According to blogster Jeff Calacanis, Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin told Monday's D Conference, organized by the Wall Street Journal, that in his previous job as President of Viacom he once looked into a merger with Yahoo! following the announcement of the Time Warner-AOL merger. But with Yahoo!'s stock at $230 a share, the two sides couldn't figure out a way to do a deal that made sense. Although Karmazin said he wasn't happy that the Time Warner-AOL merger turned out to be a disaster, Calacanis noted that he "smiled a little bit." As for the present, Karmazin said Sirius is not competing with XM, but rather with terrestrial radio. He said there were three things that attracted him to satellite radio: the commitment of automakers to install receivers, the bandwidth advantage of having 120 channels in every market nationwide and contest - - "things that can't be broadcast across terrestrial radio."
Big City Radio sold its last radio stations two years ago, but it's just now finally wrapping up its business affairs. After satisfying its creditors and paying all of its bills, the company now has 2,750,682.25 in its covers to distribute to its shareholders. That works out to 19 cents per share, which will be paid out June 3rd to shareholders of record on May 24th (yesterday). Big City had previously paid out 14.32 per share in February 2004 after shutting down operations in late 2003.
Viacom's Showtime Networks and Paramount Parks have joined forces for a second time on an acquisition/awareness campaign to kick off in June and run into July. The campaign, which offers consumers two free tickets to Paramount's Carowinds in North Carolina and a buy one ticket and get one free offer to Paramount's Kings Island in Cincinnati, when they subscribe to Showtime, is being done in conjunction with Time Warner Cable's Carolina divisions including Raleigh, Charlotte and Columbia, and Insight Communications' divisions serving Cincinnati, Columbus, Indianapolis, Lexington and Louisville.
The promotion will target households who don't currently subscribe to cable, cable households without Showtime Networks services, and analog households, in the hopes of upgrading them to digital and Showtime Networks services.
MTV and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation join for high school initiative
MTV and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a new joint effort aimed at raising young people's awareness of the importance of graduating from high school ready for college. As part of think MTV: Education, MTV will inform millions of young people, with an emphasis on low-income and minority students, on key facts about the importance of graduating from high school, and provide resources on how to prepare for and gain access to college.
"think MTV: Education" will elevate young people's awareness of this "ambition gap" and offer young people access to information and resources to enable them to close it. The effort includes on-air programming including public service announcements and MTV News reports on important education issues; and online resources, at think.mtv.com, on topics such as financial aid, preparation for college entrance exams, how to find a college or career, and ways young people can take action on their education.
This effort is part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's commitment to raise the nation's high school graduation rates. To date, the foundation has invested more than 1 billion to improve high schools, including support of more than 1,500 high-quality high schools in 40 states and DC.
IPG names Steve Centrillo EVP, Chief Growth Officer
The Interpublic Group has named Steve Centrillo EVP and Chief Growth Officer, reporting to Chairman and CEO Michael Roth. Centrillo will be charged with building on Interpublic's recent success in promoting collaboration among its agencies and in improving the company's organic growth performance. Centrillo comes to Interpublic from Grey Global Group, where he had been EVP/Managing Partner of darkGrey, an integrated communications unit dedicated to technology and telecommunications clients, as well as COO of Grey Worldwide Atlanta. Kevin Allen, who had served as IPG's first Chief Growth Officer since May of 2003, is relocating to London, where he will focus on European business development initiatives.
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