Web Shorts

For AOL, finally, a quarter that wasn't awful
AOL Time Warner, which yesterday agreed to pay bankrupt WorldCom $15.9 million to settle an advertising and network dollars dispute, reported a quarterly profit that bettered predictions. The company reported the biggest loss in corporate history last year, $54.24 billion. This year AOL earned a first-quarter net profit of $396 million. The company profited mainly from its movie and cable TV holdings while continuing to have problems with the internet division. America Online is currently under investigation by the federal government for accounting irregularities. Earnings totaled 9 cents per share, more than double what analysts had predicted. Revenue jumped to $10 billion, a 6 percent growth. America Online actually had better than expected results, too, partly because of decreased network costs. Revenue only dropped 4 percent to $2.2 billion despite a 42 percent falloff in ad revenue.

Soaring eBay posts double-digit quarterly jump
It is indeed an eBay world. The internet auction site reported big first quarter gains versus last year this week, pushing stock to its highest levels in three years on the news. Net profit for the company reached $104.2 million, compared to $47.6 million last year. Revenues went from $245.1 million to $476.5 million this year, with a 93 percent increase in PayPal net revenues to $94.2 million. The company had predicted $440 million in revenue, while most analysts predicted $418 million to $477.8 million. Officials from eBay said that the company had kept costs down in anticipation of the war. But transactions really weren’t affected by the occupation of Iraq. Thus the company upped its outlook to as much as $500 million for second quarter.

EMI begins European push for legit web music
EMI Group Plc suddenly has become the biggest music presence on the European web. The company signed a deal this week to distribute its music via 20 sites in the most extensive push yet by an American music label into the European market. The sites, which include European versions of Wanadoo, MTV, HMV and Microsoft’s MSN, will offer more than 140,000 tracks by EMI artists such as Norah Jones, Janet Jackson and Pink Floyd. Despite efforts by record labels to spur legitimate music sales on the internet, piracy still reigns on the hugely popular Kazaa and Morpheus sites. EMI, the third-largest music company in the world, says that it felt it necessary to take even more proactive steps than to just support legitimate subscription sites like Pressplay. The EMI deal will allow users to make permanent copies of songs that are transferable to computer hard drives, CDs and portable music players. More than 90 percent of the music label’s catalog will be available.

Sans nudity, cable TV returns to Afghanistan
Sure, the Taliban’s gone, but don’t look for MTV or HBO to be making their debuts in Afghanistan anytime soon. The country’s government, which banned cable television as offensive to Islam a few months back, has decided to let some channels return. But that list will be very limited. News and sports networks have been deemed acceptable. Music and movie channels have not because of the questionable content that many carry, such as nudity or incendiary lyrics. The ban had been upheld since January, but cable broadcasting began again over the weekend with news channels BBC, CNN and al-Jazeera upon rumors that the government would overturn a Supreme Court ruling. The court said that citizens mainly had complained about images of scantily clad actors and actresses, probably because they couldn’t understand mush-mouthed Ozzy Osbourne well enough to object to him.

Study: Interactive advertising will boom next year
Interactive TV advertising will be in 10 million American homes by 2004, finds a new study by BrightLine Partners. The report predicts that as more advanced home viewing options, such as DirecTV, expand, so will the market for national interactive advertising. BrightLine predicts that with Rupert Murdoch’s company taking over DirecTV, the service will expand to include interactive services already seen on Murdoch’s British Sky Broadcasting. Rival Dish Network, which has 5 million subscribers, also is a target for interactive expansion. BrightLine expects the scramble for money between satellite and cable companies to result in more interactive advertising, too.

Printer-Friendly Version | Send to a Friend
Cover Page | Contact Us