Zynga COO Leaves Company

Two weeks after Zynga reported lousy quarterly financial results, sending its stock price into a tailspin, the company has revealed in a regulatory filing that COO John Schappert is resigning as an executive and board member.

News of Schappert's resignation comes a week after insiders said he was being partially blamed for an atrocious quarter and had been stripped of some of his duties.

Schappert was one of the more seasoned video-game executives at Zynga, having been lured to the maker of Facebook and other social games via a hefty pay package reportedly worth north of $40 million. Previously, he was with Electronic Arts.

Late last month, Zynga, the maker of "Words With Friends" and "Draw Something," reported a second-quarter profit -- after certain items -- of a penny, missing Wall Street's expectations of 6 cents and causing the stock to plunge after the closing bell.

On Wednesday, Zynga shares were trading at $2.95 apiece, down 71 percent from their December IPO price of $10 and off 42 percent since its second-quarter financial report.

Ri Ri a No No...

While all relish in Rihanna's "bad gyal attitude" and lavish lifestyle via her Instagram account and Twitter timeline, Nivea is all but pleased.

Though the skincare company employed the Bajan beauty for their 2010 campaign using Loud's, "California King Bed", according to the company's new CEO Stefan Heidenreich, Rih Rih isn’t a good fit for the company anymore.

"Rihanna is a no go ... I do not understand how to bring the core brand of Nivea in conjunction with Rihanna,” Heidenreich said to German newspaper Welt (according to Google translate). "Nivea is a company which stands for trust, family and reliability."

Rihanna made time to speak her mind and posted a picture of Heidenreich on her Twitter timeline with the words "No caption necessary."

Though Heidenreich’s objections are noted, the pop singer has yet to officially lose her endorsement.

Tags: Nivea, Rihanna

Ice Cube Talks About Making It In Hollywood

In the new issue of the Source magazine, Ice Cube is featured on the Hip Hop Hollywood list. 

Ice Cube gave advice on how to break into the movie business. Here's what he had to say:  

"Well, I don’t really look at it as being 'Hip Hop in Hollywood,' you know what I’m sayin’. I look at it as just a filmmaker trying to make movies ... you gotta break it down to it’s rawest form or you’ll play mental tricks on yourself. Eveybody has a story to tell out here, everybody needs money to tell it, so you have to break through all that and make sure that you’re seen and heard, that your projects are taken serious, so that’s the fight ..."

"To get a movie together you have to deal with a lot of people, things got to come together, so when you see a good project you should jump on it and work on it because good projects just don’t come around. If you’re a person who says, “I do gangsta rap, I only want to to gangsta movies,” I’d probably only do 3 or 4 movies in my career if I had that attitude, so you gotta jump on good projects, you know, and make them better, or make them dope or get them made and just go for it."

Judge Rejects Buju Banton’s Plea for New Trial

Reggae singer Buju Banton’s request for a new trial was denied by a Tampa, Fla. judge, the Associated Press reports.

According to Federal Judge James Moody, there was no need for Banton, whose real name is Mark Myrie, to have one because of previous appeals court ruling.

In 2011, the Grammy-winning Jamaican singer was convicted of brokering a cocaine deal with an undercover drug informant just one week after receiving a Grammy for his album Before the Dawn. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Back in June, the Atlanta federal appeals court upheld his conviction on trafficking charges and cocaine conspiracy. He also received five more years in prison for his gun possession conviction that the Tampa courts had initially dismissed.

In July, Buju’s lawyer filed a motion requesting a new trial. That request was denied this Tuesday and he must continue to serve is now 15-year sentence.

EMI Reports Fiscal Year Loss Due to Writedown

Music company EMI recorded a pre-tax loss of £349 million ($546 million) for the fiscal year ending March 31, down from the year before due to a writedown, the Guardian reported, citing an internal company memo.

The £372 million ($582 million) charge was necessary to write down the value of the music major's two units - recorded music and music publishing.

It's Official: Sony-Led Acquisition of EMI Music Publishing Approved by EU

The company is in the process of selling the former to Vivendi's Universal Music Group and has completed the sale of the music publishing arm to a group led by Sony. ¨In the year-ago period, EMI reported a loss of £529 million ($828 million). ¨When EMI agreed to sell two units in November, it was required to write down what it had estimated the value of its catalogs and goodwill would be.¨

Excluding the writedown and a restructuring charge due to staff cuts, the company's operating profit nearly doubled from £69 million ($108 million) to £133 million ($209 million).

Updated: Sony-Led Group Closes Purchase of EMI Music Publishing

EMI posted underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization of £290 million ($454 million), down 5.2 percent from the year-ago period.

EMI, home to such artists as Katy Perry, the Beatles and Coldplay, reported a slight revenue increase to £1.47 billion ($2.33 billion).

EMI CEO Roger Faxon said the results showed an "incredibly strong performance... set against the backdrop of a challenging state of the music market and wider economic conditions."

Read: EMI CEO Roger Faxon's Letter to Staff About Universal Deal

EMI's recorded music unit posted a 2 percent revenue increase to £1.03 billion ($1.61 billion). EMI Publishing kept its revenue roughly unchanged at £434 million ($679 million). Adjusted EBITDA for EMI Recorded Music amounted to £158 million ($247 million), down from £169 million ($264 million). EMI Publishing declined from £132 million ($207 million) from £137 million ($214 million).

Twitter Subpoenaed By NYPD Over Man's Threat to Shoot Up Tyson Play

Let's pray the following report is solved before any more madness occurs.

According to NBC, the NYPD are asking Twitter to turn over information about a user who has been threatening an Aurora, Colorado-like shooting at Broadway’s Longacre Theatre—where Mike Tyson is currently performing his Undisputed Truth.

The Twitter threats go as far back as last week, when the user wrote about making a hit list. He (or she) tweeted, “i wanna kill alot of people” and, “I might just shoot up this theater in new York I know they leave their exit doors unlocked. Ha now I gotta plan it step by step.” Then, on Aug. 2, in a response tweet to another user referring to Tyson’s show—this was tweeted out: “Well ima shoot that theater up tonight just trust me.”
 
The latest tweet occurred on Aug. 3, responding to a tweet that mentioned not seeing anything on the news about the threat from the previous night. The user tweeted, “I had last minute plans. I’m in Florida rite now but it’ll happen i promise I’m just finishing up my hit list.”

Twitter felt, In an e-mail response to the NYPD, that the threat did not fall within its parameters for invoking emergency-disclosure procedures.

We're going to need Twitter to open their eye on this one. Written evidence doesn't lie!

EMI Reports Fiscal Year Loss Due to Writedown

Business Matters: SiriusXM Adds On-Demand Music and 600,000 Subscribers

SiriusXM Adds On-Demand Music and 600,000 Subscribers

-- SiriusXM is the latest radio company to launch an on-demand service that allows people to listen to what they want, when they want. Well, sort of.

 

Launched Tuesday, SiriusXM On Demand gives SiriusXM Internet Radio subscribers the ability to tap into a catalog of more than 200 shows containing more than 2,000 hours of content. All on-demand features will come at no extra cost.

 

More on-demand content is on the way later this year. SiriusXM CEO Mel Karmazin said during Tuesday's earnings call an Internet service that will deliver "expertly-curated music channels" is on target for a late 2012 rollout. He said the upcoming service is part of SiriusXM's "Personalized Radio Project," which sounds like SiriusXM is pushing to introduce something akin to the algorithm-driven, personalized Internet radio pioneered by Pandora.

 

SiriusXM On Demand will have such music shows as "Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour," "Tom Petty's Buried Treasure," select Jimmy Buffet concerts and items from the SiriusXM vaults. Subscribers will also have on-demand access to talk shows ("The Howard Stern Show," "The Opie & Anthony Show"). On-demand programming will have "minimal" commercials while music programming will be commercial-free.

 

You may be asking yourself how a satellite radio company can offer on-demand music, talk and other programming. SiriusXM On Demand is available to subscribers to SiriusXM Internet Radio, the company's online offering that can be accessed via the Web and a variety of smartphones, mobile devices and Internet radios. SiriusXM On Demand is currently available only on the Web and iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

 

On-demand content wasn't the company's biggest news Tuesday. SiriusXM announced record earnings of $237 million on record revenue of $838 million. Net income of $3.1 billion included a one-time income tax benefit of $3 billion. The company added 600,000 subscribers in the second quarter -- up 38% year over year to 22.9 million -- and increased guidance for the second half of the year. Karmazin said during Tuesday's earnings call that SiriusXM should have 23.5 million subscribers by the end of the year.

 

The company's stock was up 4.55% to $2.30 on Monday and is up 9.87% in 2012.

 

The combination of the new on-demand service and Monday's positive earnings create an even more active digital radio market. SiriusXM On Demand is competing in the same arena as Pandora, iHeartRadio, Spotify and other online streaming services -- it's not always direct competition, but it's competition.

 

SiriusXM needs to improve its service to hold off free, ad-supported alternatives such as Pandora. It gets most of its subscribers from automobile owners, which makes efforts to push the value of its online services all the more interesting. Setting aside the cost of the hardware, SiriusXM has a competitive price given its range of live and exclusive programming. Bolstering the satellite service with additional online service can only help.

( SiriusXM press release)

 

U.S. Music Biz Should Love Ziggo Muziek's Business Model

-- A music subscription service you've probably never heard of already has 350,000 subscribers, is launching in another country and has had strong subscriber acquisition success on a per capita basis.

 

Dutch ISP Ziggo has launched a music streaming service called Ziggo Muziek, a branded version of the white-label service WiMP. The service has roughly 350,000 subscribers and is also available in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and, as of May 2, Germany.

 

WiMP doesn't get much attention on these shores but has a business model the U.S. music industry should love. Oslo-based Aspiro Music developed WiMP and provides it to mobile operators, broadband ISPs, cable TV companies and other entities as both a white label and a WiMP-branded service. Telenor, the world's sixth-largest mobile carrier, is WiMP's partner in Denmark and Norway. Canal Digital, Norway's largest TV services company, offers WiMP in its TV subscription packages.

 

WiMP's numbers are small by U.S. standards but it operates in relatively small markets. Its biggest market, Germany, has been in the WiMP family for only three months. It has only entered the Dutch market.

 

Getting 350,000 subscribers in Norway, Sweden and Denmark shows WiMP has a good approach. While these markets are digitally innovative and welcoming to music subscription services, they are also very competitive markets where services like Spotify also compete. So getting 350,000 subscribers through mobile carrier, TV and ISP partnerships seems like quite a success.

 

How successful is 350,000 subscribers in Norway, Sweden and Denmark (setting aside the two new markets)? The three countries have a combined population of roughly 20 million -- just slightly bigger than New York State -- giving WiMP a 1.75 subscription/population ratio. If that ratio were applied country the size of the U.S. (311.6 million) a music service would have 5.45 million subscribers. That's more than Rhapsody, Spotify, Muve Music, Rdio and Mog combined.