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Wednesday at Jeffries annual Internet Conference, Netflix CFO Barry McCarthy delivered the most unusual of things for this earnings season: a positive announcement.  On the back of a $100m stock buyout program, and decreasing competition from Blockbuster, Netflix raised their prior earnings guidance.

In his report, McCarthy said the company is now expecting first quarter earnings of 15 to 22 cents a share, up from prior forecasts that fell in the 13 to 21 cent range. Click to Read More

Statistics and comparative numbers hit the airwaves and headlines of business news every day.  “The price represents a 39% premium over the prior day’s close.” “Total U.S. gaming sales were up 18% over the same period in the prior year”  EBITDA. Market Share.  Off. On.  Positive. Negative.   Today’s grabber was an announcement from retail tracking firm NPD that Apple surpassed Best Buy to become the number two music retailer (offline and on) in the U.S.

Boiled down, it seems there is a number to tell any story, or as often, support any argument.   But what might these digits look like in perspective?   Outside the microcosm of tech, or media tech, what do some of the statistics translate to?

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In less than two years, San Francisco private equity firm Hellman Friedman turned a $1.1b investment in advertising network DoubleClick into a $3.1b windfall.  Now they will set out to try and wring a similar result out of the struggling financials but solid intellectual property of stock photo and content licensor Getty Images.

The $2.1b buyout deal ($2.4b with the assumption of debt) was announced Monday.  It effectively closes a month long auction process in which Getty, beaten and battered in the markets, was seeking bailout assistance from a deep pocketed suitor.

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Thanks to popular websites like Digg, Propeller (rebranded from Netscape in September) and Reddit, the idea of crowd-sourced, user submitted, news sites have become a staple of the “Web 2.0” Internet-era.   Mixx, a later entrant to the market that launched in October, has reportedly just closed a $2m financing led by prior investor Intersouth Partners.

It’s unclear if the round is formally a Series B or an extension of their prior A round financing.

Mixx is based out of Maclean, Virginia.  It was founded by Chris McGill, the former General Manager of Yahoo News and former VP of Strategy for USA Today.   They initially raised $1.5m from Intersouth.   A small equity investment was also sold to the LA Times as part of a larger syndication and partnership struck in early December.

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About a week ago, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello acknowledged many of EA’s past merger efforts proved disappointments.  The post merger integration process, and EA’s style at the time, simply didn’t accommodate the needs of incoming creative talent.  Effectively, the company ended up buying existing game titles but doing a poor job of leveraging the human capital behind them to build for the future.  Now, about 7 months after restructuring the company and creating an organizational hierarchy designed to better balance creative development and fiscal accountability, EA is setting out to prove they can acquire assets without stiffling (and losing) their creative game development talent.

The first test of the new approach began several months ago with the acquisition of Bioware and Pandemic.  The second test began to take shape today.

In a press release, EA made public a proposal to buy struggling game developer Take Two Interactive for approximately $2b in cash. Click to Read More

The high volume of Internet video sites begs the question “why more?” each time there is a new launch or venture financing in the space.  The spate of comedy focused sites begs a punchline.  Yet even with sites like HBO’s This Just In failing in July, Revver selling out on the cheap this month, or Grouper changing its name and business objectives over the summer, more video sites still appear like chickens waiting to cross the proverbial road.

The latest entrant into the fray has the benefit of a memorable name: comedy.com.  The question is will that make a difference?  Will their effort turn out to be another equivalent of amateur night at small town bar or will they headline with must-see footage before a packed house on a bigger stage?

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Bracing for the possibility of further economic downturn and to reduce exposure to related volatility in the ad markets, Anglo Dutch media powerhouse Reed Elsevier announced a surprise plan to sell off their publishing arm, Reed Business Information (RBI), Thursday.  The group is home to a number of high profile online/offline specialty news outlets including the entertainment industry staple Variety and the publishing trade magazine Publisher’s Weekly.

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