Sounds like a nightmare Jorj - how frustrating. Hope you get the battery problem all sorted out so you don't have to revert to calling the orders on the phone again - that seems like Flinstones era trading, lol.
Here's an article on how Murdoch might try to change the face of TV that I found interesting -
Murdoch always gets his man
Commentary: What Rupert will do with DirecTV
By Peter Bale
Last Update: 12:28 AM ET April 18, 2003
LONDON (CBSMW) - U.S. cable companies and rival satellite TV operators should be quaking in their boots with Rupert Murdoch planting his dish in their backyard.
History suggests they are right to worry now that he has finally claimed effective control of DirecTV.
Murdoch transformed TV broadcasting in Britain, taking enormous risks to make his BSkyB (UK:BSY: news, chart, profile) service the dominant player in satellite and cable. It is also a recognised threat to established terrestrial networks, which struggle to match its soccer coverage, many channels, Fox Entertainment Group connections and feisty 24-hour news.
While the U.S. market is undoubtedly more competitive than the comfy duopoly between the BBC and commercial ITV networks that Murdoch shattered in the 1980s Britain of Margaret Thatcher, he has proven he has what it takes to threaten even the strongest rival.
Patience pays off
On April 9, Murdoch finally secured perhaps the strongest new media position in the United States, gaining effective control of DirecTV by taking a 34 percent stake in Hughes Electronics (GMH: news, chart, profile). He did so by buying the 19.9 percent stake that General Motors (GM: news, chart, profile) held in the company and a 14.1 percent stake held by the public. DirecTV has 11 million subscribers.
The $6.6 billion deal was for a combination of cash and stock, tying GM inevitably to the future success of Murdoch's News Corporation.
American viewers can expect Murdoch to find Trojan Horses - sports, or must-watch comedies like The Simpsons - to push his way into their living rooms and dens. His aim will be to make a DirecTV subscription vital to a strong base of sports fans or anyone who wants to chat about their favourite show around the water cooler.
BSkyB, better known as Sky, did just that and it worked.
Content is king
What Murdoch understands is that it is not the means of delivery - satellite, cable or terrestrial - that matters so much as what content is available over the service and whether people will pay for it.
"We are forging what we believe will be the premier diversified entertainment company in America today, with leading assets in film, television broadcasting and production, cable programming, and now pay-TV distribution," Murdoch said. See statement. See Russ Britt analysis of what deal will mean.
It is hard to say which sport will fall to Murdoch in the U.S. or whether he can break the network hold on one of the basketball or football leagues or Nascar. In soccer mad Britain it became a simple equation: Murdoch simply bought the national game out from under the BBC and ITV. British soccer fans need to have Sky.
Paying what then seemed unthinkable sums for soccer rights gave Murdoch control of a game. Dozens of professional clubs across Britain owe their stadiums, players and limousine-filled executive car parks to Murdoch. He turned an amateurish professional sport into a multi-billion pound business.
In the decade since he took control that soccer feed has given Sky an open door into the nation's living room and increased Murdoch's already immense political influence. He thinks nothing of using his best selling newspaper brands, particularly the five-million-a-day-selling Sun to cross-promote content between his News Corporation (NWS: news, chart, profile) controlled media properties.
That model is sure to follow in the United States where Murdoch-owned papers and the Fox empire -- from movies to the 24-hour news service that now threatens CNN -- will be available for cross promotion to DirecTV customers and would-be customers.
Determined Digger
The determination with which Murdoch, known to his disparaging English critics as the "Dirty Digger", has pursued DirecTV should also be a warning to his competitors. Furious when General Motors talked to him for months only to turn its back on him in a last minute deal with Echostar, Murdoch has bided his time.
With the Echostar deal collapsing, as seemed inevitable two years ago, Murdoch has chosen his moment perfectly and his now able to pick up the DirecTV assets for a quarter of what he might have had to pay for them two years ago.
It is a deal worthy of Murdoch and reminiscent of the sensational bargain his Australian rival Kerry Packer pulled off as the excesses of the 1980s turned into the nasty'90s. Packer sold his prized Channel Nine network to ingénue billionaire Alan Bond for A$1.1bn only to buy it back for A$250m a couple of years later.
It was a deal to impress even Murdoch. For him the DirecTV takeover is comparable. It also brings back memories of the risks Murdoch took to make Sky the dominant player in U.K. pay-TV.
Murdoch took a huge gamble to launch Sky Television in 1989, at times bringing his News Corporation to the edge of crisis as it invested millions in persuading Britons to consider an option other than the BBC or ITV - choices Americans take for granted.
By 1999, BSkyB was among the top 250 companies in the world and seen as far more influential as a force in British broadcasting than any of the commercial terrestrial rivals.
Investing with Rupert
What does all this mean for individual investors in the U.S.? Well, the end of years of wrangling over the General Motors stake in DirecTV looks like good news. Los Angeles brokerage firm Sanders Morris Harris this week recommended DirecTV as a "strong buy" with a price target of $14 a share.
DirecTV, like Sky, he said, was reducing the churn rate, or the speed with which buyers opted out for other channels. It was also gaining power to cut back on the excesses of programme providers like ABC Disney, cutting bills for content. Linking with Fox can only help.
"Bottom line, as cable consolidates and satellite providers grow in size, their ability to fight back against rapidly rising content rates is improving," Sanders Morris Harris analyst Steve Mather said.
Over at broker Oppenheimer & Co, analyst Peter Mirsky identified the age-old problem with anyone investing in a company controlled by News Corporation and therefore by Rupert Murdoch. Is he working for their interests or those of News Corp?
"It...exacerbates concerns that the company is run for the benefit of NWS, as Fox management is compensated in NWS shares," Mirsky wrote in a report this week, which billed DirecTV as a "neutral".
The bottom line is that Murdoch always works for the best interests of News Corporation. But Sky shareholders, at least of late, have found that can also be in their interests.
Peter Bale is the former editor-in-chief of FT MarketWatch and a contributor to CBSMarketWatch. |
