Negotiating 101: Steve Jobs Style
qz.comTalk about “no compromise”.
“You’re blowing it with Fox News. The axis today is not liberal and conservative. The axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you’re not careful.”
—Steve Jobs to Rupert Murdoch over dinner in June 2010.
The art of the deal, by Steve Jobs
qz.comJames,
Our proposal does set the upper limit for ebook retail pricing based on the hardcover price of each book. The reason we are doing this is that, with our experience selling a lot of content online, we simply don’t think the ebook market can be successful with pricing higher than $12.99 or $14.99. Heck, Amazon is selling these books at $9.99, and who knows, maybe they are right and we will fail even at $12.99. But we’re willing to try at the prices we’ve proposed. We are not willing to try at higher prices because we are pretty sure we’ll all fail.
As I see it, HC has the following choices:
1. Throw in with Apple and see if we can all make a go of this to create a real mainstream ebooks market at $12.99 and $14.99.
2. Keep going with Amazon at $9.99. You will make a bit more money in the short term, but in the medium term Amazon will tell you they will be paying you 70% of $9.99. They have shareholders too.
3. Hold back your books from Amazon. Without a way for customers to buy your ebooks, they will steal them. This will be the start of piracy and once started there will be no stopping it. Trust me, I’ve seen this happen with my own eyes.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see any other alternatives. Do you?
Regards,
Steve
“According to Brooks, current Prime Minister David Cameron used to send her texts signed "LOL" until Brooks told the politician that the acronym did not stand for "lots of love." ”
—LOL.News Corp Falters As Cameron Does The Tango
Wednesday 6th July 2011, the day David Cameron was backed into a corner, the day that potentially marked the beginning of the end for The News of the World. In Prime Ministers Questions up stood the leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband, what followed was truly unique. The man, who many have criticised for lacking the attacking bite needed to succeed, successfully demanded that we have a fresh inquiry into the phone hacking saga.
What was the cause of this remarkable day? A daily set of fresh revelations, each as disgusting as the previous and the next, of phone hacking by the News of the World. Victims include the families of the 7/7 bombings, families of fallen armed forces personnel, Miss X a rape victim, celebrities and murdered school girl Milly Dowler. A previous inquiry and police investigation have since been found to be failures, of worryingly epic proportions.
It is alleged that Nick Clegg and David Cameron are at loggerheads on how many inquiries need to be held and just who is to chair them. It seems obvious that we need a purely neutral head, one with no bias at all, if that is possible. A member of the judiciary would seem the obvious choice but as per usual only time would tell.
Even before Ed Miliband stood up, corporate partners of the News of the World were distancing themselves, Lloyds Bank were amongst the first to declare that they would not be advertising in the paper from Sunday. Ed Miliband was only half way through his first attack when share prices in BSkyB and News Corp began to decline, showing the wider reaching consequences of what was unfolding today.
To make the day worst for News Corporation, Ed Miliband took the brave step of turning against Rupert Murdoch’s empire. The Labour leader called for the resignation of News International’s chief executive and former Editor, Rebekah Brooks, and demanding the BSkyB takeover decision is to be referred to the Competition Commission. Jeremy Hunt only gave the provisional all clear for the deal last Friday, subject to a seven-day consultation over plans to make Sky News as a separately listed company to ensure the fears over media plurality are dispelled.
Red Ed stated that “The public will react with disbelief if next week the decision is taken to go ahead with this deal at a time when News International is subject to a major criminal investigation.” Simon Hughes, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats suggested that Ofcom should be asked to assess whether News Corp were ‘fit and proper’ to take control in light of the circumstances, and if found not to be then the merger should not go ahead.
Cameron announced the inquiry or inquiries would be held, and rightly so that we should not rush into the inquiries in order to get them right. It is of my opinion that we need an inquiry into how this practice of hacking was started and just how it carried on for so long under our noses. A second should look specifically at how the previous inquiry and police investigation were so flawed and a third should look at how we can regulate the media tighter in the future.
I welcome your opinions on this, you can reply on here or to my Twitter @LegalHodge
“News America was led by Paul V. Carlucci, who, according to Forbes, used to show the sales staff the scene in “The Untouchables” in which Al Capone beats a man to death with a baseball bat. Mr. Emmel testified that Mr. Carlucci was clear about the guiding corporate philosophy. According to Mr. Emmel’s testimony, Mr. Carlucci said that if there were employees uncomfortable with the company’s philosophy — “bed-wetting liberals in particular was the description he used” Mr. Emmel testified — then he could arrange to have those employees “outplaced from the company.”
—For News Corporation, Troubles That Money Can’t Dispel - NYTimes.com
Nice bit from David Carr here.
“In a startlingly damning report after months of investigation into the hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers, a parliamentary panel here concluded on Tuesday that he was “not a fit person” to run a huge international company, amplifying a public outcry against him, but threatening further bruising divisions within the political establishment. The conclusion about the world’s most influential media tycoon went much further in lambasting Mr. Murdoch than had been expected from Parliament’s select committee on culture, media and sport, which has conducted several inquiries into press standards in recent years, the most recent starting last July as the hacking scandal burrowed ever deeper into Britain’s public life. But the impact of the report by the all-party committee was blunted by divisions within the panel itself. Presaging further disarray within Britain’s strained coalition government, the committee said it had split, 6 to 4, on party lines, with the dominant Conservatives opposing the censure of Mr. Murdoch while the Liberal Democrats, the junior partner in Prime Minister David Cameron’s government, joined the Labor opposition in supporting it. “On the basis of the facts and evidence before the committee,” the report said in one passage, “we conclude that, if at all relevant times Rupert Murdoch did not take steps to become fully informed about phone hacking, he turned a blind eye and exhibited willful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications.” “This culture, we consider, permeated from the top throughout the organization and speaks volumes about the lack of effective corporate governance at News Corporation and News International,” its British newspaper subsidiary. “We conclude, therefore, that Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company,” the report said. ”
—The New York Times, “British Panel Finds Murdoch Unfit to Lead Media Empire.”
In today’s stories you probably won’t see on Fox “News.”
“News Corp. is about to sell Myspace for $20 million-$30 million, Kara Swisher at All Things D reports. The groups vying for the remains of Myspace are Golden Gate Capital, a PE firm with $9 billion under management, and Specific Media, an ad network. News Corp.'s fiscal year ends this Thursday, so it's looking to wrap up the sale before the end of the fiscal year, so it can get Myspace off the books for 2012. This is quite the come down for Myspace. News Corp paid $580 million for Myspace in 2005. When it started selling Myspace this year, it was looking for $100 million.”
—Jay Yarrow, Myspace Is About To Be Sold For $30 Million
Wow. Sam Wick, SVP Strategy at MySpace, was called away last night after the LA Future Of Work talk he participated in. I bet it had something to do with this deal.
A drop from $580M, to way below the $100M being shopped. I wonder what the buyers think they can do with it?
Phone hacking crisis shows News Corp is no ordinary news company
guardian.co.ukby Jay Rosen: “Rupert Murdoch’s news organisations are not in the news business. What they crave is influence”
Shareholders add corporate espionage charges to News Corp. suit
(LA Times)
Contending that corruption is rampant throughout media giant News Corp., a group of shareholders have added allegations of corporate spying to a complaint against the company’s chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch and other board members.
Tuesday’s action amended a lawsuit filed in March in a Delaware court by the New York-based Amalgamated Bank, which manages several investment funds that have stock in News Corp.
The suit maintains that News Corp. board members have failed shareholders by allegedly shirking their responsibility to oversee the media company’s practices and business decisions.
News Corp. declined to comment on the litigation.
-Click Source- for full article
2011 Emmys lose viewers
There has been much discussion about the Emmys, since the awards ceremony took place at the weekend. One of the biggest talking points was the omission of the Alec Baldwin joke regarding the News Corp phone hacking scandal and Baldwin’s decision not to attend the event.
It has since been confirmed that this year’s Emmy Awards show lost a massive 1.1 million viewers in comparison to last year’s show. This makes it one of the lowest viewed telecasts on FOX in the past five years and while some were disappointed by the show, others were impressed.
Variety’s Andrew Wallenstein was not put off by the 8 percent fall in viewers. He explained, “It may come as small comfort to Fox on a night when its shows failed to earn a single win, but the network knows how to throw a hell of an Emmy Awards.” Let’s hope the figures pick up next year.
