Ross's cousin Peter Levinsohn is about to move things around at Fox Interactive Media

"I am confident that we are moving in the right direction to secure our long-term success, and I am certain that we have the right leadership team in place to take us there" - Peter Levinsohn, President, Fox Interactive Media By SDH Fox Interactive Prexy Peter Levinsohn, cousin of Ross, came into his roll by default when Ross upped and left, or got canned, depending on who you ask. Since taking over News Corp's Internet business, he basically left things the way they were. But we think with FIM reportedly missing their $1 billion revenue target by $100 million, Peter is moving the team around to take some attention of the missed target and to show his bosses at News Corp that he is already making what he thinks are the necessary changes to make sure the company meets the target next time around.

Primedia and it's guides earn some money

BY SDH Primedia, a one time consumer magazine giant which has since slimmed down to Apartment and car guides posted a quarterly profit on the strength of the apartment segment. Is this an indication the more and more people are looking for apartments instead of houses due to the current mortgage crisis? Primedia was the mother ship for dozens of titles which have since been sold off in groups and have since been turned into companies. Primedia's outdoor group was sold to InterMedia Partners which spun the group of outdoor titles like Hunting, Game & Fish, Guns & Ammo and others into a company called InterMedia Outdoors. Primedia's enthusiast media titles like Slam, Motor Trend, Soap Opera Digest and about 67 other titles were sold off to Ron Burkle's Source Interlink Companies. Primedia said the apartments segment, which made up about 80 percent of its advertising revenue in the fourth quarter, would gain in 2008 from improving conditions in the apartment-leasing sector with occupancy rates falling slightly to more normalized levels in some markets. Primedia posts quarterly profit from cont ops [Reuters]

Holy shit! There is good news out of American Media Inc

BY SDH No, David Pecker didn't answer the prayers of his employees, shareholders and even some underlings and quit. The good news out of American Media Inc is that, the company has reported strong earnings for third quarter of fiscal year 2008. This comes as talks of a merger with the Ron Burkle controlled Source Interlink have cooled and the arrival of a new CFO Dean Durbin, under the incompetent leadership of David Pecker. Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2008 was $115 million, as compared to $107 for the same period in 2007—a seven percent increase. The publisher of Star, National Enquirer, Shape and Men’s Fitness attributed the boost to increases in advertising and newsstand revenue. According to Publishers Information Bureau (PIB) figures, Shape’s ad pages increased by 13 percent in 2007, Star and Men’s Fitness by 25 percent. Waiting for AMI CEO Dave Pecker to resign or step aside is like the Cubans waiting for Cuban ruler Fidel Castro to step down or die. Well Castro did step down. Your move Pecker!

Correction: Time Warner reports a 41 percent decline in fourth-quarter profits, Bewkes shares his immediate plans

"In change lies opportunity, and I have great confidence in our future" -Jeff Bewkes, CEO TimeWarner -SDH In its first earnings report under new CEO Jeff Bewkes, Time Warner reported a 41 percent decline in fourth-quarter profits but met or exceeded financial objectives for 2007. Looking ahead Jeff Bewkes claims that the company has identified key initiatives that will allow them to deliver strong results well into the future. Apparently that will start with the pink slipping of over 60 employees followed by a long awaited restructuring. Wall Street is still wondering what will happen with AOL now that a sale of the internet giant valued at $20 billion may not be a reality. For now AOL continues to undergo a major overhaul from sleepy dial up to an ad driven portal. Investor have focused on AOL, which is in the midst of a radical overhaul as it gets out of the dial-up Internet business and builds up its online advertising model. Wall Street had hoped Time Warner could sell or spin off AOL, but those prospects became murkier last week after Microsoft Corp. announced an unsolicited bid for Yahoo Inc. That would not only eliminate two likely bidders for AOL, but also create a major online advertising power. Cable TV Drives Time Warner Profit [NYT]

And now this morning's worthy media business news...

News Corp sees a little jump in profits and the future looks bright [NYT] News Corp had their earnings call yesterday with News Corp number two Peter Chernin playing host where he told analysts and investors that the company isn't hurting from ad slumps, in fact Chernin said advertising sales are higher at News Corp's Fox News Channel and the Fox Broadcasting television network, which is offsetting a decline in its movie studio business. The company beat Wall Street revenue expectations of $8.3 billion by $300 million coming in at $8.6 billion. Oh yeah and Myspace is doing great too. Sun-Times Media Group looking at ways to make it's shareholders even richer. One option on the table? Slapping a big for sale sign on the company [NYT] Sun-Times Media Group is looking for an easy way out where all involved can cash out and go on about their business. The company is said to be weighing their options like entering a joint venture, strategic partnership or selling the whole company. Our money is on the latter. The question is who will drop the cash? Microsoft offers a shit load of cash for Yahoo! and what does Yahoo! do? They drop their music subscription business and will replace it with Realnetworks' Rhapsody [Reuters] We thought with the load of cash (over $40 billion) Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates are dangling in front of Yahoo! Founder and CEO Jerry Yang’s face he would be in the trenches with his sleeves rolled up trying to get Bill and Steve to go up to an even $50 Billion. Nope. Instead we get word that Yahoo! is dropping their subscription music service in favor of Rhapsody, a service from RealNetworks. The deal calls for Yahoo! to promote Rhapsody all over its website... DUH! The deal calls for both companies to come up with other music related digital ventures as well YAWN! Did we mention that if you're currently a Yahoo Music subscriber paying the $9 a month you will continue to pay that amount for the new Rhapsody service until Rhapsody dips in your pocket for $15 a month? Do you even care?

Next week is Super Tuesday earnings report week

-SDH Next week's entertainment line up is looking to be an exciting one. On Monday, News Corp will report its 2nd Quarter Fiscal 2008 results. On this call analysts will be waiting to hear about any plans in the works for the recently acquired Dow Jones as well why they decided to not free up the Wall Street Journal website, DUH! On Tuesday it will be Disney's turn to spill the beans about their First Quarter 2008 Financials. Disney is expected to announce earnings of 52 cents a share on $10 billion in revenue, not too bad Bobby! Can we get some acquisition news soon though? Saving the best for last, Jeff Bewkes will make his debut on Time Warner's earnings call as CEO on Wednesday. We have no doubts analysts are itching for this one. Some of the questions Bewkes and his team are expected to face will include, what are his plans for the oversized company, AOL, Time Inc etc... Oh yeah they are expected to report earnings of 29 cents a share on revenue of $12.6 billion. But we all know analysts will be more concerned about Bewkes's plans for the structure of the company. Media conglomerates seen posting higher profits [MarketWatch]

Viacom's Philippe Dauman showing Tom Freston & Les Moonves how it’s done

-YOSH With the prediction by some analyst on Wall Street that the media industry is in the shitter, we never thought we would hear of one media company that is actually looking good on paper. Viacom, of all media companies, is sitting pretty in the black, thanks to cable and movies. It looks like the apple of Sumner's eye, Philippe Dauman, coming in to tighten things up is paying off, and somewhere in the hills of Hollywood, old man Sumner Redstone is doing naked back strokes in his pool as Paula looks on with a "WTF" expression on here face. Anyway with Viacom looking sweet, overpaid analysts have nothing but nice things to say. Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst with Global Crown Capital says: “What I like about Viacom is that they are not going out and doing these multi-billion dollar deals. They have not made splashy acquisitions but they have done some smart things with their brands online" Frederick Moran, an analyst with Stanford Group, adds: “Viacom has clearly begun its financial comeback. I suspect you will see accelerated growth in the fourth quarter and through the early part of 2008 despite general softness in advertising,” Moran said. “The only thing that could sidetrack it would be major economic slowdown. Viacom’s stock should outpace other major media companies for the next couple of quarters.” Viacom “transforms” into a winner [CNN Money]

XM Satellite Radio expects, growth and declines, has no interest in nappy headed hoeist Don Imus

-YOSH With a merger with rival Sirius all but done (allegedly) XM Satellite Radio in the meantime expects some good and not so good things. The company said it expects retail subscriber growth to resume in the fourth quarter, but declines may occur again in the first or second quarter of 2008. Yeah we know we get confused sometimes too, but basically what it means is that, like every other business, shit is really unpredictable. We're sure Sirius boss Mel Karmazin who is expected to run the combined companies is watching XM's numbers very closely. XM, which lost a net 17,000 retail customers in the third quarter, now relies almost entirely on car buyers for growth, and Parsons said auto-related sales will be strong even if the most pessimistic car sales projections for this year come true. "From our standpoint, we see a pretty solid projectable growth trajectory coming from the new car marketplace. Clearly, we want them to be successful, and we will do better in a boom time than in a depressed time ...," Parsons told the Reuters Media Summit in New York. XM expects Q4 retail subscriber growth [Reuters] Related: XM says no interest in Imus, new high-cost acts

Just in time for a possible merger, David Pecker thanks his advertisers for not making him look bad

-By MARTY American Media CEO David Pecker who may end up running Source Interlink if they swallow his company (what a nightmare) thanked AMI's advertisers for making he and his equally incompetent CFO Jack Craven look like they're doing something right after results for Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2008 were made public. Revenues for the second quarter of fiscal year 2008 were $131.9 million, as compared to $124.8 million in the prior-year period, representing a 5.7% increase. In the first six months of fiscal year 2008, revenues were $253.0 million, as compared to $239.3 million in the prior-year period, representing a 5.7% increase. The increase in revenue is primarily related to increased advertising in the Company's Shape, Men's Fitness and Star magazines. "Our health and celebrity publications serve vibrant markets. It was gratifying to experience an increase in advertising revenue during the second quarter of fiscal 2008, and we thank our advertisers for their support." American Media Operations, Inc. Files Form 10-Q for Second Quarter of Fiscal Year 2008 [PRN]

Sumner "Two Faced" Redstone

-YOSH Slapping all the other heads who have passed through Viacom in the past, old man Sumner Redstone, giddy due to the company's latest gain in profits, said that hiring stiffy Phil Dauman as the company's CEO was the best thing he and his board ever did. Of course Sumner, you have nothing but good things to say about your top execs as long as they are making you money. But like Time Warner CEO Dick Parsons said "Eventually Sumner fires everyone". The results from the media conglomerate, which owns MTV, Comedy Central and the Paramount and DreamWorks movie studios, beat Wall Street's expectations and sent its stock price up nearly 3 percent to $41.56 a share on the New York Stock Exchange. We can only imagine the not so nice things he is saying about CBS boss Les Moonves with that company's recent stock slide. Shares of its sister company, CBS Corp., which split from Viacom nearly two years ago, slipped 2 percent yesterday to $27.67, a day after it reported mixed quarterly results, including a 3 percent drop in revenue. VIACOM NET JUMPS 80% [NYP]

McClatchy CEO: I'm sorry for the 55% drop in our stock price, and it may get worst

Newspaper publisher McClatchy's 3rd quarter is full of red ink and it ain't because of readers running to the web. Instead McClatchy blames its current shituation on the real state slump which in return for them means less ad dollars. It was the web that saved DowJones some face during one their quarterly reports. Perhaps McClatchy needs to beef up that side of their business? McClatchy said its third-quarter income from continuing operations fell to $23.5 million, or 29 cents a share, from $52.6 million, or 65 cents a share, a year earlier.Excluding a tax provision, earnings per share were 32 cents, beating the average analysts' estimate of 31 cents. McClatchy profit falls, no end to ad slump seen [Reuters]