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Cablevision Picks Up Glenn Beck’s Internet Channel

Cablevision Picks Up Glenn Beck’s Internet Channel

Glenn Beck’s Internet channel TheBlaze has been picked up by the cable system operated by Cablevision, giving Mr. Beck television distribution in the New York metropolitan area for the first time since he left Fox News in 2011.

The announcement on Wednesday night came two months after TheBlaze began a campaign to get onto cable and satellite systems across the country. Cablevision, which has about three million subscribers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, is the largest system to sign the channel up since then. It is unclear if Cablevision was influenced by the campaign.

Cablevision said TheBlaze would be available to subscribers of its cable service, called Optimum TV, starting in late May. In a statement, Cablevision’s vice president of video product management, Bradley Feldman, said, “Optimum TV is the only cable provider in the tri-state area to bring our customers original programming from Glenn Beck’s TheBlaze, and the independent network will add more diversity to our strong lineup, providing our customers with more choices that our customers appreciate.”

Having access to cable lineups in New York is a goal of many aspiring channels. Along with Cablevision, Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS also provide television service in the metropolitan area.

Mr. Beck started his Internet channel, originally named GBTV, after his 5 p.m. talk show ended on Fox News. TheBlaze now has more than 40 hours of programming a week, including simulcasts of Mr. Beck’s radio show, a nightly show of his just for the channel and a nightly panel conversation about the news.

In September 2012 Mr. Beck began to return to television through a carriage deal with Dish Network. Dish had a period of exclusive TV distribution of TheBlaze, but that period has evidently ended, since TheBlaze has cut deals with a number of small cable operators, including Blue Ridge Communications, which has about 170,000 subscribers in Pennsylvania.

Mr. Beck’s cable push has gained attention from other Internet channel proprietors because they hope his strategy will serve as a blueprint. Earlier this week the Internet channel Huffington Post Live announced a six-hour-a-day carriage arrangement with the cable channel AXS.



Advertising: Online Video Creators Focus on Spanish-Speaking Consumers

Web Content Creators Focus on Spanish Speakers

Jeffrey Neira/CBS

The band Phoenix performed at the end of the CBS Interactive presentation on Wednesday

For several years, networks and channels with programming aimed at Hispanic viewers have been increasing their presence during the annual television industry ritual known as upfront week, when advertisers and agencies are wooed before the coming fall season. Now, as creators of online video content are seeking the same money from Madison Avenue, they, too, are talking about their efforts to reach Spanish-speaking consumers.

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Cesar Conde, president of Univision Networks.

Among the participants during the Digital Content NewFronts in New York this week â€" 17 presentations, from Monday through Friday, under the aegis of the Interactive Advertising Bureau â€" was Univision Communications, which took part in the NewFronts for the first time.

Univision executives on Wednesday discussed initiatives like Uvideos, a digital video network that offers original Web series as well as clips about the popular telenovelas that are the mainstays of the Univision broadcast network. (The clips are said to be spoiler-free; telenovelas are all about the cliffhangers.)

Some general-market media companies devoted bits of their presentations to the original digital content being created for Hispanics. For instance, on Tuesday, Hulu touched on Hulu Latino and CBS Interactive, part of the CBS Corporation, previewed plans to introduce in the fall a version of CNET for Spanish-speaking consumers.

Many presenters from the media mainstream “actually have a decent to strong-and-growing multicultural strategy,” said Marla Skiko, executive vice president and director for digital innovation at SMG Multicultural, part of the Starcom MediaVest Group unit of the Publicis Groupe.

“But they have so much to announce during the NewFronts, it gets only a mention,” Ms. Skiko said. “I think they could blow it out and make it bigger; it’s a story waiting to be told.”

Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, who attended the Univision presentation, said the Hispanic market is “indicative of the opportunity, and challenge, for digital.”

“Unlike other media, digital media can do everything because, by definition, you have global reach and theoretically unlimited programming and advertising inventory,” Mr. Rothenberg said.

At the same time, “the challenge is how to pick your shots,” he added, “and decide what to promote to whom at what time.”

Jim Lanzone, president of CBS Interactive, said in an interview that he was eager to introduce the Spanish-language version of CNET, which “will be its own distinct site” and offer Hispanics “a multimedia experience across all platforms.”

“It will not just be a machine translating our English content into Spanish,” he added, but rather will offer culturally specific content aimed at the 50 million person audience in the United States as well as Spanish-speakers in Latin America and elsewhere around the world.

And CBS Interactive is working on a Spanish-language version of GameSpot, Mr. Lanzone said, which is its Web site with content aimed at video game players.

The goal to beef up Spanish-language content at CBS Interactive is part of an ambitious agenda to add a variety of original content across its portfolio of more than two dozen disparate Web sites. For instance, the site devoted to CBS television shows, cbs.com, will add online series meant to complement two of the network’s dramas: “Baker Street Irregulars,” based on “Elementary,” and “Person of Interest: Animated,” based on “Person of Interest.”

“Even our musical act was one of our shows,” Mr. Lanzone joked, referring to the performance by the rock band Phoenix that concluded the presentation at the Hudson Theater in Midtown Manhattan. The band’s 45-minute set doubled as a webcast of the cbs.com original series “Live on Letterman,” which typically is streamed live from the Ed Sullivan Theater after that evening’s taping of “Late Show With David Letterman.”

At the Univision Communications presentation, at the Brasserie restaurant, the focus was on expansion. The company’s executives discussed original Web series, including “Salseras,” being introduced with the Web music company Vevo, about a fierce collegiate salsa-dancing competition; five channels being added to Uvideos, devoted to cooking, comedy, celebrities, fashion, beauty and lifestyle; and a new digital platform, to be called Flama, aimed at younger Hispanics who are part of the so-called millennial generation.

And Univision is opening an “idea lab,” said Cesar Conde, president of the Univision Networks division of the company, “dedicated to the creation of made-for-Web content, in Spanish and English.”

Univision will also offer advertisers opportunities at “transmedia storytelling that transcends platforms,” Mr. Conde said, combining content in genres like reality competition and sports that will be on television, on radio, online and in social media.

It was “very important for us” to take part in the NewFronts this year, Mr. Conde said in an interview after the presentation, to underline that “everything we’re thinking about, we’re thinking about with our digital hat on.”

“Univision, as a leader, has to be here,” he added, because “Hispanics overindex on everything technology.” His reference was to Nielsen research indicating that, for example, 72 percent of Hispanics own smartphones and they watch 62 percent more online video than white non-Hispanic Americans.

Ad spending for online video was estimated last year at $2.9 billion, a fraction of the $64.5 billion in ad spending on television, but it is growing at a far faster rate than its traditional counterpart. In 2013, according to eMarketer forecasts, the totals will increase to $4 billion for online video, up 41.1 percent from 2012, and $66.4 billion for television, up 2.8 percent from 2012.

The potential for online video was further underscored on Wednesday when, at the Condé Nast Entertainment presentation during the NewFronts, executives announced additions to their digital video network. The channels inspired by magazines like Glamour and G



Times Names New Editors for Politics and Metro Desk



Condé Nast Introduces Web Series for Its Magazines

Condé Nast Introduces Web Series for Magazines

Last year, the latest innovation every magazine wanted to release was an iPad edition. This year, it’s online video content.

Condé Nast’s Entertainment Group introduced 30 programs at its first presentation made during the Digital Content NewFronts. Dawn Ostroff, president of Condé Nast Entertainment, presented shows that have already started to appear on Glamour’s Web site, like “Fashion Week Ride-Along” with its editor in chief Cindi Leive and “Elevator Makeover,” in which a woman receives a fashion makeover during an elevator ride. She also offered a glimpse of the 10 programs scheduled to begin soon on Vogue’s site, like “Vogue Weddings” and “Vintage Bowles,” in which the Vogue editor Hamish Bowles shops the world for clothes.

Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, Teen Vogue, Epicurious and Style.com are also expected to unveil programs by the year’s end, and Condé Nast said it hoped to distribute content through partnerships with Yahoo, AOL and Twitter.

“Each brand will have its own mix,” said Fred Santarpia, executive vice president and chief digital officer of Condé Nast Entertainment.

The company officially introduced its entertainment group in October 2011 to expand into film and television, but before Wednesday, the group had received little attention except for criticism from some writers who said the venture was curbing their film and television options.

The presentation on Wednesday also let the entertainment group finally show the fruits of its video labors, which appear to be in all stages of development. Glamour and GQ are the furthest along because they have already unveiled programs. Vogue will start to introduce shows on May 8, and Wired magazine will follow a week later with four programs, including an animated series.

Robert A. Sauerberg Jr., president of Condé Nast, stressed that the company’s new focus on video would never surpass its interest in print.

“Our company is founded in print,” he said. “This is an extension of what we are doing. We see this as a new business that is not in lieu of but in addition to.”



Viacom and Time Warner Post Lower Earnings

Viacom and Time Warner Report Lower Earnings

Despite strong performances from their cable television channels, Viacom and Time Warner both suffered from sluggishness at their film divisions in the most recent quarter, which hindered the companies’ overall performances.

Time Warner, the parent company of HBO, CNN, TNT and TBS, on Wednesday reported revenue of $6.9 billion in the quarter that ended March 31, down 1 percent from the same period last year. Net income grew 23.5 percent, to $720 million, or 75 cents a share, compared with $583 million, or 59 cents a share, in 2012.

Revenue at the company’s Warner Brothers studio fell 4 percent to $2.7 billion, while operating income increased by 23 percent to $263 million. “Both ‘Gangster Squad’ and ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’ fell below our expectations,” Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Time Warner’s chairman and chief executive, told analysts.

He remained optimistic however about the studio’s coming films, including “The Great Gatsby” and “The Hangover Part III.” Warner Brothers had a strong television season with “Revolution,” an apocalyptic drama on NBC, and “Game of Thrones,” the HBO fantasy series that averages 13.4 million viewers per episode.

Viacom felt the impact of a disappointing quarter at Paramount Pictures, which contributed to an 18 percent decline in earnings at the company, to $478 million, or 96 cents a share, versus $1.07 a share in the same three-month period last year. Overall revenue at Viacom fell 6 percent to $3.14 billion mostly because of the film division.

Revenue at Paramount dropped 20 percent to $941 million, a year ago, in part because of the company’s strategy to release only a handful of franchise films each year. Philippe P. Dauman, Viacom’s president and chief executive, said “the year ahead remains strong with audiences eagerly awaiting” releases like “World War Z” and “Star Trek Into Darkness.”

Both companies posted strong quarters in cable television. Mr. Bewkes specifically pointed to the success of Time Warner’s cable division, which benefited this quarter from the average nightly audience of 10.7 million for the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament broadcast on several Turner channels.

Viacom posted a 2 percent drop in operating income at its media networks, which include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV. Advertising revenue growth of 2 percent and improved ratings at Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. helped Viacom slightly surpass analysts’ expectations. “Nickelodeon rebounded with preschool audiences,” Mr. Dauman said. Combined revenue at the cable channels rose 2 percent to $2.23 billion.

Like Nickelodeon, Time Warner’s CNN cable network has also experienced ratings softness recently. Mr. Bewkes defended CNN under the leadership of Jeff Zucker, the recently named president of CNN Worldwide. But, he said, the channel still needed to evolve from a trusted source of breaking news to a more regularly watched outlet. “CNN can’t just be politics and wars,” Mr. Bewkes said.

Both companies are grappling with a changed television landscape. Online streaming services offered by Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are providing additional avenues of syndication revenue but also, in some cases, competition. Nickelodeon’s revenues had dipped last year in part because children were turning to Netflix to watch a deluge of episodes of “SpongeBob SquarePants.”

Mr. Dauman said Viacom was in “constructive discussions with several parties, including Netflix, concerning digital distribution” agreements beyond an agreement with Netflix that will expire later this month.

Mr. Bewkes rebuffed questions about whether the HBO Go on-demand app would be made available on an à la carte basis through a broadband connection, making the premium cable channel more like the streaming service Netflix. “We would do it if we thought it was in our economic best interest,” Mr. Bewkes said. “At this point, we don’t think it makes sense.”



GM and Mountain Dew Pull Ads After Criticism for Racial Insensitivity

GM and Mountain Dew Pull Ads After Criticism for Racial Insensitivity

Both General Motors and Mountain Dew pulled advertisements on Wednesday after receiving criticism that the ads were racially insensitive.

The General Motors ad was a promotion for the Chevrolet Trax, a small sports utility vehicle that is sold in countries including Canada, where the ad made its debut on television on March 4. The ad takes place in the 1930s and featured a modern remix of a song from that era that included references to Chinese people using of phrases like “ching, ching chop-suey”

Advertising Standards Canada questioned General Motors about the ad, prompting the company to change the ad by removing the lyrics from the song while keeping the melody. Even so, as word of the offensive lyrics spread within the company, General Motors decided to pull the ad altogether from Canadian television and on Web sites in Europe, where the vehicle is also sold. The vehicle is not sold or advertised in the United States.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, General Motors apologized for the ad and said, “We are conducting a full review of our advertising approval process to ensure this does not happen again in the future.”

The ad was created by Commonwealth, Chevrolet’s global advertising agency since 2012, and a part of the McCann Worldgroup of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

The second ad that was pulled on Wednesday promoted Mountain Dew, part of the PepsiCo Americas Beverages division of PepsiCo, which featured a battered woman, bandaged and on crutches trying to identify the person who hurt her; the lineup includes African-American men with names like LBoy, Tiny and Beyonte â€" and a goat.

The woman, who is white, is stricken with fear as she looks at the men and the goat. A voiceover for the animal says in a menacing tone: “It’s me. You should’ve gave me some more.”

“I don’t think I can do this,” the woman says, visibly frightened. Toward the end, the goat threatens the woman to “Keep your mouth shut.” The woman begins to yell repeatedly, “I can’t do this,” followed by a sequence of shrill “Nos” as she hops out of the room. The officer then takes a sip of the beverage.

The ad was created by Tyler Okonma, known as “Tyler, the Creator,” a hip-hop producer and rapper. In a statement released Wednesday morning, Mountain Dew apologized for the ad and said that it had been removed “from all Mountain Dew channels and Tyler is removing it from his channels as well.” News of the company’s decision was first reported by Adweek.

Mountain Dew has also come under pressure because of its relationship with another rapper, Lil’ Wayne. The company has an endorsement deal with Wayne, who has been criticized over obscene lyrics that refer to Emmett Till, the African-American teenager whose 1955 murder helped foment the civil rights movement. On Wednesday, the rapper issued an apology to Mr. Till’s family for his lyrics, adding, “I will not use or reference Emmett Till or the Till family in my music, especially in an inappropriate manner.”

Mountain Dew is the latest brand to deal with controversial hip-hop lyrics. In April, Reebok dropped the rapper Rick Ross after he performed lyrics on the Rocko song “U.O.E.N.O” that referred to drugging a woman and having sex with her.

Chevrolet is not alone in its ad woes, either. In March, the Ford Motor Company apologized for an online advertisement that it ran in India that featured three bound and gagged women in the rear of a vehicle driven by Silvio Berlusconi.



Kevin Clash, Ex- Elmo Puppeteer, Is Emmy Nominee

Emmy Nomination for Elmo Puppeteer Who Resigned

Kevin Clash, who resigned from “Sesame Street” last year amid allegations that he had sexual relationships with minors, found himself back in the news on Wednesday after receiving a daytime entertainment Emmy nomination for his role as the show’s popular Elmo character.

Kevin Clash, who resigned from "Sesame Street" in November, on Wednesday was nominated for an Emmy for his work as Elmo.

The nomination came as a surprise to some, but Mr. Clash’s work on the show spanned the entire award-eligible season; he has received 23 Daytime Emmy Awards in the past, some individually and others for show awards.

On Wednesday, he was nominated for outstanding performer in a children’s series. He was also included in the “Sesame Street” nomination for outstanding preschool children’s series.

In the individual category, the other nominees are two other performers on “Sesame Street,” Joey Mazzarino and David Rudman, and Jeff Corwin of the show “Ocean Mysteries.”

In the group category, the other nominees are “The Fresh Beat Band,” on Nickelodeon, and “Pajanimals,” on NBC.

An attorney representing Mr. Clash did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. Several men have come forward to claim they had underage sexual relationships with Mr. Clash beginning in November, when the first such allegation surfaced. Several lawsuits are pending.

When he left the show, Mr. Clash said in a statement: “Personal matters have diverted attention away from the important work ‘Sesame Street’ is doing and I cannot allow it to go on any longer. I am deeply sorry to be leaving and am looking forward to resolving these personal matters privately.”

Sesame Workshop, the group that produces “Sesame Street,” said it would replace Mr. Clash, but his performances of Elmo continued to be seen on television because episodes are typically taped many months before their air dates.



Year After Resignation, Virginia Quarterly Review Names an Editor

Year After Resignation, Virginia Quarterly Review Names an Editor

More than a year after Ted Genoways resigned as the editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, the literary journal has named a successor.

The new editor, W. Ralph Eubanks, is currently the director of publishing at the Library of Congress in Washington. His most recent book is “The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South.” He will begin at the magazine on June 3.

“Ralph Eubanks is a gifted editor, acclaimed author and respected publishing industry leader,” Jon Parrish Peede, the publisher of Virginia Quarterly Review, said in a statement. “We are fortunate to hire a seasoned editor with such enthusiasm for new technologies as well as a steadfast commitment to literature and exceptional journalism. Having come from the highest level of book culture, Ralph is devoted to creating works of permanence.”

The tiny journal, with a staff of five people, is housed on the campus of the University of Virginia and has been published since 1925. In 2010, after the suicide of its managing editor, Kevin Morrissey, the university suspended publication while it investigated complaints from staff members that Mr. Genoways had created a hostile work environment.

University officials later said they would keep Mr. Genoways on as editor, but last year he said he would leave the position of editor to focus on his work as a writer.



Ticketmaster Targets Scalpers in Federal Lawsuit

Ticketmaster Targets Scalpers in Federal Lawsuit

Ticketmaster, in an attempt to oppose the computer tactics used by some of the most advanced ticket scalpers, has sued 21 people, accusing them of fraud, breach of copyright and other charges in circumventing the company’s online security system to try to buy huge numbers of tickets.

In the suit, filed on Tuesday at United States District Court in Los Angeles, Ticketmaster accuses Joseph Shalom, a producer of live entertainment events in New York, as being the central figure in a coordinated series of attempts over the last two years to obtain large numbers of tickets and resell them at a profit.

According to the suit, Mr. Shalom and his accomplices used “bots,” or specialized computer programs, to bypass online features like Captcha -- a series of distorted letters or numbers -- that test whether a potential ticket buyer is a human being. Ticketmaster, a division of Live Nation Entertainment, says that Mr. Shalom and others linked to him used these systems to get access access to as many as 200,000 tickets a day ahead of ordinary members of the public.

The suit says that Mr. Shalom and the others violated Ticketmaster’s terms of use, which prohibit the use of bots and limit the number of tickets a customer may request in a single day. It also accuses them of several offenses allegedly committed as part of the ticket-buying process, including copyright infringement and the fraudulent assumption of false identities.

Ticketmaster seeks unspecified damages in the suit, and does not say how many tickets were actually purchased by the accused. But it also says that the use of bots damages Ticketmaster’s reputation and harms the public.

As a result of the behavior outlined in the suit, the company says, “the inventory of tickets available to consumers who do not use such devices is substantially diminished, which has led some consumers to question Ticketmaster’s ability to ensure a level playing field for the purchase of tickets.”

Bots have become a major target for consumer and industry complaints over the ticketing market, as consumers grow frustrated by the now-common experience of concerts selling out moments after going on sale, then seeing listings for those tickets at inflated prices through online secondary markets like StubHub, owned by eBay, or TicketsNow, part of Live Nation.

The concert industry has also been frustrated over how to crack down on bots. Three years ago, federal authorities charged a group of men with using similar tactics, giving them $25 million in profit. But the men were sentenced to probation, which music executives say has not served as any deterrent. Concert promoters and other have often said that the use bots have become increasingly common, particularly for the most in-demand shows.

Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and an e-mail to Mr. Shalom on Wednesday afternoon was not immediately returned.



Ticketmaster Targets Scalpers in Federal Lawsuit

Ticketmaster Targets Scalpers in Federal Lawsuit

Ticketmaster, in an attempt to oppose the computer tactics used by some of the most advanced ticket scalpers, has sued 21 people, accusing them of fraud, breach of copyright and other charges in circumventing the company’s online security system to try to buy huge numbers of tickets.

In the suit, filed on Tuesday at United States District Court in Los Angeles, Ticketmaster accuses Joseph Shalom, a producer of live entertainment events in New York, as being the central figure in a coordinated series of attempts over the last two years to obtain large numbers of tickets and resell them at a profit.

According to the suit, Mr. Shalom and his accomplices used “bots,” or specialized computer programs, to bypass online features like Captcha -- a series of distorted letters or numbers -- that test whether a potential ticket buyer is a human being. Ticketmaster, a division of Live Nation Entertainment, says that Mr. Shalom and others linked to him used these systems to get access access to as many as 200,000 tickets a day ahead of ordinary members of the public.

The suit says that Mr. Shalom and the others violated Ticketmaster’s terms of use, which prohibit the use of bots and limit the number of tickets a customer may request in a single day. It also accuses them of several offenses allegedly committed as part of the ticket-buying process, including copyright infringement and the fraudulent assumption of false identities.

Ticketmaster seeks unspecified damages in the suit, and does not say how many tickets were actually purchased by the accused. But it also says that the use of bots damages Ticketmaster’s reputation and harms the public.

As a result of the behavior outlined in the suit, the company says, “the inventory of tickets available to consumers who do not use such devices is substantially diminished, which has led some consumers to question Ticketmaster’s ability to ensure a level playing field for the purchase of tickets.”

Bots have become a major target for consumer and industry complaints over the ticketing market, as consumers grow frustrated by the now-common experience of concerts selling out moments after going on sale, then seeing listings for those tickets at inflated prices through online secondary markets like StubHub, owned by eBay, or TicketsNow, part of Live Nation.

The concert industry has also been frustrated over how to crack down on bots. Three years ago, federal authorities charged a group of men with using similar tactics, giving them $25 million in profit. But the men were sentenced to probation, which music executives say has not served as any deterrent. Concert promoters and other have often said that the use bots have become increasingly common, particularly for the most in-demand shows.

Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and an e-mail to Mr. Shalom on Wednesday afternoon was not immediately returned.



Uncertainty Still Clouds Health Care Law

Three years after President Obama signed the health care reform law, there are concerns that the process of implementing it will be rocky. Even some of the law’s supporters are worried.

Perhaps more troubling for the White House, the Affordable Care Act is still not well liked or well understood. The Obama administration had hoped that over time, the legislation would gain enough support to help smooth over the rough patches of putting it into practice. Instead, public opinion has remained mostly static: a plurality of Americans still disapprove of the law, and a substantial portion of the public remains uncertain about what it says, according to recent polls.

There is even confusion about whether the health care law is still, in fact, law. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey [PDF] conducted in April found that 41 percent of American adults did not know that the Affordable Care Act remains the law of the land. A separate tracking survey conducted by Kaiser, which has done far more surveys on health care than any other polling organization, found that roughly half of American adults said they did not have enough information about the law to understand how it will affect them.

The tracking poll found that there had actually been an increase in the percentage of American adults with no opinion about the health care law.

Among those who do have an opinion, more people still regard the health care law negatively than positively, according to a series of recent polls. In fact, the law’s net approval numbers stand basically where they did when it was passed.

One reason the Obama administration might still be optimistic is that while surveys have consistently found that a plurality of Americans have an overall negative view of the Affordable Care Act, they have just as consistently shown that large majorities of Americans favor individual elements of the law.

For example, Kaiser has found that about 70 percent of adults support providing financial assistance to low- and moderate-income Americans who do not have employer-provided health insurance, and also that about 70 percent support health insurance exchanges and the elimination of out-of-pocket costs for many preventive services â€" both elements of the health care law.

Once those benefits become realities, the percentage of Americans who approve of the law may rise. But if the law’s rollout is messy, there may be a dip in approval before it has a chance to become more popular.



Time Warner Revenue Is Flat, Despite Cable Gains

Time Warner Revenue Is Flat, Despite Cable Gains

Sluggishness at Time Warner’s magazine and movie divisions partly offset gains at its cable television networks, leading to virtually flat revenue and a 13 percent increase in operating income in the first three months of the year.

The parent company of HBO, CNN, TNT and TBS reported revenue of $6.9 billion in the quarter that ended March 31, down 1 percent from the same period last year. Net income grew 23.5 percent to $720 million, or 75 cents a share, compared with $583 million and 59 cents a share in 2012.

“We’re off to a strong start in 2013, making us even more confident in our full-year outlook,” Jeffrey L. Bewkes, chairman and chief executive of Time Warner, told analysts. He specifically pointed to the success of the company’s cable TV business, driven this quarter by an average nightly audience of 10.7 million for the N.C.A.A. basketball tournament broadcast on several Turner channels.

But Time Warner’s legacy businesses continued to lag. Later this year, the company is expected to complete the spinoff of its Time Inc. publishing unit into a separate, publicly traded company. Revenue at Time Inc., which publishes Time, People, Sports Illustrated and InStyle, fell 5 percent to $737 million, reflecting an 11 percent dip in subscription revenues.

Time Inc. eliminated roughly 6 percent of its total worldwide staff of 8,000 in the first quarter, resulting in $53 million in restructuring and severance charges. “We remain very focused on taking costs out of the business,” said John K. Martin, chief financial and administrative officer at Time Warner. Cost cutting, he added, is “an important step in preparing Time Inc. to function as a stand-alone public company.'’

Revenues at the Warner Brothers studio fell 4 percent to $2.7 billion, while operating income increased by 23 percent to $263 million. “Both ‘Gangster Squad’ and ‘Jack the Giant Slayer’ fell below our expectations,” Mr. Bewkes said.

He remained optimistic about the studio’s slate of upcoming films, including “The Great Gatsby” and “The Hangover Part III.” Warner Brothers had a strong television season with “Revolution,” an apocalyptic drama on NBC, and “Game of Thrones,” the HBO fantasy series that averages 13.4 million viewers per episode.

Mr. Bewkes defended CNN under the leadership of Jeff Zucker, the recently named president of CNN Worldwide. But, he said, the channel still needed to evolve from a trusted source of breaking news to a more regularly watched outlet. “CNN can’t just be politics and wars,” Mr. Bewkes said.

He rebuffed questions about whether the HBO Go on-demand app would be made available on an à la carte basis through a broadband connection, making the premium cable channel more like the streaming service Netflix. “We would do it if we thought it was in our economic best interest,” Mr. Bewkes said. “At this point, we don’t think it makes sense.”



Masha Gessen to Write Book on Tsarnaev Brothers

Book on Suspects in Boston Bombings to Be Written by Masha Gessen

The first major book on the Tsarnaev brothers, the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, has been acquired by Riverhead Books, the publisher said on Wednesday.

It will be written by the Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen, the author of “The Man Without a Face,” a biography of Vladimir Putin. Ms. Gessen is well qualified to write the book: she is fluent in Russian and English, has reported from Chechnya and emigrated to the Boston area when she was a teenager.

According to the publisher, the book, which is yet to be titled, will “reconstruct the struggle that ensued for each of the brothers between assimilation and alienation, and their metamorphosis into a new breed of home-grown terrorist, with their feet on American soil but their loyalties elsewhere, a split in identity that opened them to a deadly sense of mission.”

A spokeswoman for Riverhead, Jynne Martin, said Ms. Gessen was leaving her job at Radio Liberty to concentrate exclusively on the book on the brothers â€" Tamerlan, 26, who died after being shot by the police and run over by a vehicle driven by his fleeing brother, Dzhokhar, 19, who is being held in a prison hospital.

No publication date has been set.



Comcast Posts 17% Rise in Net Income, Despite a Dip in Revenue at NBCUniversal

Comcast Posts 17% Rise in Net Income, Despite a Dip in Revenue at NBCUniversal

Despite a slowing in the number of customers paying for cable and high-speed Internet subscriptions, Comcast reported a 17.4 percent increase in net income, to $1.44 billion, in the three months that ended March 31.

The solid results were partly the result of more expensive cable bills for 72 percent of Comcast’s subscribers. The company reported $3.07 billion in operating income and $15.3 billion in revenue, 11.2 percent and 2.9 percent increases from the same quarter last year.

Still, signs that the cable giant may have reached saturation in its core cable and Internet subscription business were apparent. The company lost 60,000 cable subscribers, 62 percent worse than the more modest losses it reported in the first quarter of 2012. New broadband subscriptions fell by 1 percent to 433,000 and Comcast gained 211,000 phone service customers, a 28 percent increase from last year.

Taken collectively, the country’s largest cable provider still had a 3.2 percent gain in new customers in the quarter, or 583,000 total subscribers, mostly because of the popularity of Comcast’s bundled offer that includes, Internet, phone and cable service at a reduced price.

In February, Comcast said it would pay $16.7 billion to acquire General Electric’s remaining 49 percent stake in NBCUniversal. The deal signaled Comcast’s confidence in the entertainment company. But at least in the first quarter of 2013, that investment did not show signs of paying off.

Revenue at NBCUniversal fell 2.4 percent to $5.34 billion, mostly because of a tough comparison to the same quarter in 2012. That quarter, NBC broadcast the Super Bowl and took in the advertising revenue that came along with the most-watched live sports event. Operating cash flow at NBCUniversal was up 17 percent to $953 million.

NBC had a particularly rough quarter without its hit singing competition, “The Voice” or the Super Bowl to prop up its prime time earnings. Overall revenue at the network fell by 18.5 percent and advertising revenue fell by 25 percent. In May, NBC will hold its annual upfront in New York to pitch advertisers on its new prime-time lineup for the fall television season.

Universal Studios theme parks were a bright spot for its parent company with a 12.2 percent increase in revenue largely tied to popular new attractions like “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter.” The holiday season hit “Les Misérables” helped the Universal movie division, which had a 2 percent increase in revenue and 10.3 percent increase in operating cash flow.

Cable networks including USA, MSNBC and Bravo continued to stand out, with $2.2 billion in total revenue and $859 million in operating cash flow, 4.6 percent and 6.2 percent increases.



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