Intel this week said that its fourth-quarter was a drop of 20% sequentially against its previous quarter to just $8.2 billion, also down 23% on revenues in the quarter a year ago. This is less than Intel’s revised expectation and as one of the market benchmark stocks, this will leave the US stock market foundering for days. Intel dropped around 7% of its value on the day as the company also took a $950 million write down on the money it invested in Clearwire, which when combined with other investment falls, means Intel lost close to $1.2 billion on investments. Intel spending is lower than forecast, and it will take asset impairment charges of $250 million, which is unchanged from its previous prediction.
It could be a case of business as usual, or the beginning of desperate tactics in a ratings war across US broadcast networks, but the 2007 hit TV series ‘Dirty Sexy Money’ has been pulled off the TV just before Christmas, despite having four episodes still to run. The remaining shows may run in the Summer, but no more are being ordered by ABC. What started out as an order for a full season’s 22 episodes led to only 10 getting made and 6 being screened. It is not unusual for a TV series to be cancelled in the US, but as advertising is undermined in the recession, studios are more and more reluctant to invest in blockbuster series in order to fuel a ratings war.
It’s a fair measure of the health of the US film industry that 281 movies qualified this year to be considered for the Oscars. The rules state that a movie cinema in Los Angeles county must show each movie in 2008 for at least a seven day run. Given that the majors only produce something under half that number of films between them, including those made by others which they take for distribution, part funded films and those they actually make through one or another of their brands, that leaves something close to 150 movies made entirely by independents and overseas studios.
Screen researcher DisplaySearch reckons that the next big war in flat TV screens is already upon us and will develop as the Ultra Slim TV market during 2009. This market will now emerge more rapidly because the suppliers are desperate to differentiate their offerings in a market with saturated supply, where demand has begun shrinking. DisplaySearch reckons that both LCD and Plasma technologies will be appropriate for a thin form factor that it defines as 40 millimeters, well under 2 inches thick, with handfuls delivered in 2008 rising to 14 million of them by 2012, at around 219% compound annual growth. It doesn’t mention technologies like OLED screens, one of which Sony has been shipping at 3 mm thick, we suspect because these are still not economic compared to existing LCD designs. But if being thin becomes a major differentiator, expect OLEDs to begin to eat into this market before the end of the prediction period. It says Japan will appear as a market first, followed by the US and Western Europe.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has finally decided to cave in, for the most part, on suing its customers, after a five year campaign and many thousands of legal actions have left it no nearer shutting down music piracy on a grand scale. It said it would now focus on the worst cases, and no longer bring suits in bulk, and has thrashed out a deal in principle with ISPs to get them to co-operate in taking action, up to and including cutting off internet access, for known file sharers. This is a similar approach to one carried out in the UK. Previous discussions with ISPs centered on them providing new technology to identify the practice of file sharing, the new approach is more about warning recalcitrant file-sharers identified by the RIAA, which is far less intrusive to the ISP business model.
UK RF specialist Mirics Semiconductor said that it has secured $7 million of funding from its existing investors including Acacia Capital, Intel Capital and Pond Venture Partners. This is on top of the $12 million it received in its second round back in August 2007 and will be spent expanding commercial activities. Mirics is offering a single RF PC module along with software based demodulation for all the differing mobile TV formats, including China’s CMMB, DAB, T-DMB, DVB-T and ISDB-T on a laptop as well as straightforward FM radio. So far it has yet to launch a DVB-H or an ATSC M/H demodulator.
Data from the Dow Jones owned VentureSource shows that only $3.9 billion was generated via mergers and acquisitions from 65 venture-backed companies in the fourth quarter, 2008. This is the worst year in terms of cashing in for US VCs since the doldrums of 2002/2003. Overall, US venture-backed companies generated $24.1 billion in liquidity through IPOs and M&As in 2008, down 58% from the $57.6 billion produced in 2007. Only seven companies completed public offerings in 2008, raising $551 million, none last quarter, a far cry from the $6.8 billion generated through the public listings of 76 companies in 2007 and the lowest totals recorded since VentureSource began tracking the industry in 1992.
Nielsen Online says that US searches using Microsoft’s Windows Live Search fell dramatically during November last year, down 16.7% compared with a year earlier. This means Microsoft only has a 9.1% share of the US search market. Google meanwhile jumped 21.7%, to a massive 64% market share while Yahoo jumped back into second place, but still lost 1.4% market share down to 16.1%. The monthly search numbers were over 8 billion, up 9.6% on a year ago. Google just goes from strength to strength.
US conditional access specialist Verimatrix said this week it has landed the Bouygues Telecom account for its IPTV service. This service offers MPEG-4 live broadcast and on-demand video via ASDL to its BBOX home gateway. The services was launched in October 2008. The TV channel lineup is a combination of free-to-air and premium channels which need protection, hence the Verimatrix deal for its VCAS system, which is an entirely software based system, downloadable and renewable.
India’s IPTV market is turning into a three horse race, with state owned BSNL chasing Reliance Communications into the market, along with plans announced by Bharti Airtel, the cellular operator. BSNL has already agreed to partner five local franchisees Aksh Optifibre, Smart Digivision, IOL Broadband, Times Broadband and Maharashtra Knowledge Company and this week said it would launch IPTV services in the Haryana circle around Delhi through Smart Digivision. Smart has contracts with MTNL and BSNL for co-branded interactive video in 54 large cities across India.
On2 Technologies this week said that it has added Tudou.com, a Chinese video web site to its growing Chinese customer base, using its On2 VP6 format for Adobe Flash video. Tudou has seven million unique viewers per day and has a catalog of thirteen million videos growing by 30,000 UGC clips a day, and is one of China’s most popular video web sites. Tudou.com will migrate from the Sorenson Spark format (used in Quicktime and earlier Adobe products) onto the On2 VP6, as its default codec.
LG Electronics this week also expanded the online entertainment options for its Network Blu-ray Disc players from just Netflix, to add CinemaNow and YouTube. Buyers of LG Blu-ray devices will be able to rent and buy CinemaNow films, and view YouTube content directly on their TV sets. The company said this would add over 14,000 titles to the device for streaming.
The London Times claims that Sony is finally about to embrace the sweeping changes to management and manufacturing processes which its CEO Howard Stringer has been asking for since he took over, with huge cuts coming in its native Japan as investors lose patience with the firm. Despite improvements by Stringer, Sony continues to lose ground against rivals, and yields low or no margins most quarters. Multibillion dollar losses are expected for the fourth quarter, which should give Stringer the authority he needs against an almost entirely Japanese boardroom. Having its PlayStation gaming franchise operate in the shadow of Nintendo with its Wii service, is perhaps the last straw among the Sony faithful. Last month Sony said it would cut 8,000 permanent and 8,000 temporary staff, but analysts say this is nowhere near enough and factories and product lines must go.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week Sony plans to launch a PlayStation Bluetooth headset for talking to networked gaming rivals while playing; it will show its Wi-Fi Photo Frame which gives living room access to PC held photos, or up to 100 photos stored in its own memory. The device can also operate as a streamed music player using its Shoutcast Radio. The company will also show what it describes as an unbelievably thin 9.9 mm LCD based Bravia TV, the KLV-40ZX1M, which is close to being as thin as an OLED screen, but this is 40 inches across, far larger than any OLED screen and it offers full 1080p HD.
Sardinian ISP Tiscali, which has been touting itself as up for sale for some time, with strong operations in the UK and Italy, has decided to close is IPTV service in Italy. The service is based directly on the UK IPTV operation which use to be branded as Homechoice in and around London but which is now called Tiscali TV. The Cagliari based company will stop the IPTV service on January 1 having only started it in May. We would not expect it to cut the UK operation because while that does not make money, it is a saleable asset. BSkyB was in discussion to buy the UK arm of Tiscali, and has now pulled out. Earlier discussions with both BT and Carphone Warehouse also foundered and it may be that Tiscali has waited too long to get the right price for its ISP/IPTV operation, which has 1.9 million UK broadband subscribers and around 580,000 in Italy.
Universal Pictures says it has recorded its biggest year ever for theatrical grosses (cinema viewing revenues) totaling $2.8 billion. US box office sales reached $1.12 billion and internationally it smashed its record, up 66% to $1.7 billion. The final financial figures will be out next week and these are estimates given by senior executives. Universal released four films which grossed over $100 million in the US, The Incredible Hulk, Wanted, Mamma Mia! and the latest in the Mummy films. It also had a number of films above $60 million in US sales which were made with ‘modest’ budgets, the company said.
Tandberg Television, part of Ericsson said this week that Starz Entertainment has selected its MediaPath Content Delivery System to deliver content for its on demand services. The upgrade provides Starz with DVB-S2 satellite delivery and other enhanced features, enabling Starz to deliver more content to its affiliates faster.
Sling Media, the EchoStar subsidiary, will demonstrate a version of its SlingPlayer Mobile for the iPhone at Macworld the week. Sling Media will deliver a version to Apple for certification in the first quarter. Sling is also unveiling a prototype of a new SlingPlayer for Mac HD which allows Slingbox PRO-HD users to stream HD content to their Mac desktop or laptop computer.
IMS Research says that in China 46 million homes in 25 cities have already converted from analog to digital cable TV. Cable is expected to be the dominant digital pay TV platform in China by the end of 2009, reaching 69 million households IMS says, and it reckons that 3.2 million of these will be capable of viewing HDTV content by the end of 2013.