls in December
increased by 157,000 from November's results,
which were revised higher, the Labor Department
reported.
-----The unemployment
rate in December remained virtually unchanged at
5.4%, as did the number of people actively
looking for work &emdash; 8
million.
-----Payroll growth
in December was driven primarily by hiring in
healthcare and social assistance, professional
and business services, wholesale trade and
financial activities, the Labor Department
said.
-----Employment in
construction and factories remained unchanged
last month, while the retail sector cut payrolls
in what is normally the busiest sales season of
the year.
- Toyota Sales in U.S. Top
2-Million Mark
- Toyota Motor Corp. in 2004
became the first import brand to top the
2-million annual sales mark as the domestic auto
industry's hold on American motorists continued
to shrink.
- Import brands from Asia and
Europe accounted for a new high of 41.4% of the
cars and light trucks sold in the United States,
according to manufacturers'
data.
-----Asian automakers
grabbed a 34.6% share of the market. The
domestic brands' 58.7% share &emdash; a historic
low &emdash; was down from 65.6% four years
earlier.
-----Torrance-based
Toyota Motor Sales USA sold 2.1 million
vehicles, up 10%. The American unit of its
fellow Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co. saw
sales rise 3.3% for the year to 1.4 million cars
and trucks.
- California Proposes HMO
Drug
Regulations
-----California
regulators proposed prescription drug
protections for HMO members, describing the
rules as the country's first to mandate broad
coverage of medically necessary
treatments.
-----Although they
hailed the thrust of the draft regulations,
patient advocates said they feared that vague
language could allow health maintenance
organizations to raise drug co-payments beyond
the reach of many
consumers.
-----HMO
representatives said they were still assessing
whether the proposed rules preserved the health
plans' ability to charge more for higher-cost
drugs when others would do as good a
job.
-----The regulations
are intended to ensure that HMOs cover drugs
prescribed by doctors for medical conditions,
said Cindy Ehnes, director-designate of the
state Department of Managed Health Care, which
drafted the proposed rules.
- Chinese
Oil Firm Said to Be Eyeing
Unocal
- A Chinese oil company
reportedly is considering a $13-billion takeover
offer for El Segundo-based Unocal
Corp.
-----If it comes to
pass, the deal would be China's largest
acquisition of an American company.
----- CNOOC Ltd., an
arm of China's state-owned China National
Offshore Oil Corp., is mainly interested in
Unocal's exploration and production in Asia, the
Financial Times reported on its
website.
-----A Unocal
spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for
CNOOC, China's third-largest oil company, also
would not comment.
- CNOOC's interest is at an
early stage and no talks have been held, unnamed
sources told the Financial
Times.
-----Reuters news
service quoted anonymous sources as saying CNOOC
was eyeing several foreign oil
companies.
- Wal-Mart to Settle
California Gun
Lawsuit
-----Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. will pay $14.5 million to settle a lawsuit
filed by the California attorney general that
accuses the giant retailer of a host of gun law
violations, state officials
said.
-----The settlement
requires Wal-Mart to pay $5 million in fines.
Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer said the deal also
called for Wal-Mart, which agreed last year to
halt gun sales across California, to reform its
practices should it ever resume firearm sales in
the
state.
-----Wal-Mart also
will spend at least $4.5 million to comply with
state and federal laws governing firearm sales.
An additional $3 million is earmarked for a
public service campaign and for developing a
program to encourage California gun dealers to
verify buyers' ages.
- A Wal-Mart spokesman
declined to
comment.
-----Lockyer's
lawsuit, filed in Sacramento County Superior
Court, followed an audit last year of five
Wal-Mart stores that uncovered 2,891 alleged
violations between 2000 and
2003.
Resort Hotel Is
Planned for Mammoth
Lakes
-----Developers
hoping to turn Mammoth Lakes into an upscale ski
resort said that construction of the area's
first luxury hotel would begin with the spring
snowmelt.
-----Canadian
developer Intrawest Corp. said it would erect a
$140-million Westin hotel scheduled to open in
the spring of 2007.
- The 230-room hotel, dubbed
the Westin Monache, would be the largest in
town. It is the centerpiece of Intrawest's
planned $1-billion makeover of
Mammoth.
-----Company and city
officials in the Eastern Sierra town of 7,500
hope that the hotel will attract guests who will
stay longer than just a
weekend.
-----The Westin will
be built in the Village at Mammoth, an upscale
collection of lodging, shops and restaurants.
- Intrawest will manage the
hotel as a Westin franchise, but the units will
be owned by individual investors as
condominiums. Prices are expected to range from
the low $300,000s to more than $1
million.
- Krispy Kreme to Revise
Earnings Lower for
2004
-----Krispy Kreme's
stunning decline grew even worse when the
company said it planned to revise downward its
fiscal 2004 profit to correct errors in how it
accounted for payments to franchisees in
Northern California and
Michigan.
-----Krispy Kreme
Doughnuts Inc. said the earnings restatement
might result in the delisting of its stock from
the New York Stock
Exchange.
-----The restatement
also may put it in default on a $150-million
line of credit, and the company said it had
asked lenders for a waiver.
- Krispy Kreme said it
believed that cash on hand, "combined with cash
generated from operations," would be sufficient
to fund its
business.
-----But the
restatement, the company said, would shrink
profit for the 2004 fiscal year. The decline
would be $3.8 million to $4.9 million.
Krispy Kreme had said earlier
that it earned $56.8 million on sales of $665.6
million in the fiscal year ended Feb. 1.
///
Center
Page /
NEWS
CONVERGENCE
TIMELINE: Top Stories To
Start The Week With: 022005-02
January 7, 2005
Chinese Firm Is
Said to Be Eyeing Unocal
-----If a
deal goes through, it would be the Asian country's
largest acquisition of a U.S.
company.
-----A Chinese
oil company reportedly is considering a $13-billion
takeover offer for El Segundo-based Unocal Corp.,
which traces it roots to the early days of
California's petroleum
industry.
-----If it
comes to pass, the deal would be China's largest
acquisition of an American company. Unocal's stock
jumped nearly 8% on the report, its biggest daily
gain in nearly six years.
-----CNOOC
Ltd., an arm of China's state-owned China National
Offshore Oil Corp., is mainly interested in
Unocal's exploration and production in Asia, the
Financial Times reported on its website
Thursday.
-----Unocal
spokesman Barry Lane declined to comment. Xiao
Zongwei, a spokesman for CNOOC, China's
third-largest oil company, also refused to
comment.
-----Unocal's
Asian assets are attractive to international oil
companies, which could prompt a bidding fight if
CNOOC emerges with an offer, said Jason Putman, an
analyst at Victory Capital Management, which owns
more than 6 million Unocal
shares.
-----"I think
Unocal has a lot of potential buyers," he said.
"That's one of the reasons we like
Unocal."
-----Another
reason that bidders might surface now is Unocal's
settlement last month of human-rights lawsuits
related to its partial ownership of a $1.2-billion
natural gas pipeline in Myanmar. The case posed a
potential liability to a would-be buyer if Unocal
had lost.
-----However,
at least one analyst, Bruce Lanni of A.G. Edwards
& Sons Inc., was
skeptical.
-----In a note
to clients, Lanni said he was visiting Unocal Chief
Executive Charles Williamson and other top
executives when the reports surfaced. Although
"they did not comment," Lanni wrote, "it appeared
to us that there was little validity to the
speculation."
-----Formerly
called Union Oil Co. of California, Unocal was
founded in 1890 in Santa Paula in Ventura County.
It has oil and natural gas projects in such
countries as Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh,
and operates in the Gulf of Mexico and in such U.S.
regions as Texas' Permian
Basin.
-----With 6,600
employees, Unocal once owned the Union 76 gasoline
brand but sold it in 1997 to focus on exploration
and production.
-----Like other
oil companies, Unocal saw its earnings and revenue
shoot up last year as crude oil prices hit record
highs. Unocal's revenue in 2003 was $6.5 billion,
but its 2004 revenue -- which hasn't yet been
reported -- is expected to show an increase of at
least $1 billion. Industry leader Exxon Mobil Corp.
had 2003 revenue of $247
billion.
-----A buyout
offer from a Chinese company wouldn't be surprising
because the nation's booming economy, bulging trade
surplus and growing energy demands are prompting
China to look overseas for energy assets and other
properties, analysts
said.
-----Last
month, for instance, China's biggest computer
maker, Lenovo Group Ltd., acquired IBM Corp.'s
personal computer business for $1.25 billion. That
was one of China's biggest foreign acquisitions
ever, and analysts said that more deals were sure
to follow.
-----Takeover
rumors about Unocal are nothing new. The company
has fought off three previous hostile bids in its
115-year history.
-----"Unocal
has been a prospective takeover candidate for the
past several years," said Aliza Fan, senior analyst
at John S. Herold Inc., an industry consulting
firm.
-----That's
mainly because Unocal is a relatively small,
independent player whose stock has lagged behind
the industry for an extended period of time, Fan
said.
-----The Asian
projects that could appeal to a buyer "will not
come to fruition for many years," she said. "So
investors have been unwilling to give credit to
Unocal for some of its long-term potential in
Asia."
-----Whether
CNOOC or another suitor would be more patient and
make a formal offer for Unocal, or at least for its
Asian assets, remains to be seen. CNOOC's interest
is at an early stage and no talks have been held,
unnamed sources told the Financial
Times.
-----Reuters
News Service quoted anonymous sources as saying
CNOOC was eyeing several foreign oil companies.
-----Unocal fought off
its last major takeover attempt 20 years ago, when
it foiled a bid by corporate raider T. Boone
Pickens Jr. But the episode saddled Unocal with
billions of dollars in additional debt, and it
wasn't until the mid-1990s that Unocal fully
recovered -- in good part by expanding into
Asia.
-----On Thursday,
Unocal's stock climbed $3.15, or 7.7%, to $44.34 on
the New York Stock Exchange. That gave Unocal a
total market value of $11.7 billion.
-----CNOOC's New
York-traded shares rose 54 cents to $51.85.
- ////
ByLines:
Editors Note
Quincy
Jones
Bylines
TVI
Magazine ONLINE / IS YOUR INDUSTRY WEB SITE Ready
for the future?
-----
TVI
Magazine introduces here a new marketing forum for
the international television industry: a dynamic
online service on its YES90 and tvinews.net web
sites. TVI Magazine will now effectively serve the
new marketing needs of all entertainment companies
with a tool that offers almost instantaneous
promotion updates. Company promotional material
that appears on TVI Magazine's Web site can be
hyperlinked with the company's own URL. TVI
Magazine can also link the ads to a special Web
page for the advertiser and then link that page to
the advertiser's URL.
-----
To
ensure that visitors find their way to promotion
information and product updates, TVI Magazine is
listing TVI Magazine Online on more than 250 of the
world's most popular search engines and electronic
directories.
-----
Online
ad space can be purchased in monthly increments
(with a one-month minimum). At renewal time,
advertisers can change their ad and/or move it to
another space if one is available. The TVI Magazine
Web site will indicate the total number of hits on
the home page per month and per day, enabling
advertisers to monitor their reach and billings
regularly.
-----
TVI
Magazine has two key pages for ad placement: the
index page (home page) and the main page (main page
of articles). Less expensive ad space is available
on article pages. Advertisers can provide the
artwork and/or logo, either by submitting the file
electronically or via an existing graphic on the
Web that TVI Magazine's online team can
grab.
-----
Most
ads can be posted on the TVI Magazine site within a
few hours. However, in the event that any graphic
manipulation is required, one must allow more time
before the ad is posted, usually two to seven
business days for a static banner and up to 10
business days for an animated banner ad.
-----It
just goes to show you, says Troy about the TV and
Film industry -- "NOTHING IN THIS WORLD IS
PERMANENT" . . . so follow the
money -
- and
take some advice from a dinner-time chat with
"Stonehead" --
Disappointments Are Great! Follow
the Money . . . the Internet and the Smart- Daaf
Boys.
///
Return
ˆ
To
Top
Respectfully
Submitted
Josie
Cory
Publisher/Editor
TVI Magazine
TVI
Magazine, tviNews.net, Associated Press, Reuters,
BBC, LA Times, NY Times, VRA's D-Diaries, Press
Releases, They Said It Tracking Model, and
SmartSearch were used in compiling and ascertaining
this Yes90 news report.
©2004-2006. Copyright. All
rights reserved by: TVI Publications, VRA TelePlay
Pictures and Big Six Media Entertainments. Tel/Fax:
323 462.1099.
LookRadio.com
-
Do
it with movies, slide shows and
music!
-----
Smart90's
24-hour, 365 days-a-year Broadband S90tv
WebMagic
web page is the simplest way to add the WebMagic to
your existing web pages. It's an Exciting New Way
to Advertise.
-----
Advertise
Now on Smart90.com and utilize S90tv's Web Magic on
your own domain. Email
your insertion order and advertising copy or banner
requests to the attention of: Advertising Marketing
Director at
look@smart90.com™.
- -----To
get you started today, you can attach to your
Email, your logo, slides, transparencies,
illustrations, photographs or other computer
graphics. The materials will be forwarded directly
to our art department.-
- -----
Advertising
material must be received by the 10th of every
month to be included in the following scheduled
print magazine issue. In regards to our daily
tviNews.net edition, your banner, logo, web movie,
slide show or 60x500 animated banner, that is to be
headlined at the top of our featured news page, as
a linkonad or smartkudoad,
can be Emailed to us at your convenience.
- -----
Or
better yet, tell us where to go to fetch the
information -- this way it will be much quicker to
get you up and running. For Ad rates please click
on: TVI
Advertising Rates.
Please
read: "How
Do We Do Business?
We Preserve The
Moment
Returnˆ
To Top
|
