Media and entertainment companies will gain from growing content demand by Internet video providers as well as traditional broadcast TV, says investment bank Jefferies, which on Thursday initiated coverage on the sector. Jefferies analyst John Janedis started coverage with buy ratings on CBS (CBS), Walt Disney (DIS), Twenty-First Century Fox (FOXA), Time Warner (TWX) and Viacom (VIA). “Despite emerging threats to the business model, we believe
If Time Warner had a theme song for the spinoff of its magazine publishing business, it would probably be “History Repeating” by Shirley Bassey and the Propellerheads. That’s because parent company Time Warner (TWX) is taking the same approach in saddling its Time spinoff with debt that Viacom (VIA) did with its spinoff of struggling video rental firm Blockbuster in 2004. Blockbuster was never able to shake its debt burden, which hindered its ability to pursue new opportunities. It was soon eclipsed by Netflix (NFLX) and eventually went out of business. Could the same fate await Time?
Social media and mobile will play a bigger role in the online version of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament this year after giving the three-week event a big boost in fan traffic last year. The March Madness games, broadcast through a partnership between CBS (CBS) and Time Warner ‘s (TWX) Turner Broadcasting System, will include ties to social media video sites Vine and Instagram, a unit of Facebook (FB), along with tablets from Amazon (AMZN)