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Technology Stocks : Gemstar Intl (GMST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NY Stew who wrote (6328)	3/3/2004 12:35:10 AM
From: pompsander	Respond to of 6516

Hi Stew...great to hear from you. Your outlook for GMST is always worth reading. How do you see recent settlement developments? Where does the next year lead?

To: NY Stew who wrote (6328)	3/3/2004 2:12:13 PM
From: tinkershaw	Respond to of 6516

N.Y. Stew, It seems clear that GMST's long-term future lies with the Guides as a premiere advertising portal and t-commerce, along with licensing of CE products. This becomes clearer after each deal that pays 1 time up-front fees (which are great), but at a relatively small amount per subscriber or set-top box. Something like $1.80-$3.60 per year, per subscriber of set-top box. These deals appear to be made out of a combination of strength and weakness. Weakness because companies have just stopped paying GMST fees, such as Hughes with DirectTV. They just stopped paying license fees to GMST. So in order to get their fees they have moved it to the recurring model. With DirectTV the deal evidences weakness as it is paid not for existing subscribers but only new subscribers. In any event, the monies for cable licensing are much less than Henry had lead us to believe and much less had GMST been more successful in court. However, via strength, because as you mention, GMST is becoming a Guide monopoly. And as interactive TV increases it is building a system lock of sort as the Guide is built into the cable company back-end servers and systems. They just are not being paid as much as they'd like for the privilege. But what this strength creates is a nationwide advertising footprint, and perhaps a worldwide one eventually. My query is, how cohesive do you think this will be? Will it be network like with affiliates as is the existing network ad model, or how do you see it playing out? Second, how is GMST doing internationally in obtaining licensing fees and exposure in Europe and elsewhere? Not sure if you know this information, but it is clear that the Guides, as a network onto itself is the future value of GMST. It is new media, the leading edge thereof, and this is where our fortunes will be made or lost on this stock. Tinker