charter-communications

Layoffs & Cancellations

cityfile · 03/27/09 12:51PM

• NBC is chopping 6 shows, including, yes, the Chopping Block. [THR]
• It's rumored Budget Travel has, yes, cut its budget. [Gawker]
• Another stain on Jim Cramer, not that he needs it: In '07, he called Andrew Cuomo a "communist" for proposing mortgage industry regulation. [NYT]
• The Times's Bill Keller sheds some light on yesterday's cuts and layoffs. [E&P]
• Condé Nast's Chuck Townsend sheds light on his staff changes. [AdAge]
• Lionsgate slashed 8 percent of its staff today. [THR]
• Newspaper ad revenue dropped 17.7% in 2008. [E&P]
• Americans spend 8.5 hours a day consuming video content. [NYT]
• Facebook needs a (generous) friend: It's trying to raise $100 million. [PC]
• Cable company Charter Communications is officially bankrupt. [NYT]

Viacom Loses, Vibe Cuts, Sirius Looks for an Exit

cityfile · 02/12/09 11:52AM

• Viacom reported a 69 percent drop in its fourth-quarter profit today. [NYT]
Vibe is cutting back to 10 issues a year and merging its print and digital operations. It's also slashing pay and adopting a four-day workweek. [AdAge]
• Sirius XM is looking to sell the company to Liberty Media in order to fend off a takeover by satellite entrepreneur Charles Ergen. [WSJ, NYT]
• Paul Allen's Charter Communications may file Chapter 11 by April. [THR]
• Scene from Domino's death party last night. [Gawker]
• Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds will hit theaters this August. [RB]

Meet the man who has to save cable

Nicholas Carlson · 06/10/08 04:20PM

Ad money is flying onto the Web. While it hasn't hurt cable TV yet — that business is still seeing a migration of ad dollars from the broadcast networks — Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Cablevison, Charter and Brighthouse Networks are worried it could. So together, they've created Canoe Ventures, and hired ad-agency veteran David Verklin as CEO. His mission: Convince cable programmers like Walt Disney's ESPN or Viacom's MTV to adopt advertising technology that will automatically place cable commercials, like Internet ads are targeted today.

BusinessWeek breaks its rules just to trash Paul Allen's company

Nick Douglas · 05/24/06 07:08PM

BusinessWeek gives writer Roben Farzad a special exception to the "don't cover what you have stocks in" rule to write that Paul Allen (pictured grinning like a Bond Villain) has become great at losing money. This isn't about the Microsoft co-founder's basketball team losing $100 million a year. Think big leagues, baby — Farzad's writing about Charter Communications. "Its $19.5 billion in debt dwarfs its market cap of $510 million. Its interest expense alone devours a third of its revenue," writes Farzad. That's after Allen sunk $8 billion into the company and became its chairman.