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As part of a massive management reorganization months ago, game publisher Electronic Arts created a division to focus solely on a class of games that fit into a category called “casual gaming.”  The classification is meant to include games, whether console, mobile or PC in origin, that are widely accessible, do not have a steep learning curve and can be played incrementally in small blocks of time.

Kathy Vrabel, the former president of Activision was hired to run the division.   Today, her Casual Gaming Division at Electronic Arts announced their first major deal.   EA and traditional game/toy maker Hasbro have signed an exclusive multi-year licensing deal.

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In early July, just when Apple was riding the wave of the iPhone, the tides got a little tough with news that Vivendi’s Universal Music Group (the biggest of the Big 4 music labels) had decided not to renew a long term contract allowing the sale of their catalog.  Instead, they announced they would go month to month, giving them the power to withdraw from iTunes on short notice.

Rumored to be at issue was both Apple’s unwillingness to open its Fairplay Rights Management technology to other vendors (which would allow other music stores to sell music playable on iPods)  and, also,  Apple’s desire to offer the music at fixed prices.  (Universal, and other labels, have long wanted to be able to price music at their discretion to influence sales and maximize profits)   

A month has passed and the plot’s  thickened.  Today, Universal announced it would join EMI on the DRM-Free express.   Breaking with the music industries hard line anti-piracy position, Universal announced they would offer the majority of the catalog without Digital Rights Management restrictions.   The catch is, they will not offer (at least for now) DRM free music on iTunes. It will be available through rivals like RealNetworks Rhapsody service , Wal-Mart, Amazon,  Passalong Networks and , in some case, artists’ Official Web sites. Many of these services are also working with EMI. Click to Read More

Yesterday, NBC announced the planned launch of Didja, an  “All Ads, All the time” Internet video site.   In the press announcement introducing the new site, it was noted Didja would not launch until some time in early 2008.  That schedule was set to insure the much larger YouTube targeting Internet video joint venture between News Corporation and NBC would launch first.

Today, that joint venture (which was announced in March and is still referred to as New Co) received an added shot of working capital.    Providence Equity Partners, a media-centric investment company based in Rhode Island, confirmed they’d take a ten percent stake in the joint venture for $100m.

That investment sets the pre-money valuation for the as yet unlaunched effort at a staggering $1b.   It’s an enormous number for a company that does not yet have its product on the market. Click to Read More

Wednesday, News Corporation, the media empire of Rupert Murdoch and newly minted owner of the Wall Street Journal, reported their fiscal 4th quarter and year end financial results.  The numbers were impressive and suggest, at present stock prices, that the company, which is trading at about 15times projected 2008 earnings per share, is undervalued.

By the numbers, News Corp. reported net income for the period ended June 3oth of $890m (28c/share) up from a year ago return of $852m (27c per share or 23c/share less one time gain from sale of Sky Radio Ltd.)   Revenue was in at $7.37b, up from $7.78b.  Consensus analyst expectations were for revenue of $7.27b and earnings of 28c per share. Click to Read More

About a year ago, around June 2006, Movielink, the Windows only movie download service owned by a consortium of movie studios planted a sign in the yard and put itself up for sale.  As hot as Internet video has been, and despite the success of some download services like iTunes, Movielink has sat on the market like a house needing major repairs in a bad real estate market.

Late Wednesday, after months of talk, rumor and innuendo, rental company Blockbuster stepped in to buy the unwanted property.  Terms weren’t disclosed but reports have estimated the deal was well below $50m and possibly as low as $20m. Click to Read More

You know you live in a consumer culture when advertising spots become entertainment on their own.  Today, NBC Universal announced the planned roll out of their next step into Internet video – an advertising only video site.  To clarify, this is not an ad supported video website (well, technically it’s that too) but this is a site showing nothing but video ads.

The site, which is named Didja (in tribute to the opening line of the water cooler conversations they hope their programming will inspire), will launch in early 2008, Variety reported.   The site’s  roll out will be staged to follow the launch of NBC’s other video effort, New Co, (which is its much larger joint venture with News Corp to build a true YouTube rival called).

The Didja site will showcase both new and old TV ad footage.  It’s expected that advertisers will have the opportunity to pay for featured billing or placement similar to the way sponsors buy top search result placement with sponsored search. Click to Read More

Rupert Murdoch’s media empire spans the globe (for a map see here).  With such breadth and scope (and in the wake of the $5b purchase of Wall Street Journal parent Dow Jones)  it was easy to almost overlook another acquisition but sometimes the little things can be as  telling than the big.

For $11.3m, NDS Group (Nasdaq: NNDS) , an UK based subsidiary of News Corp, is buying a small Israeli streaming video company called CastUP. 

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