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After a Fee Dispute With Time Warner Cable, CBS Goes Dark for Three Million Viewers

August 2, 2013 by

CBS stations went black just after 5 p.m. Eastern time. Both sides then issued statements blaming the other for being unreasonable in the negotiations, which were extended from Monday.

The dispute centers on what are known as retransmission fees, which cable companies have increasingly been compelled to pay to broadcasters, despite vigorous protest. CBS’s president, Leslie Moonves, has been a leader in seeking retransmission fees for broadcasters.

The decision to black out the stations means that Time Warner Cable subscribers will not be able to watch CBS programming until a deal is reached. In the past, subscribers have reacted with anger at such suspensions, but generally because they have missed specific programs. In this case, the summer programming roster does not contain many highly popular shows that might drive a settlement. CBS’s biggest appeal this summer is from the show “Under the Dome,” which will not have a new episode until Monday.

But the network does have the P.G.A. golf championship coming in a week. CBS emphasized on Friday that this week’s P.G.A. event was being led by Tiger Woods, who always draws viewers. And CBS, which broadcasts two soap operas, is also likely to gain support from those viewers.

Further down the road is the N.F.L. season, which might be a driving factor in why Time Warner Cable acted now.

Richard Greenfield, a media analyst who follows the company for BTIG Research, said the cable company was in “a once-in-a-lifetime position” to fight this battle because at the moment it does not face the overwhelming leverage of N.F.L. games and the most popular prime-time shows.

In addition, two top series on the Showtime network, owned by CBS, “Dexter” (which is in its final season) and “Ray Donovan,” are now also off the air, even though customers pay a separate fee for them. Time Warner Cable said it would offer a rebate to Showtime subscribers, as well as access to other subscription channels like Starz.

Time Warner Cable has insisted that the fee increases that CBS is asking for are unreasonable; CBS has argued it provides far more value than many cable networks that require much higher fees. Some reports have said CBS is asking for an increase of about 100 percent, to $2 a subscriber, from $1.

A spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission said that the agency was disappointed that the companies had not reached an agreement. “We urge all parties involved to resolve this situation as soon as possible.”

Despite recriminations on Friday from both sides, the negotiations are expected to resume as soon as Monday. That does not mean a quick settlement is likely, however. Mr. Greenfield said he could foresee CBS’s being dark “six weeks, if not more.” An executive close to the CBS side of the talks predicted 10 to 14 days.

In the meantime, CBS is sending messages on the radio and through other outlets urging viewers to complain to Time Warner Cable. The cable company, for its part, was telling customers to buy an antenna or sign up for Aereo, the new service that offers broadcast signals, and was also urging its customers to watch the missing CBS shows through streaming Web sites.

But for customers with Time Warner Cable broadband on Friday, CBS.com was blocking the streaming of shows, instead posting messages.

In almost every previous showdown over retransmission fees, the cable company’s stand has crumbled in short order. Mr. Greenfield said this time could be different because Time Warner Cable could take steps like appealing to Congress and selling CBS’s channel position to another bidder.

CBS stressed that it had never been taken off the air in a retransmission dispute and that it had not stopped offering extensions to keep the talks going.

Maureen Huff, a spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable, said, “We’ve accepted numerous extensions at this point, but it’s become clear that no matter how much time we give them, they’re not willing to come to reasonable terms.”

Brian Stelter contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 2, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated at one point which company suspended the service. It was Time Warner Cable, not CBS.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/business/media/time-warner-cable-removes-cbs-in-3-big-markets.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

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Millionaires Consider Leaving California Over Taxes

February 6, 2013 by Leave a Comment

With the new year, big earners are confronting a 51.9 percent federal-state income tax hit on earnings over $1 million, the result of a confluence of new tax-the-rich levies imposed by California and Congress in the closing days of 2012. That is officially the highest in the nation. And at 13.3 percent, the top-tier California income tax is, in addition to being higher than any other state, the steepest it has been since World War II.

Though no one expects traffic jams at 30,000 feet as panicked millionaires make for the state line, millionaires are once again grumbling about abandoning California for less punishing tax climates. Phil Mickelson, the championship golfer who collects purses in excess of $1 million, suggested that he might become the latest in a line of athletes and entertainment figures, among them Tiger Woods, who left California for states like Florida, which has no personal income tax.

The Republican governor of Texas, Rick Perry, firing a new shot in an old interstate war, began putting radio advertisements on the air in California this week summoning burdened businesses his way. “I have a message for California business: Come check out Texas,” Mr. Perry said.

Blood, it seems, is in the water.

“Are you looking to leave California because of the recent tax increase?” a CNN Money correspondent posted online in a source-hunting inquiry this week. “You could be profiled in an upcoming story.”

For all its many attributes, California has long been a state defined by high taxes and the people who hate them; conservatives here were successfully organizing against taxes way before anyone heard of the Tea Party. Yet this milestone − or perhaps millstone − has sneaked up as an unpleasant surprise, a cloud in the sky at a time when the state budget has come back into balance (in no small part because of the aforementioned tax increase) and the state economy seems to be snapping back to life.

Mr. Mickelson later apologized for discussing the topic, though that did not prevent Mr. Perry from sending him a message on Twitter: “Hey Phil … Texas is home to liberty and low taxes … we would love to have you as well!!” Conservatives and antitax activists have cited Mr. Mickelson’s remarks as the latest evidence of what they have long argued are the costs California pays for having such a high tax burden.

“It’s definitely the highest in the United States,” said David Kline, a vice president of the California Taxpayers Association, a taxpayers’ advocacy organization. “What we like to point out to people is that there are states with absolutely no personal income tax – so if you moved from California to Florida, and you are in a high income bracket, you are automatically giving yourself a 13.3 percent raise.”

For what it is worth, California’s big earners can deduct their state taxes from their federal returns, or at least for the time being: were Congress to repeal that deduction, which is now under discussion, the actual tax burden would be 52.9 percent. The top rate in California has been as high as 15 percent and as low as 6 percent, and the combined rate has been higher at times, such as when federal income taxes spiked to pay for wars.

Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat who urged voters to approve the latest state income tax surcharge, dismissed Mr. Perry’s poaching as political trickery, suggesting that high earners consider other factors in deciding where to locate.

“People invest their money where these big things have occurred,” he told reporters. “The ideas, the structures, the climate, the opportunity is right here on the Pacific Rim.”

Some of those earners seem at least resigned to the tax burden as a cost of being able to live in California rather than, say, Texas.

“I am happy to pay my taxes, whatever they are: no problem with me,” said David Geffen, the entertainment mogul, who owns estates on the oceanfront in Malibu and on the hedge-lined streets of Beverly Hills. Mr. Geffen said he thought it could hurt the business climate, but added, “I don’t think anybody of means is really going to move because of it.”

Cristobal Young, an assistant professor of sociology with the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Stanford, conducted a study last fall that concluded that tax rates had little effect on where millionaires choose to live.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/us/millionaires-consider-leaving-california-over-taxes.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Filed Under: Economy News Tagged With: , ,

App Smart: To Improve Your Swing: Bend Your Knees and Find a Good App

May 5, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I’d be less mystified if I could hold on to all the tips I get while watching golf broadcasts, but that wisdom is long gone by the time I get a club in my hand.

But now I have a smartphone in my hand, and that means I have golf apps.

Golf-related apps were among the early entrants in Apple’s App Store and the Android Market, but the software lineup has improved significantly with time.

Among my golf instruction apps, one is new this season (Tiger Woods: My Swing, $10 on Apple), one features recent upgrades (Golfplan with Paul Azinger, $1 on Apple) and one started out solid and has remained so (iSwing Golf, $3 on Android and Apple).

Unfortunately for Android-loving golfers, the newest is also the best. Tiger Woods: My Swing is the coolest and most refined swing-improvement app I’ve seen.

With My Swing, you use the video camera on the iPhone or iPad 2 to record your swing from two angles, and watch it in high definition. You can slow down the video or freeze it at different points to study your mechanics.

You need a friend (or a specially equipped tripod) to hold the device, but My Swing includes some nice touches to help capture a good swing for viewing. The viewfinder shows the outline of a golfer addressing the ball, so you need only place the video subject within those outlines.

You can also preview a swing to decide whether it’s a fair enough representation to proceed with the swing analysis. Here — in the app’s swing analysis features — is where My Swing justifies its $10 price tag.

Even though I have a good idea of what a legitimate golf swing looks like, I would struggle to break down the mechanics of my swing so that I could make meaningful adjustments.

My Swing places optional colored lines over your swing, representing the planes that Tiger Woods deems most important to a good golf stroke with each club in the bag (excluding a putter). The app also includes videos explaining in clear detail the significance of each line, and what happens when a golfer strays outside those lines.

It’s excellent instruction — insightful, but not so much information that a golfer would struggle to remember everything. You can skip the app’s other videos, which include fluff like a 20-second interview clip about Mr. Woods’s childhood baseball abilities.

Those with deeper knowledge of their own mechanics can also draw their own lines over a swing video.

If, during a swing analysis, users find flaws worth noting, like too much hip movement in the backswing, they can append text or audio notes to the swing video, which is kept in the My Swing library.

That library also exists at Golfshot.com, a free Web site maintained by Shotzoom, My Swing’s developer. The Web element brings other benefits few other apps can match.

From Golfshot, you can share your swing with friends, along with the “Tiger Lines,” or whatever lines you’ve chosen to draw on the swing. The site also includes sections where you can record details about each round you’ve played and share that with friends who also use the service.

Shotzoom’s other app for golf instruction, Paul Azinger’s Golfplan, is also quite good, if not quite as elegant as My Swing. But for $1, Golfplan offers an enormous amount of value.

The app features a deep library of instructional videos with Mr. Azinger, a P.G.A. tour veteran. But rather than leave users to browse that library randomly, Golfplan delivers those tips it believes most relevant to those with a certain handicap. (You offer this information to Golfplan when the software starts.)

Since Golfplan is also connected to Golfshot.com, it will use any statistics you’ve included on the Web site to help deliver more relevant tips.

The videos are ideal for those who have reached the driving range with no ideas of how to attack their most nagging flaws. If, for instance, you have logged in with an astronomical handicap — as, for instance, I have — the app will offer specific tips on how to avoid slicing the ball.

My one quibble is that Mr. Azinger moves too quickly at times, and without slow-motion replays or diagrams to explain some of his points, the nuances are sometimes lost.

Another flaw: the “play” button is placed remarkably close to the “upgrade to HD” button, which incurs a $5 charge. I’ll let less cynical people than me decide whether this is intentional.

Mr. Azinger recently updated the app with a series of videos for practicing at home. They’re decent, but they have a poorly lit, less polished production quality. But for $1, this shortcoming is easily forgiven.

Android users have nothing even close to this good for $1, but iSwing Golf offers some solid value for $3.

The app is actually closer to My Swing than Golfplan, in that users film themselves swinging a club and analyze the swing with slow-motion replays.

The targeting feature isn’t as good as the one on My Swing, nor can you analyze your swing with tutorials, as you would with My Swing. But you can draw lines on your video and build a library of swings, and iSwing Golf lets you compare videos side by side, in synchronized motion, which is useful for underscoring changes in your stroke.

For an added $4, you can add videos from Adam Scott, a P.G.A. tour veteran and 2011 Masters Tournament runner-up, to help understand a model swing.

Mr. Scott, by the way, finished just ahead of Tiger Woods in that tournament. In the mobile apps realm, however, Mr. Woods wins by at least a couple of strokes.

Quick Calls

Android users with young readers should consider Super Why! ($3), from PBS Kids. The app, which is based on the series of the same name, builds literacy skills through interactive stories. It is available on Amazon’s Appstore. It Happened Here ($3 on Apple and Android) points out events of historical interest, based on the user’s location. It is now available for Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=9eca31dcd439ea2cefa509b6fd4ed40d

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For Tiger Woods, a Golf Course Design Business Is in the Rough

April 2, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Mr. Woods would soon undergo surgery that would shut down his season, but no matter: the Tiger legend was steaming ahead, and the fall from grace that would follow was unthinkable then. His heroic performance in the Open had enhanced his stature as perhaps the greatest player ever. It was his 14th major championship, putting him only four behind Jack Nicklaus’s 18, the singular goal that Mr. Woods had been pursuing since he turned pro in 1996. His earnings from golf and endorsements had made him wealthy beyond imagination.

Now he was turning his attention to a new challenge, his course design business, one that would extend his brand, bring him untold more millions and leave his permanent imprint on the game he seemed to have mastered so easily.

The Baja course, called Punta Brava, was Mr. Woods’s third design. With its breathtaking landscape, it was easy to envision it rivaling Pebble Beach and establishing his legacy as an architect at age 32. At the news conference to unveil the course, in October 2008 at the Hotel Bel Air in Beverly Hills, he looked at ease sitting next to Red McCombs, the billionaire co-founder of Clear Channel Communications, who was one of the investors.

“I can’t wait until we actually start construction, and we get to move some dirt because that’s when I can really get my hands on it and really be out there even more than I am now,” Mr. Woods said at the time.

Now, two and a half years later, no dirt has been moved at Punta Brava and Mr. Woods has not visited in some time. His two other designs, in Dubai and near Asheville, N.C., are also troubled; the Dubai course, according to people familiar with the project, has been shelved permanently. The desert sands have started to reclaim the strips of green from the six holes that have been completed. The Asheville project is searching for new financing, and construction has halted until at least this summer. In the nearly five years since Tiger Woods Design was founded, none of the courses have been completed.

It’s a trajectory that mirrors just about every element of Mr. Woods’s life these days: As he enters the Masters tournament beginning on Thursday, his golf game has fallen apart and he is overhauling his swing for the fourth time in his career. The string of affairs that made him tabloid fodder in 2009 and 2010 cost him his marriage, custody of his two young children and the loss of endorsement deals with Accenture, ATT and Gatorade.

Brian Tucker, the founder and developer of Punta Brava, said the delay there had nothing to do with Mr. Woods’s personal scandal. His group had to redo the environmental impact study, he said, and groundbreaking is set for later this year. What remains to be seen is how much the developers will use Mr. Woods’s image to sell the course. Mr. Tucker suggested that Punta Brava would be marketed mostly on its exotic locale.

“This project is not about Tiger Woods,” Mr. Tucker said last month, emphasizing that the course is surrounded on three sides by the ocean and has 12 holes requiring a player to hit the ball over water.

Punta Brava’s location allows it to play down Mr. Woods’s involvement, but the two other courses he designed do not have this luxury. His allure as one of the world’s great champions was a crucial pillar of the sales plan.

Bryon Bell, president of Tiger Wood Design, said the firm would not be looking for new partners in Dubai. “As the course designer, it is not our role to secure financing for the projects,” he wrote in an e-mail.

When asked about the Asheville project, he said: “Our role beyond design work can vary depending on the client. Some request additional promotional or marketing opportunities, others just ask for our patience during these economic times.”

For now, the only golf project that Tiger Woods Design has completed is behind Mr. Woods’s newly finished mansion on Jupiter Island, Fla. With four greens, seven sand traps and different cuts of grass, the 3.5-acre pitch-and-putt course would delight any golfer.

While Mr. Woods could surprise the golf world and win this week at the Masters, it will take more than a major championship to rehabilitate his business career. And that raises some questions: What will become of the two remaining courses that bear his name, and can Tiger Woods Design re-emerge as a viable enterprise?

 

WHEN Tiger Woods started his golf design business in 2006, few doubted that he could deliver a course that everyone would want to play. That confidence didn’t vanish when the global economy began to fracture in 2008. Real estate values — so vital to any golf development — were dropping but were not yet considered at crisis levels. There were signs of a financial reckoning on the horizon, but not in the world inhabited by millionaire investors looking for a spot in golf’s most exclusive clubs. The Tiger market remained bullish.

Investors had compelling reasons to hope that Mr. Woods was recession-proof. Dubai had ponied up an estimated $55 million, according to widely circulated reports, for the privilege of owning Mr. Woods’s first-ever course design. The Asheville project, at a gated community called the Cliffs at High Carolina, had reportedly paid him $10 million. The usual fee for course design by a top architect runs $2 million to $3 million.

It didn’t matter that Mr. Woods had never designed a course. Who more than Tiger Woods knew his way around bentgrass and bunkers? With his practical experience, he would learn the details of the business on the job.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=51f2c45b28c0f842de3e305cf814bb99

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