It wouldn't be a giant leap of imagination for them to consider selling all of it. Even if they sold all of it, it's not clear that will generate significant stock appreciation for Time Warner. |
It's certainly a very important moment. This is his first major transaction and it will set the stage for at least the next couple of years. |
Just because some of the shareholders get to vote doesn't mean they'll vote in favor of Hilton, |
Looking more closely, the numbers aren't there. |
My impression is that Mr. Murdoch has been in a phase of building assets for most of his career, 25 years or so, and he has reached the point where most of the key pieces are in place, |
Now, ... instead of sacrificing to build assets, he is in effect trying to raise shareholder value and he was under pressure to do so because News Corp. stock was selling below the average of the other major entertainment and media companies. |
Probably this will raise the cost of programming across the board for all of the networks, and this is not a positive element for network profits if advertising growth flattens out, which it very well may over the course of three or four years, ... In fact, it is almost a certainty that over that length of time you are going to have an economic slowdown. |
Technology is moving ahead with or without them, and if they don't try to find a new business model, they're going to be stuck with the old business, which is in decline. |
The question is, will there be enough new advertisers to justify the cost. |
The street is basically intolerant of confusion. |
There will be people in the media industry that might not like it, but he shouldn't care about those. |
They do have to resolve some issues eventually, including who's going to be the chairman and for how long. There has to be some kind of indication of what their long-range plans might be with regard to international expansion of theme parks. |
They have plenty of people who will be very effective. |
They were unhappy with the way the business was shaping up. It wasn't producing the returns they wanted. |
They'll project how much each film can generate. The difficulty is, probably only the top 10 films generate 80 percent of the income. |