PARAMOUNT, VIACOM GET POUNDED AGAIN
Michael Nathanson of Sanford C. Bernstein Media has become the latest analyst to issue a stinging appraisal of Viacom management, in this instance focusing on the operations of Paramount. Although the studio is ranked No. 2 among the Hollywood majors, Nathanson notes that much of its box-office success comes from third-party distribution deals with Marvel and DreamWorks Animation. Without them, Paramount would rank no higher than fifth, Nathanson observes. Those deals with Marvel and DreamWorks Animation, he notes, produced $168 million in operating profit, while Paramount’s own movies have resulted in losses of around $80 million. He says he expects the studio to take a writedown on the Eddie Murphy debacle Imagine That, which reportedly cost $55 million to produce plus $35 million to promote and distribute but which has so far earned less than $12 million. On Monday, Analysts at Caris & Company downgraded Paramount’s parent Viacom from “average” to “below average.” And on Friday, analysts at Pali Research downgraded Viacom from “buy” to “neutral.”
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
NETFLIX CHIEF PREPARES FOR DIGITAL RENTALS
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings says that while his company added more subscribers in the first quarter than at any time in its history, he believes that his core operations – DVDs by mail – will decline and will eventually be replaced by movies sent directly to customers’ TV sets over the Internet. In an interview with today’s (Wednesday) Wall Street Journal, Hastings said that at the end of March, Netflix had 10.3 million customers – 25 percent more than it had a year earlier. He observed that his greatest challenge is to persuade studios to allow Netflix to license newer movies, since many of the studios have their own online or cable outlets and don’t want competition from Netflix.
MOVIE REVIEWS: TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN
SIGNIFICANT SLICE OF POPULATION ADMIT THEY SWAP FILES
Fifteen percent of consumers living in France, Germany, the United States and Britain who download video admit that they do so illegally via BitTorrent sites, according to a study from Futuresource Consulting. The figure rises to 25 percent in France. Among the 2,500 persons who participated in the survey, 90 percent said that they had never paid for TV news content or primetime TV shows. Some two thirds of U.K. and U.S. respondents indicated that they watch videos on a computer screen, while virtually all of the remainder said that they did so on a TV set connected to a laptop.
