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Friday, March 29, 2013

Comcast Scores Court Victory

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Ford India Ads Lead to Firings

A top Ford Motor Co. executive formally apologized Wednesday while the auto maker's Indian advertising agency unit fired an undisclosed number of workers following a series of controversial proposed advertisements to promote Ford's Figo subcompact car.

"It was totally inappropriate, it is not acceptable and swift action has been taken," Ford global marketing chief Jim Farley said at the start of his keynote speech at the New York International Auto Show. He apologized for the ads and said the company is updating its review process.

Mr. Farley's apology come amid the growing controversy in India over proposed ads that depicted ...

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Pinnacle Foods IPO to Test Investor Appetite

NEW YORK–Thursday's initial public offering for frozen foods purveyor Pinnacle Foods Inc. is setting up to be a test of how much investors are willing to pay for a company that offers a hefty dividend but comes saddled with debt and limited prospects for growth.


The maker of Van de Kamp's fish sticks and Lender's frozen bagels is slated to set a price for its IPO late Wednesday, a deal that is likely to be the year's third-largest IPO. Shares are expected to fetch between $18 and $20 per share and could raise as much as $580 million.


Pinnacle, which is backed by Blackstone Group LP, is the latest in a string of deals brought to market this year by sponsors including private-equity shops or venture capital firms. Blackstone bought Parsippany, N.J.-based Pinnacle for $2.16 billion in 2007. It added Birds Eye Foods Inc. in 2009 with a $1.3 billion deal.


Pinnacle said in its prospectus that it's targeting an 18-cent quarterly dividend, which would imply a 3.8% annual yield based on the midpoint offer price. That compares with a 2.2% dividend yield on stocks in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index. With interest rates at rock bottom, high-dividend paying stocks have been commanding a premium from investors.


"I would be surprised if it doesn't price at the top end of the price range or above that," said Josef Schuster, founder of IPOX Schuster LLC, an IPO research-and-investment firm based in Chicago. "It's a stable business and has good brand value. I think investors are also looking at it for the dividend yield," he said.


Mr. Schuster's fund, the $67 million First Trust U.S. IPO Index exchange-traded fund, doesn't participate in first-day IPO trading, but said he is looking hard at adding shares in the coming weeks.


Another potential positive for the deal is that investors have been taking a shine to IPOs brought to market by financial sponsors such as Blackstone. Thirteen such deals have generated an average first-day gain of 20%, compared with a 14% first-day pop for all initial offerings, according to Ipreo, a market intelligence firm.


On the potential negative side of the ledger, Pinnacle's brands–which also include Vlasic pickles and Celeste pizza–are widely known, but its sales have mostly been flat. The company booked $2.5 billion in sales in the 2012, up 0.4% from the year earlier.


Then there's the debt: As of the end of last year, its total debt stood at $2.1 billion, or about five times 2012's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.


But leverage hasn't been much problem for recent IPOs. With the Federal Reserve expected to keep interest rates low, investors have relegated concerns about debt loads to the back burner.


For example, Realogy Holdings Corp., a real-estate services firm that owns and franchises brokerages including Century 21 and Coldwell Banker, had net leverage of more than seven times its forward Ebita when it went public in October. That deal, which was backed by private-equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC, fetched a price at the high end of its prospective range and shares are up more than 80% since their IPO.


In Realogy's case, investors jumped at the chance to play an IPO tied to a broader recovery in the housing market, observers say. Stocks like plywood maker Boise Cascade Co. and Tri Pointe Homes LLC have seen strong stock gains after their IPOs this year.


Analysts also note the consumer-staples sector generally tends to be more supportive of debt loads because sales, even if uninspiring, are usually relatively stable.


"The food industry is an example of an industry with relatively low operating risk. So food companies, whether it's Heinz, or Pinnacle Foods, can support higher debt ratios than companies in more cyclical industries," said Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida who tracks IPOs.


Pinnacle will list Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PF and would carry a market value of $2.2 billion at the high point of the prospective price range.


Write to Chris Dieterich at chris.dieterich@dowjones.com or Matt Jarzemsky at matt.jarzemsky@dowjones.com


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Rail Capacity, Spending Soar

EPPING, N.D.—On a recent subzero day at a rail station here on the plains, a giant tank train stretches like a black belt across the horizon—as far as the eye can see. Soon it will be filled to the brim with light, sweet crude oil and headed to a refinery on Puget Sound. Another mile-long train will pull in right behind it, and another after that.

Increasingly, scenes like this are being played throughout the country. "Hot Trains" dedicated to high-priority customers like United Parcel Service Inc. roar across the country to deliver everything from microwaves to tennis shoes and ...

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The Fight for New York's Skies

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VW Winds Down U.S. Minivan Sales

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Zuckerberg Starting Political Group

Mark Zuckerberg is adding a new title to his roster: political organizer.


The 28-year-old Facebook Inc. chief executive is in the process of co-organizing a political advocacy group made up of top technology leaders that would push federal legislative reform on issues ranging from immigration to education, said people familiar with the development.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is co-organizing a political advocacy group that aims to raise around $50 million and push federal legislative reform on issues ranging from immigration to education. WSJ's Evelyn Rusli reports. (Photo: AP)


Mr. Zuckerberg is working on launching the group along with close friend Joe Green, who was one of the CEO's Harvard University roommates, these people said. The group is expected to be formally announced in the next few weeks, they added.


The group, which so far doesn't have a name, is aiming to raise roughly $50 million and has already secured commitments in the tens of millions of dollars from Mr. Zuckerberg and more than a dozen other tech executives including LinkedIn Corp. founder Reid Hoffman, said these people.


The group plans to register as a 501(c)(4), a distinction reserved for social welfare groups that are not organized for profit, said a person familiar with the discussions.


Mr. Zuckerberg has told confidantes that the new group will initially be focused on comprehensive immigration reform and making the pathway to U.S. citizenship less complicated for all immigrants, said people familiar with the CEO's thinking. The group also plans to focus on issues including education reform and funding for scientific research.

Reuters Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg


The new group has also enlisted several consultants well versed in Beltway politics. Rob Jesmer, the former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, is especially active on a day-to-day basis, said one person with knowledge of the matter.


Joe Lockhart, Facebook's former vice president of global communications and a former press secretary under president Bill Clinton's administration, and Jon Lerner, a Republican strategist are also involved, another person familiar with the matter said.


The San Francisco Chronicle and Politico earlier reported on the potential formation of the group.


Mr. Zuckerberg's involvement is another step into the political arena for the billionaire CEO.


In February, Mr. Zuckerberg hosted a fundraiser at his home in Palo Alto, Calif., for New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican. Mr. Zuckerberg has also met President Barack Obama several times, including hosting a town hall for the Democratic president at Facebook's headquarters in 2011. The CEO contributed $10,000 to Facebook's political action committee in the last election cycle and previously made a $100 million donation to Newark, N.J., public schools.


Some Facebook co-founders and executives have also expressed an interest in politics.


The social network's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, a former chief of staff of the Treasury Department, has hosted events in Silicon Valley for President Obama and former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

After Facebook Inc.'s calamitous IPO, investors are now looking less at the Internet and more at real estate to put their money in, MarketWatch's David Weidner reports. (Photo: AP)


Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, who is now publisher of The New Republic, previously assisted in President Obama's election efforts and has emerged as a high-profile backer of gay rights.


Many Silicon Valley executives including Mr. Zuckerberg and Google Inc. Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt have become more active in local and federal politics of late. Immigration has been a particularly popular issue among the digerati, with tech executives lobbying lawmakers to ease restrictions on visas to entrepreneurs and professionals. Many have endorsed the Startup Act 2.0 bill, which proposes creating a new visa for foreign-born entrepreneurs who manage to raise $100,000 and hire American workers.


Write to Evelyn M. Rusli at Evelyn.Rusli @wsj.com

A version of this article appeared March 27, 2013, on page B1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Zuckerberg Gets Political.


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B&N Snubs Publisher

Barnes & Noble Inc. has sharply reduced the number of Simon & Schuster titles it carries in its stores as well as the promotion it gives those books as a result of a financial dispute between the two companies, say people familiar with the matter.

Getty Images Barnes & Noble is pressing Simon & Schuster for more compensation.

The dispute, which one publishing executive likened to a blackout of TV channels by a cable operator, reflects tensions created by the shift to digital reading and the impact of online discounting, which are shaking up publishing.

The disagreement covers an array of issues. These include the question of which side will bear the financial burden of e-book discounting that has returned in the wake of a settlement between major publishers, including Simon & Schuster, and the Justice Department of an antitrust lawsuit, the people say. Under an earlier model, publishers set the consumer prices of their digital books, eliminating unwanted discounting.

Barnes & Noble is also pressing Simon & Schuster for more compensation, such as costs associated with in-store promotions. Publishers typically give retailers money to cover certain store marketing costs. The retailer is arguing that its stores serve as the primary way for consumers to discover new writers, say people familiar with the situation. The retailer worries that consumers use its stores as "showrooms" to find titles that they then order online at a discounted price, the people said.

"We do not comment on specific relationships with publishers. However, we do support those publishers who support our physical and digital businesses," Barnes & Noble said in a statement.

In an interview, Carolyn Reidy, chief executive of Simon & Schuster, described negotiations between the companies as tough but said she is confident the matter will eventually be resolved.

The dispute holds risks for both sides. Simon & Schuster is losing sales and promotions at the biggest book chain in the U.S. While the retailer is still carrying the publisher's biggest books in quantity, titles by lesser-known authors have been cut sharply, said the people familiar with the matter. Orders for some titles have been reduced by as much as 90%, according to one literary agent.

A recent walk-through at one of Barnes & Noble's stores in Manhattan found hard-cover editions of such current Simon & Schuster best sellers as Jodi Picoult's novel "The Storyteller" and Clive Davis's memoir "The Soundtrack of My Life." Elsewhere, however, the paperback edition of veteran author M.J. Rose's novel "The Book of Lost Fragrances," published in February, was out of stock and a search of the retailer's online site showed that the book was also unavailable at three other Manhattan locations.

For Barnes & Noble, the dispute could cause customers who can't find the books they want to instead shop online at Amazon.com Inc.

The dispute was reported by Publishers Weekly in late January, shortly after Barnes & Noble curtailed its Simon & Schuster orders. At that time, the two companies believed they would soon resolve their differences. Instead, the dispute has continued.

The disagreement comes as readers increasingly embrace e-books. At Simon & Schuster, for example, digital-book sales grew 24% in the fourth quarter, even as total publishing revenue fell 6%. Digital books represented 24% of total publishing revenue that quarter, up from 18% a year earlier.

Several writers published by Simon & Schuster expressed dismay that their books have been affected by the dispute but said they understood economic forces were involved and didn't blame their publisher or Barnes & Noble.

Jamie Mason, author of the thriller "Three Graves Full," published by Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books, said Barnes & Noble was "incredibly supportive" of her book during preproduction and that the chain was instrumental in changing the cover. "It was really cool," she said. But shortly before publication on Feb. 12, she learned that "Three Graves Full" would no longer receive the promotion at Barnes & Noble stores that had been expected. "It's frustrating," she said. "I'm a debut novelist. I don't have name recognition." She said Simon & Schuster has worked to boost sales elsewhere.

Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com

A version of this article appeared March 23, 2013, on page B1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Barnes & Noble Snubs Publisher.


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Balancing Act for Warner CEO

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CBS Buys Half of TV Guide

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CBS Nears Deal to Buy Half of TV Guide Network


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China Is Now No. 2 Box Office Behind U.S.

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'Croods' Grab the Box Office

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Investors to Buy Blockbuster U.K.


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New Flipboard: News and Posts Handpicked and Shared

Flipboard has allowed smart phone and tablet users to aggregate digital content for a while, but it now allows you to publish your own digital magazines without any design skills. Walt Mossberg takes a look at version 2.0. (Photo: Flipboard, Inc.)

One of the best ways of following topics that are interesting to you is Flipboard, a popular app for Apple and Android mobile devices that automatically turns social-network posts and news from online publications, into beautiful, magazine-like pages you "flip" through by swiping.

Now, a new second generation of Flipboard, out Tuesday, is extending the app so it allows users to create and share their own handsome digital magazines with a few clicks and without any design talent required. If you make your magazine public, anyone with Flipboard, which is a free app, can read it and comment on it.

Walt Mossberg/ The Wall Street Journal Walt Mossberg's Flipboard magazine on the American Revolution.

I've been testing this new version of Flipboard, which has some other improved features, over the past week or so, on several iPads and an iPhone. My verdict is the new features make a great mobile app even better. There are some limitations to the new capabilities, but they make your mobile device more personal and more of a creative tool, rather than just a means of consumption. For now, the new version is only available for Apple's devices, but an Android edition is in the works.

The original Flipboard, which is produced by a small, private Silicon Valley company of the same name, was aimed at helping people wade through the welter of information on social networks and the Web, by allowing them to corral posts on popular topics like, say, baking or basketball, into attractive collections. The company says that capability has earned it 50 million registered users and a smaller, but active, core group of millions who use it daily.

I have long used Flipboard to follow tech and political news, or to leaf through everything posted on Twitter or Facebook by particular people or sites. These collections would update as new posts meeting the criteria appeared. If I had a collection about, say, the economy or smartphones, based on tweets on those subjects, it would stay current, showing me automatically any Web pages referenced within those tweets.

[image] Flipboard Above, one person's Flipboard page with personal magazines and subscriptions.

With the new personal magazine feature, however, I can make my own Flipboard-hosted publications on particular topics of interest, handpicking the posts or articles I want to include, rather than relying on feeds or algorithms. And it's easy to do. When you find a post, video or article you want to include in your magazine, you just click a plus button next to it, choose which of your magazines to "flip it" into and it appears in that magazine. The magazine only updates when you decide to update it with a new article, photo or video. The original creators are credited.

During my testing, I made five magazines, some public and some private. Since these were just for testing, they weren't carefully created. But I was impressed by how quickly I could produce them and how nicely Flipboard laid them out, with handsome cover photos, bold headlines and a logical arrangement of photos and articles.

I made public magazines on the American Revolution, Ancient Wonders, the Boston Red Sox and my favorite current TV dramas. I also made a private magazine to store content I wanted to read later.

This process is greatly helped by a much-enhanced search feature in Flipboard, which finds items both in Flipboard itself and in a long list of social networks and sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, Instagram, Flickr, Tumblr and streams of content, called RSS feeds, produced by various sites.

You can add content to your magazines using a special bookmark for most browsers on PCs or Macs. When you see something on the Web you'd like in one of your magazines, click this bookmark and a small Flipboard window opens with thumbnails of your magazines, allowing you to add the item. Alas, this bookmark is very difficult to install on the browsers on the iPad and iPhone.

There's a new Notifications feature that tells you when people have liked or commented on your magazines. A "By Our Readers" feature suggests public magazines the Flipboard staff considers outstanding.

Publishers are making use of the new magazine feature in Flipboard. Esquire has created a magazine that's a collection of its interviews and Rolling Stone has published a Flipboard magazine collecting some of its articles on the Beatles.

If you find a magazine you like, you can subscribe to it, for easy and continued access, or share a link to it via Twitter, Facebook or email. If somebody who has Flipboard wants to view the magazine, it'll automatically open. Otherwise, the link will take a person to a Web page with instructions on how to get Flipboard.

Unfortunately, what you can't do is to edit your magazine much, or add original or local content to it. You can't rearrange articles, or create your own text articles, or add photos or videos that live only on your iPad or iPhone. You also can't rearrange articles. Because Flipboard is so oriented to pulling in content from online sources, to use one of your own photos or videos in your own magazine, you'd have to first post it to a site like Flickr. To use an article you write for your own magazine, you'd have to first post it online.

The only tweaking you can do directly is to change the cover picture, which is typically drawn from the most recent article you include that has a photo; remove an item; create and change the title and a short description of the magazine; and change its status between publicly visible or private.

You also can't charge for your magazines or sell ads in them, though any ads embedded in the content you include would travel with that content into your magazine.

Flipboard says it expects to add some of these features, like the ability to use photos and videos stored on your device, in updates.

Overall, Flipboard's new personal magazines are a very good addition to a very good app.

—Find all of Walt Mossberg's columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com. A version of this article appeared March 27, 2013, on page D1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: New Flipboard: News, Posts Handpicked And Shared.


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Oh, My! That Dirty Book Has Sold 70 Million Copies

Everybody knows sex sells. Now, in book-publishing circles, it's a bit clearer exactly how much.


E.L. James's "Fifty Shades" erotic trilogy sold more than 70 million copies in print, audio and e-book editions in English, German and Spanish from March through December, according to Bertelsmann SE & Co., parent of the books' publisher Random House. The first of the books was published in the ...

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Scholastic Posts Loss as 'Hunger Games' Ebbs

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When the Box Says 'Protein,' Shoppers Say 'I'll Take It'

When General Mills Inc. wanted to introduce two new bars to its stable of snacks, it chose the same word to make them sell: protein.


Protein is the buzzword that is helping sell many kinds of foods. Food companies are placing more prominent protein labels on packaging and adding protein to such products as drinks, bars and cereals.


"It's one of those rare things that has a lot of different meanings to a lot of different people and they are all positive," says Barry Calpino, vice president of breakthrough innovation for Kraft Foods Group Inc., sellers of products from Velveeta ...

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EU Regulators to Charge Banks

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Banks Looking at $100 Billion Legal Tab

Large global banks' legal tab is poised to soar beyond $100 billion as investors, insurers and municipalities pursue damages for actions tied to the mortgage meltdown, the financial crisis and the rate-rigging scandal.


This month, Citigroup Inc. agreed to pay $730 million to settle claims that it misled investors in four dozen bond and preferred-stock offerings. Deutsche Bank AG cut its 2012 profit target by 60%, citing higher U.S. mortgage-litigation reserves. Government-controlled mortgage investor Freddie Mac sued more than a dozen big banks, claiming they colluded to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, or Libor.


Concerns over banks' exposure to ...

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Euro's Bears Go Back on Prowl

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Jimmy Stewart's Lesson for the Euro Zone

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Prudential Is Fined Over AIA Bid

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Signals Weak for TV-Ad Market

Broadcast-television ratings have dropped sharply this season. And that, combined with the weak economy and competition from other media, augurs badly for the spring ad-sales market, ad buyers and analysts say.


Some of them are predicting that the broadcast networks' take will be steady to slightly lower in the so-called upfront, the annual bazaar in which TV executives pitch their new shows for the coming season.


More TV ad dollars are expected to move to cable channels, a shift that has accelerated in the past couple of years. But both broadcast and cable television are facing more intense competition from online media, including Web video outlets.


That rivalry is likely to be on full display in May, when some of the online giants and TV networks go head to head with glitzy events aimed at wooing advertisers. After the presentations, the TV networks step up their ad-sales negotiations, trying to win commitments for the bulk of the new TV season's ad time.


Magna Global, a research and ad-buying arm of Interpublic Group of Cos., estimates that the money raised in this year's TV upfront market could be up about 2%. Magna expects broadcast networks' dollar volume could fall 2% while cable TV's volume could rise about 5%.


"Despite corporate profits being at a high, marketers are still taking a cautious approach in anticipation of lackluster consumer spending and, therefore, their willingness to invest in advertising is taking a conservative approach," said Tim Spengler, chief executive officer of Magna Global.


Another major ad-buying company suggested that ad sales could be flat at broadcast networks and higher at cable networks. Meanwhile, Chris Geraci, president of national broadcast at Omnicom Media Group, a unit of advertising company Omnicom Group Inc., said his firm foresees "flat demand overall, with continued strength from the technology and automotive sectors, balanced by potential reductions from retail and pharmaceuticals."


These predictions suggest the upfront could be weaker than last year, when the ad-sales market was tepid, and volume was flat at most of the major broadcast networks. Networks don't publicly disclose details of their upfront sales.


"Early indications are that the 2013/14 TV upfront could follow last year's trend of slowing growth," Michael Senno, an analyst at Credit Suisse, said in a note to investors last week. He said that ad buyers currently expect steady or slightly higher total dollar-volume growth.


Network predictions are mixed: One network executive said that volumes could be higher, while another said it was too early to make predictions.


One sign of the broadcast networks' tempered expectations came from CBS Corp. Chief Executive Les Moonves, who in the past couple of years has predicted "double digit" increases in upfront pricing. During an investor conference earlier this month, Mr. Moonves declined to project a specific number. He did, however, say ad demand was increasing and CBS would "lead" in "volume and CPM increases." CPM is the cost of reaching a thousand viewers.


Mr. Moonves's reason for taking a low-key approach: Last year, the network's price increase failed to match his forecast. "Last year was only up 9% [in terms of upfront pricing], so I was a little bit of a liar," he said during the conference.


One factor weighing on advertisers' minds are the rating shortfalls that many networks have suffered this season. Ratings have weakened at the four big networks since the start of the fall season in late September.


Among viewers ages 18 to 49, the demographic most prized by advertisers, this season's average prime-time audiences through March 17 were down 23% at News Corp .'s Fox; 7% at Comcast Corp.'s NBC; 3% at CBS; and 8% at Walt Disney Co.'s ABC. (News Corp. also owns Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal.)


Fox has been particularly hard hit because few of its new fall shows drew big audiences, while aging hit "American Idol" has been losing steam.

NBC NBC's Savannah Guthrie and Matt Lauer. Network predictions are mixed.


CBS was the only broadcast network to show a rise in total viewership, with a 2% gain.


The audience figures don't include delayed digital-video-recorder viewing on days after a show's broadcast, which TV executives blame for most of the erosion.


The ratings declines have some marketers rethinking their ad-buying strategies, ad buyers said. Some are expected to shift money to cable channels, they said. While ratings have declined at some cable channels, ad prices on cable tend to be lower than on broadcast TV, according to ad buyers.


In some cases, the Web could take a share of those dollars. "Advertisers have seen a significant shortage of ratings, and some are willing to take some money and move it online," said John Muszynski, chief investment officer at ad company Publicis Groupe SA's Spark SMG.


Indeed, one major movie-studio marketing executive said the studio plans to keep overall TV spending flat this year, in part because of muted ratings. "Ratings are not up, and there really is nothing big and new to jump into," the marketing executive said.


To be sure, media buyers and networks typically spar over their upfront expectations as a negotiating tactic. But this year's anemic predictions may carry more weight, with full-year growth in TV spending expected to weaken, in part because the year lacks an Olympics or presidential election, two events that boosted ad spending last year. Some ad buyers foresee an uptick in 2014, however, in part because of the Winter Olympics and the soccer World Cup.


Publicis's ZenithOptimedia expects TV advertising to grow just 2.8% this year to $63.9 billion. Zenith expects outlays on network-TV ads to decline 2% and spending on cable to increase 7%.


Michael Nathanson, an analyst for Nomura Securities, is more pessimistic. In a recent note to investors he predicted that broadcast-network advertising would decline 2.5% while cable would rise 5%.

A version of this article appeared March 25, 2013, on page B1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Signals Weak for TV-Ad Market.


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Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Nike's Profit Leaps 55%

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