Rogers to add Yahoo! services for cell phone users
By Brian Santo
Rogers Communications and Yahoo! have agreed to a multi-year extension and expansion of their broadband collaboration.
With the contract extension, the partners plan to offer Yahoo!’s mobile products – Yahoo! Go for Mobile 2.0 and Yahoo! oneSearch – to subscribers to Rogers’ wireless phone service.
The two have been presenting Rogers’ high-speed Internet access subscribers with a custom, co-branded portal and browser, and offering Yahoo! Search, as well as services and content from both companies.
Yahoo! Go 2.0 combines e-mail, search, an address book, a calendar, local listings, maps, Flickr photos, weather, news, sports and financial information. Starting this month, users can download Yahoo! Go 2.0 on select smartphone devices, including the Blackberry 8100, 8300, 8310, 8700, and 8800; Motorola Q9; Palm (TREO 750); and HTC Touch. The companies expect to expand the availability of Yahoo! Go 2.0 to Rogers Wireless customers in 2008.
In addition, Yahoo!’s industry leading mobile search service, oneSearch, will become the exclusive mobile Internet search service on the Rogers Wireless mobile portal.
Gemstar-TV Guide posts Q3 revenue gain
By Mike Robuck
Gemstar-TV Guide International reported a 7 percent increase in its third quarter revenue after the stock market closed yesterday.
For the quarter that ended Sept. 30, the company posted revenues of $159.6 million. Operating income was $5 million, compared to operating income of $12.9 million last year. Gemstar-TV Guide said the company’s operating income was impacted by an increase in programming and associated marketing costs at TV Guide Network and a national cross-platform consumer marketing campaign.
The operating costs were partially offset by a 20 percent increase in revenues from the Guidance Technology and Solutions division. The Guidance Technology and Solutions segment posted revenues of $68.3 million, which represented 43 percent of the company’s total revenue.
The growth was primarily from Gemstar-TV Guide’s interactive program guide (IPG) patent licensing revenues, which increased by 30 percent to $40.7 million compared to the same time frame in 2006. The bulk of the IPG revenues came from deals with BSkyB and SkyItalia, as well as an increase in the company’s United States-based cable and satellite licensees’ digital subscribers.
“I am pleased with the continued expansion of our IPG patent licensing both internationally and to new media platforms,” said Gemstar TV Guide’s CEO Rich Battista, in a statement. “To that end, we recently announced new agreements with MediaFlo in the mobile arena, as well as with Sky Italia, Italy’s leading digital TV service, and with three German consumer electronics companies.”
Cincinnati Bell grows subs, revenue in Q3
By Traci Patterson
Cincinnati Bell (CB) increased its subscriber base in Q3, as well as its total revenue, net income and net debt.
Although local access lines continued to dwindle – down 5.8 percent to 848,700 at the end of the quarter – DSL subscribers increased 16 percent year-on-year, to total 217,600.
Wireless customers also increased – from 528,100 at the end of 2006 to 557,400 at the end of the quarter.
And Super Bundle subscribers were up 12,200 – to 185,400 – compared with the end of last year. CB’s Super Bundle includes wireless, wireline and data offerings, as well as DirecTV service.
Total revenues for the quarter were $344.3 million, an increase of $24.2 million, or 8 percent, year-on-year. The growth was driven by $13 million of service and $11 million of equipment revenue growth.
Net income totaled $25.7 million. Excluding special items, quarterly net income increased 5 percent compared with last year.
The technology solutions segment produced quarterly revenue of $74.1 million, up 29 percent compared with the year-ago quarter. Revenue from the wireless segment increased 16 percent, to $75.1 million, and wireline segment revenue totaled $202 million. Increased revenue from the technology solutions, wireless, wireline data and long distance segments offset the decline in wireline voice revenue.
“The momentum generated in Cincinnati Bell’s key growth areas of wireless, technology solutions and DSL led to the eighth-consecutive quarter of year-over-year revenue growth,” said Jack Cassidy, president and CEO of CB.
CB’s net debt increased by $12 million compared with Q2, to total nearly $2 billion at the end of the third quarter.
CB provides telecommunications products and services to residential and business customers in parts of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.
Broadband Briefs for 11/02/07
* Anagran appoints CEO
By Brian Santo
Anagran announced that Kim Niederman has been appointed president and chief executive officer, taking over those positions from founder Lawrence Roberts, who remains with the company as chairman. Prior to joining Anagran, Niederman was the senior vice president of worldwide sales at Polycom, and before that, founded and led Longboard Inc.
Roberts said, “Kim is a proven leader with a successful track record of delivering revenue, and he has demonstrated a strong commitment to serving the complex demands of telecommunication service provider and Enterprise customers. As CEO, he’ll be responsible for scaling our business, which will allow me to focus on continuing to advance the state of our flow-based technology and products.”
