Growth is Yahoo's top priority, co-founder says
Growth is Yahoo's top priority, co-founder says
By Brendan Intindola
LAS VEGAS, April 19 (Reuters) -- Yahoo! Inc. <YHOO.O>
co-founder Jerry Yang told a broadcasters' convention on Monday
that the Internet portal company's top priority was continued
growth.
"We have to grow," Yang said. "(That is) probably the only
thing that matters at the end of the day."
"No matter what the stock prices are, no matter what market
(capitalizations) are -- we really have to grow. So when we
look at acquisitions, we look at it as a way to grow," he said
during a panel discussion on the future of broadcasting held at
the National Association of Broadcasters' annual meeting.
Yang's remarks came after moderator Jeff Greenfield quoted
an analyst's criticism of recent Yahoo acquisitions as highly
priced stock acquiring highly priced stock, resulting in highly
priced stock.
Greenfield, CNN's senior analyst, presided over a
discussion that also included Leo Hindery, AT&T Corp.'s <T.N>
president of broadband and Internet; Tom Rogers, president of
cable television at General Electric's <GE.N> NBC television
unit; and Charlie Ergen, chairman and chief executive of
EchoStar Communications Corp, a satellite broadcaster.
Hindery, a top executive of Tele-Communications Inc. before
the recent purchase of the cable company by AT&T, said the
telephone giant would remain a pure distributor of content.
"Fundamentally, the reason behind the merger was to raise
distribution to the nth degree. We have no content. We will
never be in the content business," Hindery told the audience.
"You have to build a world that is friendly to the Internet
experience as it is to the traditional television experience.
The economics have to be spread over larger and larger bases to
succeed."
Rogers and Yang agreed that the future appeal of the
Internet and television amid their expected convergence was
local content. Rogers said local television stations were the
"personification of the more personal view or the more local
view" of content.
"What Jerry represents is the ability to bring enormous
personalization and customization in ways that make local news
seem almost silly in terms of saying they represent a way to
provide a more personalized view of what is going on in
somebody's life," Rogers said.
"It turns the notion of making something personally
relevant and takes it to the nth degree," he said.
Given Yahoo's ability to aggregated varied and highly
customized content for users of the World Wide Web, "local
(television) stations are going to have to figure out a way to
capture some of that ingredient of holding on to their
uniqueness, their localization and more personal relevance,"
Rogers said.
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