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Disneyland Turning Away Visitors At Gates

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Tuesday December 28, 2010 @ 4:34pm PSTTags: Disneyland, The Walt Disney Company, Theme Parks

It’s a nice problem to have if you’re the Walt Disney Co — but not if you’re trying to visit the Anaheim theme parks. I’m told that both yesterday and today Disneyland began turning away would-be visitors within hours of opening and then redirected them to California Adventure until that park reached capacity, too. Sounds like The Happiest Place On Earth could be the grumpiest judging by this alert which the Disneyland Twitter site has been sending out regularly:

Disneyland Resort extremely popular today. Disneyland and Disney California Adventure access temporarily limited.

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Disney Online EVP/Managing Director Exits

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Friday December 17, 2010 @ 1:37pm PSTTags: The Walt Disney Company

Today 16-year Disney veteran Paul Yanover today announced his January departure in an email to his staff. This is the latest shakeup at Disney digital following a wholesale manager changeover (Bob Iger Splits … Read More »

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Disney Moves Muppets From Xmas To T-Day

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Wednesday December 8, 2010 @ 2:00pm PSTTags: Movies, Thanksgiving Box Office, The Walt Disney Company

BURBANK, Calif. – December 8, 2010 – The Walt Disney Studios announced today that it has moved the release date for its upcoming The Muppets Movie to November 23, 2011. Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie the Bear, Gonzo, Animal and the rest of the gang will reunite in

… Read More »

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It’s Official: Disney Seals Sale of Miramax

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Friday December 3, 2010 @ 3:16pm PSTTags: Bob and Harvey Weinstein, FilmYard Miramax, Miramax, Miramax Colony Capital, Miramax Disney, Miramax Films, Miramax Sale, Richard Nanula, The Walt Disney Company, The Weinstein Co, Tom Barrack

The Walt Disney Co’s sale of Miramax Films to Filmyard Holdings for $663 million — subject to certain adjustments — has been completed, it was announced today by both companies. The actual owners are construction magnate Ron Tutor and Tom Barrack’s Santa … Read More »

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Disney Declares $.40 Annual Cash Dividend

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Wednesday December 1, 2010 @ 1:08pm PSTTags: Bob Iger, The Walt Disney Company, The Walt Disney Company Finance

BURBANK, Calif., December 1, 2010 – The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) board today declared an annual cash dividend of $0.40 per share, up five cents from the previous year. The dividend is payable on January 18, 2011 to

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Leak Leads To Disney Earnings Drama

By THE DEADLINE TEAM | Thursday November 11, 2010 @ 12:41pm PSTTags: Bob Iger, Marvel Studios & Disney, Movies, The Walt Disney Company, The Walt Disney Company Finance, Toy Story 3

Disney released its earnings report today, but a leak of the numbers before the bell rung had investors making moves before trading actually ended. So shares dropped 5% in the final half hour before ending with a 2.9% loss. The company … Read More »

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Disney And Time Warner Cable Have Made “Significant Progress” In Carriage Dispute

By NELLIE ANDREEVA | Saturday August 28, 2010 @ 11:51pm PDTTags: Carriage Negotiations, Disney Time Warner, Disney Time Warner Carriage Deal, IHaveChoices, RollOverOrGetTough, The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner
Nellie Andreeva

It looks like the negotiations between the Walt Disney Co and Time Warner Cable for a new carriage agreement may not go down to the wire after all. On IHaveChoices.com, the website Disney launched last month in response to TWC’s RollOverOrGetTough.com, … Read More »

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Every Studio & Network Boosted Earnings; So Why Isn’t Hollywood Working More?

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Tuesday August 10, 2010 @ 7:01pm PDTTags: Alice in Wonderland 3D, Big Media, Big Media Earnings, Chase Carey, DreamWorks Animation SKG, Iron Man 2, Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Immelt, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Les Moonves, Moguls, News Corp Finance, Philippe Dauman, Rupert Murdoch, The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner Finance, Toy Story 3, Viacom

UPDATE: The Walt Disney Co was the last major studio and network to report quarterly earnings, and its fiscal 3rd quarter profit rose 40% on the strong box office grosses from Pixar’s Toy Story 3, Marvel’s Iron Man 2, and Tim Burton’s Alice In Wonderland 3D. As promised, here is an earnings roundup showing that Big Media is alive and well and even flourishing not just this quarter but in many cases for next quarter or even the entire year. Yet the trickle down effect has been slow or nonexistent for Hollywood. After rounds of layoffs during the economic crisis, the moguls are still slow to put people back to work. And the movie and TV community still is underemployed. But what everyone can count on is that Big Media’s good news for the benefit of Wall Street will turn into bad news to the detriment of talent, behind-the-camera, post-production, and below-the-line unions when it’s time to negotiate:

August 5th: Viacom Inc Reports Sharply Higher Earnings For Q2
Credit the rebounding economy and recovering advertising market. Net earnings rose to $420 million, or 69 cents a share, up 52% from $277 million, or 46 cents a share, a year ago. Executive Chairman Sumner Redstone gushed, ”With six months under our belt in this calendar year, day after day our confidence continues to grow as the emerging economy recovery builds. Now of course we’re not all the way back, but the light is brighter than it’s been for some time… Consumers are returning to the marketplace, marketers are beginning to spend again to grow revenues and capture share and Viacom is now and will continue to benefit.” Revenue at Viacom’s media networks group rose 6% to $2.1 billion.

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said ad revenue growth has been improving quarter by quarter. “Once we get into October and into the December quarter, we will benefit from this upfront where we have greater volume than last year at higher pricing. Dauman singled out Jersey Shore as a show where ”we have advertisers scrambling to get on it. We have advertisers who want to be wall to wall in particular episode. We’re turning them away.” Viacom’s movie business was down 10% to 41.25 billion, led by a 43% drop in home entertainment revenue. Also, Paramount Pictures has primarily been distributing others’ films like Iron Man 2 and Shrek Forever After in 2010 and self-financing its own pics. It is deliberately pursuing a strategy of a smaller slate of films in 2010-2011. Still, the film unit booked income of $69 million, reversing an $8 million loss in the same quarter a year ago. Viacom continued to post equity losses from its EPIX joint venture but said it should approach break-even by the end of the year.

August 4th: News Corp Posts Improved 4th Quarterly Results
News Corp posted a profit of $875 million, or 33 cents a share, for its fiscal 4Q ended June 30th easily beating analysts expectations. That compared with a loss of $203 million, or 8 cents a share, a year ago, when News Corp took an impairment charge. Revenue grew 6% to $8.11 billion, as companies spent more to advertise on the company’s television stations, TV channels and newspapers. That beat the average forecast of analysts of $8.05 billion. COO Chase Carey explained that brisk sales of advertising at Fox Broadcasting and the company’s cable television networks made the difference, while ad rates at the Fox network are up by a double-digit percentage from this spring. Ad rates are even better at the cable channels, which already represent more than 50% of the company’s profits. Local television station advertising revenues improved 29% in the quarter and 8% for the year compared to the same periods a year ago, reflecting strength in the automobile and telecom sectors. Read More »

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Disney Buys Big Social Game Developer

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Tuesday July 27, 2010 @ 1:15pm PDTTags: Disney, Disney New Media, Facebook, MySpace, New Media, The Walt Disney Company

Burbank, California – July 27, 2010—The Walt Disney Company has agreed to acquire Playdom Inc., one of the leading companies in the fast-growing business of online social gaming. Playdom shareholders will receive total consideration of $563.2

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DWA & Comcast: Who’s Pursuing Whom?

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Wednesday July 14, 2010 @ 4:04pm PDTTags: Brian Roberts, Camp Allen, Comcast, Comcast-NBCU Merger, DreamWorks, DreamWorks Animation, DreamWorks Paramount, Jeff Bewkes, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Moguls, Steve Burke, The Walt Disney Company, Time Warner

EXCLUSIVE: To overhear Jeffrey Katzenberg’s private conversations these days, Comcast supposedly wants to buy DreamWorks Animation Katzenberg400and make him head of NBC Universal. But at last week’s Camp Allen — Sun Valley’s annual Alllen & Co investment conference attended by the Who’s … Read More »

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Disney Latest Big Media Behemoth To Profit During Recession & Writers Strike

By NIKKI FINKE, Editor in Chief | Tuesday May 6, 2008 @ 1:24pm PDTTags: AFTRA, Big Media, Bob Iger, Finance, Moguls, News Corp, Studios, The Walt Disney Company, Wall Street

iger-mouse-small.jpgThe Walt Disney Company made it an even dozen quarters in a row that its quarterly earnings beat Wall Street estimates. CEO Bob Iger reported that second quarter profit rose $1.13 billion for 58 cents a share, or 22%, based … Read More »

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