Online music company Pressplay signed licensing agreements with 6 independent labels. Pressplay said deals expanded its online music library that already included tracks from major record labels EMI Recorded Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group. Latter 2 companies jointly own Pressplay. New, nonexclusive deals included one with Navarre. Via new agreements, Pressplay’s library will be getting songs by artists including Marshall Crenshaw, Herman’s Hermits, Billie Holiday, Alison Krauss, Mannheim Steamroller, Charlie Parker, Graham Parker, Jonathan Richman, Kenny Rogers, George Thorogood, 2 Live Crew, Buckwheat Zydeco. Pressplay service is scheduled to start this fall, but date hasn’t been announced. Competing MusicNet service jointly owned by BMG, EMI, RealNetworks and Warner also is also to start soon, although that date also hasn’t been announced.
LodgeNet Entertainment said revenue increased to $57.7 million in 3rd quarter ended Sept. 30 from $52.9 million same quarter year ago. But Sioux Falls, S.D., interactive service provider to lodging industry said its loss deepened to $4.7 million (-38? per share) from $4.1 million (-34?) year earlier. LodgeNet CEO-Pres. Scott Petersen said: “Despite the tragic events of Sept. 11 and the subsequent impact on the overall travel industry, we posted our 32nd consecutive record quarter for revenue and cash flow as we continued to solidly execute on our long-term strategic growth plan.” He said that while terrorist attacks were causing company “to moderate our capital expenditure plans to some degree, we remain on track to serve approximately 810,000 guest rooms with interactive television services and have our new digital platform in more than 100,000 rooms by the end of 2001.” Company’s services include Nintendo videogames on demand.
Bruce Stein, ex-Sony Interactive Entertainment, elected to MindArrow Systems board.
Kimball International said first quarter net income plunged to $4.8 million from $10.8 million year ago as sales slid to $285.7 million from $320.8 million. Lower profit came as sales of Kimball’s furniture and cabinets business, including rear- projection TVs, and electronic contract assemblies dropped. Furniture revenue fell to $193.5 million from $223.7 million as sales shifted to lower margin products, company said. Operating profit improved at Kimball’s projection-TV cabinet plant in Juarez despite downturn in sales. Kimball purchased Juarez factory from Zenith in late 1990s as CE company disposed of manufacturing businesses. Electronic contract assemblies segment sales declined to $92.2 million from $97.1 million in year.
Microsoft declined to say how many Xbox consoles would actually ship on first day of videogame system’s European rollout in spring. Company said Xbox would ship March 14 at 479 euros (1 euro = 90 cents) in 16 major European markets. Details were announced by company at X01 show in Cannes, France, Wed. after our deadline. Microsoft did say, however, that through end of June, it planned to ship 1.5 million Xbox hardware units in Europe. Shipments there will include weekly replenishment from Xbox manufacturing facility in Hungary, it said. Majority of Xbox games would be priced at 69 euros but company didn’t say how many titles would ship at European rollout. Microsoft spotlighted 40 playable games at X01 while other games were announced for first time or shown on video. New games announced included Xbox exclusive BC from Lionhead Studios division Intrepid Games. Lionhead also demonstrated role-playing game Project Ego for first time. Both games are being published by Microsoft Games. Microsoft also announced more new first party titles, including Brute Force and Rallisport Challenge. Games were announced and/or demonstrated by Activision, Eidos, Electronic Arts, Infogrames, Sega, Tecmo, THQ, Ubi Soft. X01 was held at Maison Bulles mansion designed almost 30 years ago by Pierre Cardin. Xbox is scheduled to ship in N. America Nov. 15 and in Japan Feb. 22. As in Europe, it remained unclear at our deadline how many consoles would ship in N. America on Day One. Nintendo said its GameCube, to be available in N. America Nov. 18, would ship in Europe early next year but has yet to provide ship date.
TV ad campaign backing Bam! Entertainment’s Sports Illustrated For Kids Baseball and Football Game Boy Advance titles will run through Nov. on Cartoon Network and WB Network. E-rated (Everyone) games, developed by Sennari Interactive, ship this month at $39.99 each. Bam! said print ads would run in Nov.-Dec. issues of Sports Illustrated For Kids Magazine, along with Web campaign at www.SIkids.com.
TiVo signed new 7-year worldwide licensing agreement with Sony that’s forecast to generate $10-$15 million in incremental revenue for TiVo in next 12 months, CEO Michael Ramsay said.
Game maker Activision is confident 2001 will be strongest year in industry to date for rollout of new hardware platforms. But it still offered conservative take this week on how many GameCube and Xbox consoles would sell through to U.S. consumers this holiday season.
Electronics Boutique online subsidiary EBWorld.com signed definitive agreement with Microsoft to provide PC games on broadband games-on-demand Web site EB1, www.eb1.com. As part of deal, visitors to site will be able to rent full retail versions of recently shipped games published by Microsoft. Other game makers who have signed similar deals with EBWorld.com include Eidos Interactive, Infogrames, Take-Two Interactive.
New report predicts 41% of U.S. online households will connect via broadband by 2006. Jupiter Media Metrix analysts forecast that number of households accessing Internet via broadband connectivity -- cable modem, DSL, satellite or fixed wireless -- would increase to 35.1 million in 2006 from 5.2 million in 2000, with cable modems being primary driver. “Despite the recent failures of several broadband pioneers, and slower growth of the overall online population, broadband will find the masses in the U.S. shortly,” Jupiter analyst Joseph Laszlo said.