Christopher Pouncy's List: OVERVIEW of BUSINESS in the MEDIA (OBM)

• A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.

• There will be fewer than 100 of the events, compared with almost 600 unique promotions in 2011,

• The music and movie businesses are again under duress from the “threat” of YouTube “mashups,”
• Users could pay a flat annual fee for unrestricted use of the copyrighted material, with the added incentive of being able to make ad money if they generate enough traffic. 
• The original producers would get a fee per viewer downloaded, plus a cut of the new ad revenue. 

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• There aren’t any stores left.
• thousands have vanished around the country in recent years, following the rise of digital music and the cliff-dive of CD sales.
• J. D. Martignon, 57, a wry and wiry Frenchman who opened Midnight Records in Chelsea in 1984, has continued to sell in his nearby apartment since the store closed five years ago, a victim of rising rents and a lengthy legal battle with the Recording Industry Association of America over bootlegs.

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• The brick-and-mortar retail chain has seen its sales suffer over the past five years because of the growing popularity of digital music, competition from big-box stores, and the recession.

• His Virgin Group holds more than 200 companies
• Branson dropped out at the age of 16 to start a youth-culture magazine called Student. The publication, run by students, for students, sold $8,000 worth of advertising in its first edition,
• His first artist on the Virgin Records label, Mike Oldfield, recorded his single "Tubular Bells" in 1973 with the help of Branson's team.
• including the Sex Pistols. Artists such as the Culture Club, the Rolling Stones, and Genesis would follow, helping to make Virgin Music one of the top six record companies in the world.
• Branson expanded his entrepreneurial efforts yet again, this time to include the travel company the Voyager Group in 1980, the airline Virgin Atlantic in 1984, and a series of Virgin Megastores. But Branson's success was not always predictable. By 1992, Virgin was suddenly struggling to stay financially afloat. The company was sold later that year to THORN EMI for $1 billion

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• In a 2009 book, “Curse of the Mogul”, Jonathan Knee, Bruce Greenwald and Ava Seave analysed media conglomerates’ chronically poor performance, blaming it mainly on their bosses’ appetite for trophy assets that buy them power and visibility.
• On June 28th his company will split in two—shares in both parts began trading this week—with most of its lucrative film and television assets being hived off into a new group, called 21st Century Fox. The rump News Corp will be left with newspapers and other lower-growth businesses
• On June 28th his company will split in two—shares in both parts began trading this week—with most of its lucrative film and television assets being hived off into a new group, called 21st Century Fox. The rump News Corp will be left with newspapers and other lower-growth businesses
• Time Warner said in March that it would spin off its magazine unit, Time Inc, by the end of the year
• Time Warner said in March that it would spin off its magazine unit, Time Inc, by the end of the year.
• In a 2009 book, “Curse of the Mogul”, Jonathan Knee, Bruce Greenwald and Ava Seave analysed media conglomerates’ chronically poor performance, blaming it mainly on their bosses’ appetite for trophy assets that buy them power and visibility.
• In the ten years to 2005, four large media conglomerates, News Corp, Viacom, Disney and Time Warner, together produced returns one-third of the average for firms in the S&P 500 index.
• Shareholders have become more assertive and less likely to believe the moguls’
• This week Dan Loeb, a hedge-fund manager, raised his stake in Sony, a Japanese electronics and entertainment firm, and is pressing its managers to spin off the film studio and music business. Making “Skyfall” is a different business from manufacturing a television.
• Mr Murdoch, aged 82, shows little sign of stepping out of the limelight, there is a new generation of media bosses who are less flamboyant than their predecessors and more interested in making money than in wielding power and influence.
• Jeff Bewkes, the boss of Time Warner, or Les Moonves of CBS
• Terra Firma, a private-equity firm, bought EMI, a music label, in 2007 its executives were said to be horrified on learning that the “fruit and flowers” referred to in expense accounts were slang for drugs and prostitutes.
• Time Warner spins out Time Inc, 80% of its operating profits will come from its networks (which include HBO), up from 32% in 2008. More than 90% of Viacom’s operating profits came from its networks in 2012
• The rise of Netflix, Hulu and other online-streaming services has so far caused little disruption to the pay-TV business model. But should this change, these firms’ lack of diversification could become a liability.
• Comcast, an American cable operator, bought NBCUniversal, a film-and-TV content company with a broadcast arm, making it the largest media group in the world after Disney:

  • BIGGEST NEDIA GROUPS: 1.DISNEY 2. COMCAST
• Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications, two American cable operators, are rumoured to be discussing a merger.

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