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Shortly after EchoStar bought Sling Media in September the story mills starting grinding out reports that no sooner than Sling was absorbed, they’d be spun off into a new company with EchoStar splitting itself in half.   That buzz gained ferocity a few days later on rumors that AT&T was circling to acquire one half.  The stock surged and one analyst at Oppenheimer even  upgraded his rating from Neutral to Buy. 

From late September forward, the writing was on the wall that EchoStar was in some way putting itself in play.  Their Chairman and CEO Charlie Ergen confirmed they were exploring it.  Now, courtesy of an information statement filed with the SEC, details of the proposed spin-off are starting to emerge.  A buyer could still step  in to pick up one side before this all plays out, but one way or another,  it’s looking pretty certain the company will split.  In fact, it seems it’s not so much a matter of if as when.

Per the deal described in the preliminary review documents, it looks to be a stock distribution to existing investors.   The current company would divide into two halves and trade as two separate companies on Nasdaq.  Half one, which retains the  EchoStar Communications Corporation name, would be renamed  Dish Network Corporation.  It would become home to the Dish Network satellite television service.  Their 13.7m subscribers would remain with them. 

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The promise of high definition DVD for consumers is better image quality and more features.  For movie production houses, that’s all nice but arguably as important is the promise of better encryption standards.  The more secure the content, the less likely there will be theft.   Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone put it  succinctly in a speech Thursday.  He said  “If content is king, copyright is its castle.”

There’s no question that castle should be secure. The trouble for the studio’s is, when it comes to software, if it can be built it can be broken.  For every tally they put on the scorecard for more security, somewhere, someone is going to try and undo it – even if the only goal is to see if they can unlock what’s supposed to be secure.  And given enough time, they’re going to be successful at breaking through. Reports are, that happened this week with Blu Ray.

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In February 2006, notable executives from Internet companies and Telecom giants converged on Capital Hill to lobby to consider revising a ten year old Telecom bill.   The issue at stake was the concept of Net Neutrality, a divisive idea suggesting that all internet content (regardless of format) should be treated equally.   

On one side of the debate fell Internet and software companies.  Businesses like Google and Yahoo wanted to insure that all websites – from blog to portal, could be accessed equally.  Even more so, they wanted legislation that would protect different types of content like video, or music, or the technologies that deliver them (like Peer to Peer) from arbitrary exclusion.  Their goal was to insure nothing was singled out and taxed by the ISP’s who control the supply pipeline, the network infrastructure over which Internet traffic flows.  The software and Internet companies wanted to insure their content would always flow freely without tax or toll.

The Telecom companies, on the other side of the stage, wanted the freedom of an unregulated market.  Click to Read More

MTV Networks (Viacom) may own game developer Harmonix, and they may be working with Electronic Arts on the heavily hyped Rock Band game, but those relationships won’t preclude MTVN from working with other game companies too. There’s no conflict, especially when it comes to advertising on their TV stations.

Monday, MTVN and rival game publisher Ubisoft struck a substantial promotional deal to advertise Ubisoft’s upcoming Assassin’s Creed title. Beginning November 7th, ads and even two minute "sneak peak" trailers of the game will run on Comedy Central and Spike. Click to Read More

You can’t call a two horse race until both horses have crossed the finish line. 

When Netflix released earnings about a week ago, things looked good, surprisingly good,  but a comparative assessment with movie rental competitor Blockbuster was missing.  Absent that comparison it was impossible to say whether Netflix gained ground individually, or the movie rental business did well as a whole.

After the close of markets Thursday, Blockbuster released their earnings.  Now the asterisk can come off Netflix’ returns.  The results are in.   It’s official.  In the battle for movie rental dollars, investors can officially chalk the quarter up as a win for Netflix and a loss for Blockbuster.  

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Few companies are victims of more pre-launch scrutiny than Hulu.  The NBC/Universal and News Corp joint venture has been derided as too little too late.  Some have called it a YouTube killer. Others’ have called it a bad joke.  It’s been challenged as an impossible, ill-conceived dream. The video site has even but mocked with the literally intended nickname Clown Co.   … and all that is without putting forth a single service or feature for critics to feed on.

Today that changes. With the launch of an invitation-only public Beta, Hulu will finally face critics head-on.  At last, the questions, all theoretical until now, are up for measurement.  

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The PS3 and Blu Ray may be Sony’s bigger bets but camera’s and consumer electronics are increasingly proving to be their steady hand. When earnings were announced today, it was the strength of camera’s and televisions that carried them. Net profit for September was in at $646.7m. That was largely thanks to strong electronics sales (which account for 2/3rds of annual sales). On the quarter Sony hit their highest earnings results in three quarters. They also adjusted forecasts upwards for the fiscal year (which ends March 2008).

Despite keeping on track for their 5% operating margin goal, however, gaming remains the leading story. The beleaguered game division returned the 7th consecutive losing quarter. And the losses are only getting worse. This quarter was a negative hit of $848m, nearly double the loss for the same quarter last year.

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