Reuter site - Hulu challenges cable with first original drama

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Hulu challenges cable with first original drama

Sun, Jan 15 16:05 PM EST

By Yinka Adegoke

(Reuters) - Hulu, the popular online video service, has taken another step to becoming a full-fledged alternative to cable television by commissioning its first scripted original TV show to go live next month.

The new political documentary-style drama "Battleground" is set in Wisconsin and executive-produced by JD Walsh, Hagai Shaham and Marc Webb. It follows Hulu's first original documentary series Morgan Spurlock's "A Day In The Life."

The majority of Hulu's programming to date has been licensed from its parent companies, News Corp, Walt Disney Co and Comcast Corp's NBC Universal, as well as other program makers.

Andy Forsell, Hulu's programming executive, said Spurlock's show had been a success based on data it collected on its audience, but he declined to reveal the program's view counts.

Spurlock's series is being followed up with a second season and being joined by another six-episode documentary series called "Up to Speed" by Richard Linklater, who is perhaps best known for movies "Dazed and Confused" and "School of Rock".

The challenge for Hulu is to ensure it can generate a return on investment in expensive content like scripted drama, which is typically more costly than producing a documentary or reality show.

"We can make the economics work, I've got a budget for originals but there's not the same pressure as a traditional network since we don't have worry about filling airtime," Forsell said.

The original shows will be available on Hulu's free Web service rather than just to its paying Hulu Plus subscribers as the start-up increases its user base and builds its reputation for original programming. But Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar said the dual revenue model of advertising and subscription fees is key to Hulu's future.

"At scale, our model allows us to profitably pay content owners approximately 50 percent more in content licensing fees per subscriber when compared to other similarly priced online subscription services," Kilar said in a blog post on Friday.

PAYING SUBSCRIBERS

Hulu said on Friday it had more than 1.5 million paying subscribers at the end of 2011, and revenue grew 60 percent to $420 million.

Early last year, Kilar forecast that Hulu would generate around $500 million in revenue during 2011. The revenue miss was indirectly blamed on a "soft advertising market" in the second half of the year.

Like other Web companies trying to bring more TV shows and movies online, Hulu is in a race with rival Netflix Inc to buy and develop more content to add to and maintain its subscriber base.

Kilar said the company will spend around $500 million on content in 2012 covering new content acquisition, re-licensing existing content on the service and originals. It is an increase from the $375 million it said it spent last year.

Netflix, which has some 23 million U.S. subscribers, said last March it had secured exclusive rights to the 26-episode television series "House of Cards" a political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher.

It was reported last year that Netflix would spend around $100 million to produce the show.

Services like Netflix are increasingly being recognized as direct competition or replacements for premium cable channels such as Time Warner Inc's HBO and CBS Corp's Showtime.

(Reporting By Yinka Adegoke, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

I blog, I tweet, I rock. I think I'm Rupert Murdoch.

Here ye here ye, Rick Perry says Pee Pee

Reuter site - Rupert Murdoch turns to Twitter to attack Obama

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Rupert Murdoch turns to Twitter to attack Obama

Sun, Jan 15 13:11 PM EST

By Ilaina Jonas

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Media baron Rupert Murdoch used his new Twitter account this weekend to attack the Obama administration's opposition to parts of proposed legislation designed to combat Internet piracy.

"So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery," News Corp's chairman and chief executive officer posted on his personal Twitter account Saturday.

Murdoch, whose media empire includes Fox TV, The Wall Street Journal, Fox Studios and the Sun newspaper in Britain, continued with several tweets, attacking Google as the "Piracy leader" for streaming movies free. In later tweets he called Google a "great company."

Google could not be reached for an immediate comment. The White House declined to make any other comment beyond their statement issued Saturday.

At issue are the concerns White House officials raised on Saturday about elements in the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) pending in Congress.

Google and Facebook already have decried as heavy-handed and Hollywood studios and music labels say is needed to save U.S. jobs.

In a blog posting, three advisers to President Barack Obama said they believed the act and similar bills could make businesses on the Internet vulnerable to litigation and harm legal activity and free speech.

"Any effort to combat online piracy must guard against the risk of online censorship of lawful activity and must not inhibit innovation by our dynamic businesses large and small," said the officials, including White House cyber-security czar Howard Schmidt.

The House of Representatives' SOPA bill aims to crack down on online sales of pirated American movies, music or other goods by forcing Internet companies to block access to foreign sites offering material that violates U.S. copyright laws.

U.S. advertising networks could also be required to stop online ads and search engines would be barred from directly linking to websites found to be distributing pirated goods.

Those who support stricter piracy rules reacted strongly to Saturday's White House statement, which darkened prospects for legislation already expected to struggle to clear Congress in an election year.

Schmidt and the other advisers said the Obama administration was ready to work with lawmakers on a narrower, more targeted approach to online piracy to ensure that legitimate businesses -- including start-up companies -- would not be harmed.

Murdoch, who opened his Twitter account this year, has used it to colorfully opine on a number of topics. Tweeting last week, Murdoch praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's latest proposal to overhaul the city's public schools, but referred to New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo as "chicken Cuomo."

He also admitted in a post to his company's mishandling of social network MySpace, which News Corp bought in 2005 for $580 million. Today the site is nearly irrelevant.

"...we screwed up in every way possible.." Murdoch posted last week.

(Reporting By Ilaina Jonas, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

Reuter site - Perry defends Marines accused of urinating on corpses

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Perry defends Marines accused of urinating on corpses

Sun, Jan 15 15:14 PM EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Texas Governor Rick Perry, scrambling to keep his U.S. presidential bid alive, accused the Obama administration on Sunday of over-reacting to a videotape that shows four Marines appearing to urinate on dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

"These kids made a mistake. There's not any doubt about it. They shouldn't have done it. It's bad," Perry told CNN's "State of the Union" program.

"But to call it a criminal act, I think, is over the top," said Perry, who faces a possible make-or-break performance in the South Carolina Republican presidential primary on Saturday.

The U.S. Marine Corps named an investigative officer last week to decide what, if any, charges to bring against the four Marines shown in the widely circulated videotape.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other members of the Obama administration have denounced the action by the Marines.

"Defiling, desecrating, mocking, photographing or filming for personal use insurgent dead constitutes a grave breach of the (law of armed conflict)," Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti, who heads day-to-day Afghan operations, wrote the troops last week.

Perry, a former Air Force pilot, said the four Marines should be appropriately punished. "But going after them as a criminal act, I think (is) really a bad message," he said.

Suggesting that armed conflict can alter personal behavior, Perry noted that "there is a picture" of legendary Army General George Patton urinating in the Rhine River in Germany near the end of World War Two.

"Although there's not a picture," Perry added, British Prime Minister Winston "Churchill did the same thing on the Siegfried line," a massive wall of German defenses.

(Reporting By Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Reuter site - Hacker says to release full Norton Antivirus code on Tuesday

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Hacker says to release full Norton Antivirus code on Tuesday

Sat, Jan 14 13:12 PM EST

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A hacker who goes by the name of 'Yama Tough' threatened Saturday to release next week the full source code for Symantec Corp's flagship Norton Antivirus software.

"This coming Tuesday behold the full Norton Antivirus 1,7Gb src, the rest will follow," Yama Tough posted via Twitter.

In the past week Yama Tough has released fragments of source code from Symantec products along with a cache of emails. The hacker says all the data was taken from Indian government servers.

(Reporting By Frank Jack Daniel)

Reuter site - Romney opens 21-point lead in South Carolina: Reuters/Ipsos poll

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Romney opens 21-point lead in South Carolina: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Sat, Jan 14 20:45 PM EST

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has opened a wide lead over his rivals in the South Carolina primary election race, trouncing Newt Gingrich and gaining momentum in his march toward the party's nomination, a Reuters/Ipsos poll shows.

Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, could all but quash his rivals' presidential aspirations with a victory in South Carolina on January 21 after winning the first state-by-state nominating contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Voters in South Carolina - who have favored Republicans in nine of the last 10 presidential elections - appear to have shrugged off attacks on Romney by rivals who accuse him of killing jobs as a private equity executive for Bain Capital in the 1990s.

The poll showed 37 percent of South Carolina Republican voters back Romney. Congressman Ron Paul and former Senator Rick Santorum tied for second place with 16 percent support.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, has fallen far back after holding a strong lead in South Carolina in December. He was in fourth place at 12 percent in the Reuters/Ipsos poll.

"In primary races things can change quickly but it does look like Romney is in position to win South Carolina, and if he wins ... that's sort of the end of the road for most of his challengers," Ipsos pollster Chris Jackson said.

MITT VS NEWT FEUD

Romney is clearly winning a feud with Gingrich that began in December before the Iowa caucuses and has become the most bitter fight in the selection of a Republican challenger to Democratic President Barack Obama in November's general election.

In a question asked of Republicans and Democrats, the poll found South Carolina voters would favor Romney over Obama by 46 percent to 40 percent.

Asked who they would choose if the nomination contest were solely between Romney and Gingrich, 62 percent of Republicans picked Romney and 30 percent went for Gingrich.

Senior Republican figures and business executives have berated Gingrich for painting multi-millionaire Romney as a ruthless corporate raider. Many Republican voters are also turned off by the attacks, highlighted in a video documentary produced by a funding group that backs Gingrich.

"I think those attacks are misguided. The process of any economy has long been one of creative destruction. Some things grow and some things disappear," said Steve Matthews, a lawyer from Columbia, South Carolina, who plans to vote for Romney.

Romney argues that many more jobs were created by Bain than were lost in his time there.

Santorum, who surged into second place in the Iowa caucuses before fading in New Hampshire, got a boost on Saturday when Christian conservative leaders meeting in Texas endorsed him.

After Gingrich, Texas Governor Rick Perry placed next in the Reuters/Ipsos poll with 6 percent support. Former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, who was third in the New Hampshire primary, came in the lowest in the South Carolina poll with 3 percent support.

"Even if Romney loses South Carolina by a point or two, he's got the organization, he's got the financial backing to do the long battle of attrition that other challengers really don't," said Jackson of Ipsos.

Romney's campaign announced this week it raised $24 million in the last three months of 2011, while Paul raised $13 million and Gingrich raised $9 million. Obama is way ahead of the Republicans in fundraising.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online from January 10-13 with a sample of 995 South Carolina registered voters. It included 398 Republicans and 380 Democrats.

Statistical margins of error are not applicable to online surveys but this poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 5 percentage points for Republicans and 3.4 percentage points for all voters.

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan in South Carolina, Editing by Alistair Bell and John O'Callaghan)

Reuter site - Anti-virus maker AVG files for $125 million IPO

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Anti-virus maker AVG files for $125 million IPO

Fri, Jan 13 12:48 PM EST

By Himank Sharma and Brenton Cordeiro

(Reuters) - Anti-virus software maker AVG Technologies NV filed to raise up to $125 million in an initial public offering, looking to cash in on the increased demand for technology IPOs.

AVG, which is known for its free suite of anti-virus products, monetizes its large user base through targeted advertisements and by driving traffic to online search companies such as Google Inc and Yahoo Inc.

"The whole 'freemium' model has been effective in gaining subscribers, so their strategy seems to be less focused on growing the subscription revenue - if you look at the growth rate year over year." William Blair & Co analyst Jonathan Ho said.

Under the 'freemium' model, a company provides a free basic service and charges for more advanced features.

For the first nine months of 2011, AVG's subscription revenue rose marginally to $130.1 million, while its platform-derived revenue almost doubled to $68.02 million.

The Netherlands-based company, which is backed by Intel Capital, Grisoft Holdings and private equity firm TA Associates, had 106 million active users as of September 30, 2011, according to the filing. But only 15 million users paid for its services.

Analyst Ho, who follows internet security companies such as Symantec, said demand for security software stocks was on the rise given some of the recent concerns related to widespread hacking.

"I think that (there is) strong demand for security, given the recent cyber-security headlines, and that's giving the folks (a) chance to take advantage of the high valuations these stocks are attracting."

Friday's filing comes less than a month after Avast Software BV, another Europe-based anti-virus software maker, filed for a $200 million IPO.

Earlier last year, data security firm Imperva Inc raised $90 million in its IPO. The stock has climbed over 66 percent since its debut.

"The momentum in the IPO market in the U.S. and the demand for such deals is much higher than Europe and they will definitely achieve a much higher valuation here than in the European market," Josef Schuster, founder of IPOX Schuster, a fund that specializes in investing in newly public companies, told Reuters.

AVG reported a net income of $99.7 million on total revenue of $198.1 million for the nine months ended September 30.

Yahoo accounted for 21.6 percent of the AVG's total revenue in 2010, while Google contributed less than 10 percent to its revenue in the fourth quarter of the same year, the filing said.

AVG, which plans to list its shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "AVG," competes with Symantec and McAfee, which was acquired by Intel Corp.

The book-running managers for the AVG offering are Morgan Stanley & Co, J.P. Morgan Securities and Goldman Sachs & Co.

The proposed offering is expected to consist of ordinary shares to be sold by AVG and certain selling shareholders. The filing did not reveal the number of shares to be sold in the IPO or their expected price.

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO can be different.

(Reporting by Brenton Cordeiro and Himank Sharma in Bangalore; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Maju Samuel)

Reuter site - GPS dogtags and glass PCs: the show's hits and misses

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GPS dogtags and glass PCs: the show's hits and misses

Thu, Jan 12 18:59 PM EST

By Bill Rigby and Edwin Chan

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - This year's Consumer Electronics Show turned out to be the largest on record, despite a slow economy and what many industry pundits agree is a dearth of genuine scene-stealers.

But as with most years, avid - and hardy - attendees can always find a few gems that stand out from the inevitable tidal wave of headphones, Internet-enabled home appliances and gadget casings.

Here are a few high and low moments, compiled by Reuters from the Las Vegas show floor:

Hits: - Tagg, a GPS-enabled dog or cat collar so you need never lose your beloved companion again. A minute GPS unit clipped to pet collars will send an alarm text or email to your app-installed smartphone should Snuggles wander outside of a prescribed zone.

- Hewlett-Packard's all-glass-encased Spectre was probably the most eye-catching of the so-called 'Ultrabooks' and drew throngs of onlookers. Intel is hoping the new generation of ultra-thin, instant-on, lightweight laptops - essentially a riposte to Apple's MacBook Air - will safeguard its market share as tablets and smartphones encroach on its traditional personal-computing turf.

- The Tobii, which tracks eye movements to execute commands - what it calls "gaze interaction" - taking gesture-controlled interfaces a step further and upping the sophistication ante. Along with Nuance's voice controls and Microsoft's Kinect gesture-recognition technology, it offers an alternative to the fast-getting-old keyboard-mouse input model in an era of touchscreens. Zoom, auto-center, destroy virtual asteroids - moving just your eyes.

- Samsung Note, the beefed up "phablet" with a 5.3 inch screen that sits somewhere between a phone and a tablet. It may seem unwieldy held up to one's ear, and the screen - at half the iPad's size - might seem wanting as well, but its sleek lines, pin-sharp Android apps and unique shape drew in the crowds.

- Nokia's Lumia 900 phone, running Windows, marked the once-mighty Finnish handset maker's return to the U.S. market - and Microsoft's biggest phone gambit yet. People clamored for a feel, but demos were limited and there is no release date yet.

- Massive, 55-inch "OLED" TVs from Samsung and LG, which are both cautiously hopeful the costlier, but crisper screens will re-energize a faltering global TV market after flat sales in 2011. Bonus: look at them sideways and they almost disappear.

Misses - Microsoft Corp signed off after 14 show-opening keynotes with a bizarre, news-free presentation featuring a "Twitter choir" and a Q&A anchored by Ryan Seacrest. The company is reportedly revamping its marketing organization.

- Panasonic Corp's combo digital photo frame and Skype terminal. "The idea of some engineer who has been locked in a room for 10 years," one observer quipped.

- Dish Network Corp's stunt with a fidgety live kangaroo onstage, to launch its new "Hopper" package. For a video, click on http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2012/01/09/dishs-kangaroo-pitchman-doesnt-cooperate/

- A Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's fridge that streams Pandora and Twitter. It's OK to take a break from the Internet every now and then.

- And last but not least: Sony Corp's strange "Wedding Invitation" promo for its Internet-enabled TVs. Verbatim from the invite: "Internet plopped down on one knee. After nervously fidgeting around, he blurted, "I can haz marriage?" and presented TV with a giant ring. She, of course, said yes. And the rest is history."

(Reporting By Poornima Gupta, Sinead Carew, Liana Baker, Tim Kelly, Miyoung Kim and Noel Randewich; editing by Andre Grenon)

Reuter site - "Drip-casting": Mobile's answer to network logjams

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"Drip-casting": Mobile's answer to network logjams

Thu, Jan 12 18:13 PM EST

By Sinead Carew

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - The wireless industry is looking at new ways to deliver mobile video services and charging consumers as it tries to boost usage without overloading networks, a top Verizon Wireless technology executive said.

The shift, which will happen as early as this year, involves a new concept the executive, Shadman Zafar, described- as drip-casting, where video is sent gradually to devices such as tablets.

This will come hand in hand with so-called smart charging, where operators would not charge for certain data downloads, Zafar said in an interview with Reuters at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

"This is where the industry is generally looking," said the executive, who recently joined Verizon Wireless from parent company Verizon Communications Inc <VZ.N>, where he oversaw product development for the FiOS television and Internet business.

Under the model he described, consumers would order a video on their wireless device before they expect to watch it. The service provider would then gradually send the video to the consumer in a way that does not put too much strain on the network. This would involve sending the data in off-peak times or choosing network routes with little traffic, Zafar said.

In return for the delay, the customer would not be charged for the download, he said.

Such options could make consumers more inclined to watch video on phones or tablets since the biggest U.S. operators, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc <T.N>, charge for data usage on a metered basis.

"The idea would be that you don't get charged for certain data because the carrier would handle it differently," Zafar said.

The ability of the carrier to charge different prices for differing types of traffic could have other applications, too, according to the executive.

Zafar suggested the possibility of services where a content provider attracts new customers by paying for their wireless access to a website or service, similar to 1-800 calls on the telephone.

"You could end up creating new models," Zafar said, noting that Amazon.com Inc <AMZN.O> already does something similar by including the cost of wireless e-book downloads into the price of the book.

While Zafar declined to comment on specific plans for Verizon Wireless, he expects to see such services very soon in the industry.

"All these technologies are real and ready to go," he said. "This year, you'll see a lot of innovation."

Zafar, who joined Verizon Wireless at the start of January, will be responsible for coordinating with a joint venture Verizon Wireless is seeking to set up with cable operators, including Comcast Corp <CMCSA.O> and Time Warner Cable Inc <TWC.N>.

The companies are seeking regulatory approval from the U.S. Department of Justice for the venture, which was announced in December as part of a bigger agreement under which Verizon Wireless is buying spectrum from the cable companies. It has promised to let the cable operators resell its wireless services.

Zafar declined to disclose the venture's products except to say the goal is to collaborate on offerings none of the companies could have developed on their own.

(Reporting By Sinead Carew; editing by Andre Grenon)