Northlake’s Market Cap model shifted from Mid Cap to Large Cap for April. As a result, I sold all client positions in the S&P 400 ETF (MDY) and swapped into the S&P 500 Spyder (SPY). The underlying indicators in the model were unchanged. This shift occurred because the model is based on two-month smoothing and […]
Last Friday, the Newspaper Association of America released its 4Q07 and full year 2007 advertising expenditure data. Not surprisingly, the NAA titled its press release, “Online Advertising Jumps 19 percent in 2007.” The only problem with headline is that online advertising represented just 7.5% of all newspapers ads last year. Print advertising, which represents the […]
The upfront TV advertising market will kick off in May as usual despite dire protestations during the writer’s strike that it would be a casualty of a new post-strike business model for broadcast and cable networks. NBC is saying it will not participate as usual but all the rest of the major broadcast and cable […]
Catching up some email, I found a couple of interesting pieces on the major media companies from Merrill Lynch analyst and my friend, Jessica Reif Cohen. Back in early March, Jessica noted that as a group the media companies she follows reported 4Q07 earnings ahead of her estimates. Her universe had revenue growth of 15% […]
I was quite pleased with the 4Q07 results, 2008 guidance, and conference call from American Apparel (APP), which reported after the close last night. The consensus I was using consisted of just one analyst so it wasn’t really meaningful. Just three analysts asked questions on the call but they were enthusiastic, asked a lot of […]
Central European Media Enterprises (CETV) shares have steadied since the sharp fall last week following announcement and pricing of their convertible deal. The timing on the convert was terrible coming in the midst of the market’s meltdown. I think the fact that it included a complicated capped call transaction made folks shutter as complicated is […]
For 2008, I have treated myself to a subscription to SNL Kagan. Kagan is a long-time research firm focusing on media with a great reputation. They don’t care if I mention their research, in fact they encourage it. This week in their Media Money newsletter, Kagan looks at the windows between movies in theatres and […]
The weekend box office fell by 33% against what is probably the toughest comparison it will face until May. The box office has now declined for 5 straight weekends but remains up almost 7% year to date. Comps may remain negative for a few more weeks but the rate of decline should moderate significantly. Analyst […]
The UK newspaper The Observer is reporting that it has seen a new memo outlining possible private equity approaches to Virgin Media. VMED has been a rumored private target for some time and it is generally accepted that private equity made an offer in upper $20s or low $30s over a year ago. VMED is […]
Reuters is reporting that theatre chains representing 40% of North American screens and the major movie studios have finally agreed to a financing plan to upgrade 14,000 movie screens to digital and 3-D capable technology. The upgrade will cost about $1.1 billion or $70,000 to $75,000 per screen. Studios, theatres, and other content providers would […]
