Cries of the moguls
The same media moguls bestride the world at the end of 2004 as at the beginning, but their footing is less sure.
The likes of Michael Eisner at Walt Disney, and even Rupert Murdoch of News Corp, have faced questions over who will succeed them, their attitude to shareholders and expansion plans.
It's not that their businesses and other leading media players including Time Warner, Viacom, Comcast and British Sky Broadcasting, have been performing badly.
What is worrying are the clouds on the horizon: new technology, intense price competition and uncertain advertising or subscription revenues.
At News Corp, Murdoch is expected to use the first part of 2005 to resolve the shareholder issues with Liberty Media, the US media investment vehicle led by veteran financial engineer John Malone.
To Murdoch's dismay, Malone has built up an 18 per cent voting stake in the company second only to the first family itself with a view to folding Liberty assets into a new channels venture with News Corp, among other options.
News Corp has its own plan: $5.7bn in cash on hand with which to buy out Malone. As one insider puts it: “Think three-dimensional chess played by equally matched players of comparable power and intelligence bound by mutual respect.”
Sounds like a great concept for a six-part series with video game spin-off, anyhow.
Eisner endgameOver on the west coast the talk is of succession planning at Disney. After 20 years in the turret, Eisner is to retire in September 2006. For some it is not before time: this year Disney faced an abortive $58bn bid from Comcast, the country's largest cable operator; a shareholder revolt that persuaded the board to split Eisner's roles of chairman and chief executive; and the distraction of a investor lawsuit over the 1996 pay-off to Michael Ovitz, its former president.
Chief operating officer Bob Iger is waiting in the wings. But there could be a few more plot twists to come.
Pirates the sequelThe problem with having all these moguls is where to find the next one. Succession is also an issue at Viacom, where Sumner Redstone ousted Mel Karmazin as president this year, installing the double-act of Les Moonves and Tom Freston, the father of MTV, as co-chief operating officers.
Time Warner appears to be grooming low-key but well-respected Jeff Bewkes, its entertainment chief, for the top job although Dick Parsons is not about to stand down any time soon.
Things could be a lot harder for this new generation: they must impose their business style on an industry facing huge technological challenges.
For the movie-makers, broadband compression and digital piracy has become a major headache. The studios fear that high-speed internet access will allow pirates to run riot downloading films, in the same way as it hit the music industry. Determined to avoid that fate, they have called in the lawyers and are working on improving encryption of new high-definition DVDs.
So just as Observer gets used to one acronym (it means Digital Versatile Disc, by the way) comes the HD DVD. Film and television types are preparing to shift to HD, hoping that consumers will pay more for superior quality DVDs and higher subscription rates to new HD channels.
Typically, however, things have been muddled by two competing industry standards from Toshiba and Sony-led groups. It could be VHS versus Betamax all over again. Looney iTunesHD DVDs could help the studios to avoid some of the problems in the music industry, where piracy losses are estimated at $2.4bn a year. The music majors hope 2005 will mark the nadir, after four years of declining sales down from a peak of almost $40bn a year in 2000 to $32bn today.
EMI of Britain believes that legitimate digital services led by Apple's iTunes and Napster's subscription service could mean that 25 per cent of industry sales will come from new technology ere long. Warner Music, sold by Time Warner to a financial consortium led by Edgar Bronfman for $2.6bn, is less optimistic. Even so, improving industry sales could persuade the company to float in 2005.
In common with other companies, Warner is looking to new technology for new revenue whether from downloads or third generation mobile phones. Ringtones alone are expected to generate annual sales of $3.5bn. No one is quite sure, however, who exactly will benefit from the 3G revolution: content providers, network operators or handset makers. And others have an eye on the exploding market, namely old-fashioned telecommunications companies, not least in Britain where BT is expected to unveil a big entertainment drive.
Ad-ding upSuch competition will be easier to deal with if the media's old friends in the advertising business help out. According to analysts at UBS in New York, Zenith Optimedia and McCann, big media buyers, have raised their 2005 global advertising forecasts to 5 per cent and 6.1 per cent respectively.
An advertising recovery will reassure TV networks but signs are less promising for national newspapers. Indeed, many purveyors of dead wood are seeing robust demand on the internet.
Time Warner forecast recently that ad revenues at America Online could reach $1bn in 2005.
Companies unable to withstand the competitive challenge may be swallowed up. That is likely to see 2005 end with companies including bankrupt cable group Adelphia Communications and pedigree film studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer in different hands.
Still, that will resolve only the short-term futures of such businesses. We'll have to wait a bit longer to see whether they have one long-term.
全球传媒大亨点评
时值2004年末，掌控世界的仍是年初的同一批传媒大亨，但他们的地位却不那么稳固了。
像沃尔特迪斯尼（Walt Disney）公司的迈克尔?艾斯纳（Michael Eisner）、乃至新闻集团（News Corp）的鲁珀特?默多克（Rupert Murdoch）一类巨头，如今面临着下述问题：谁将继任他们的职位、他们对股东的态度、以及扩充计划。
表现不佳的，并非其自身业务以及其他的传媒巨头，包括时代华纳（Time Warner）、维亚康姆（Viacom）、Comcast和英国天空广播公司（British Sky Broadcasting）等。
令人忧虑的是地平线上浮现的几朵阴云，即新技术、激烈的价格竞争、不可预测的广告，或用户费收入问题。
新闻集团的默多克预计将利用2005年初的时间，与自由传媒公司（Liberty Media）解决股东问题。自由传媒是资深金融工程师约翰?马隆（John Malone）主持的一家美国传媒投资媒介。
使默多克惊慌的是，马隆持有新闻集团有表决权的股份已增至18%，仅次于该公司的第一家庭。马隆有意将自由传媒的资产融入一个与新闻集团合资的新的多频道电视公司，同时他还有其他选择。
新闻集团自己的计划是，支付手头的57亿美元现金，收购马隆的股份。正如一位业内人士所说：“想一想吧，两个势均力敌的对手下一盘三维象棋，双方的实力和才智接近，又因为相互尊重而束缚了手脚。”
总之，这听起来像是一部很棒的六集连续剧的大纲，连带视频游戏作为派生产品。
艾斯纳的终结，游戏结束（Eisner endgameOver）
西海岸讨论的是迪斯尼公司继任人选问题。在塔楼里呆了20年之后，艾斯纳将于2006年9月退休。在有些人看来，这可不算太早。因为今年美国最大的有线电视运营商Comcast曾提出以580亿美元收购迪斯尼，尽管未获成功；股东曾发起抗议，迫使董事会将艾斯纳身兼的董事会主席和首席执行官的双重角色分开；迪斯尼今年还为一场涉及前总裁迈克尔?奥维茨（Michael Ovitz）1996年离职金问题的投资者诉讼所困扰。
首席运营官鲍勃?伊热（Bob Iger）正等待上场，不过变数仍可能出现。
剽窃续集（Pirates the sequel）
所有这些传媒大亨的问题是在哪里能找到他们的继任者。维亚康姆公司也面临着继任问题。在该公司，今年萨姆纳?雷德斯通（Sumner Redstone）取代梅尔?卡尔马津（Mel Karmazin）任公司总裁，而莱斯?穆恩维斯（Les Moonves）和音乐电视网(MTV)之父汤姆?弗雷斯顿（Tom Freston）则担任共同首席运营官，一同履行职务。
时代华纳似在扶植其娱乐部首脑，即低调而口碑不错的杰夫?比克斯（Jeff Bewkes）任公司最高职务， 尽管狄克?帕森斯（Dick Parsons）一时还不会退位。
对于新一代首领，时势可能会艰难得多，因为他们必须在一个面临巨大技术挑战的行业中展现其企业风格。
就电影制片商而论，宽带压缩技术加数字盗版已成为一个主要麻烦。制片厂担心，高速因特网的接入会使盗版者经营大规模电影下载业务，如同盗版侵袭音乐制作行业一样。电影制片商决意避免那种命运，他们一方面已聘请律师，另一方面正设法提高新一代高清晰度DVD的加密。
因此，一如观察家习惯的首字母缩写词（顺便解释一下，DVD意为Digital Versatile Disc，即数字通用碟片），现在HD-DVD（high-definition DVD，即高清晰度DVD）应运而生了。目前电影与电视类节目正准备转向HD，希望消费者愿意付出更高价格购买高质量的DVD，并付出更高订费收视新的HD频道。
然而，由于存在两种分别来自东芝和索尼麾下集团的互相竞争的行业标准，情况往往很混乱。很可能VHS（即家用录像系统） 对Betamax（即Beta制大尺寸磁带录像系统）的竞争又会重演。Looney iTunes的HD-DVD可以帮助制片厂避免音乐制作行业遇到的一些问题。在音乐制作业，盗版造成的损失估计每年为24亿美元。几大音乐公司预期，从2000年近400亿美元的销售顶峰，连续4年下滑到今天的320亿美元之后，2005年将标志着最低点。
英国百代唱片公司（EMI）相信，苹果公司（Apple）iTunes的合法数字服务和Napster的用户定购服务可能意味着，不久以后行业总销售额的25%将来自新技术。华纳音乐公司（Warner Music）却不那么乐观。该公司已被时代华纳以26亿美元出售给埃德加?布朗夫曼（Edgar Bronfman）领导的一家金融财团。尽管如此，日趋提高的行业总销售额仍有可能促使华纳音乐在2005年上市。
与其它公司一样，华纳也在期盼新技术创造新收入，不论新收入来自下载还是第三代手机。仅手机铃声一项就有望产生35亿美元的年销售额。但是，任何人都不十分肯定：从第三代移动通信革命中获益的究竟会是内容提供商、网络运营商还是手机制造商。其它公司也在关注这个猛增的市场，即那些老式电信公司。特别是在英国，英国电信公司（BT）不日可望推出一个娱乐项目大举措。
广告跟上（Ad-ding up）
如果传媒业在广告业的老友们助一臂之力，这类竞争将会更容易应付一些。纽约瑞士银行（UBS）的分析师称，实力传播（Zenith Optimedia ）和 McCann两大传媒买家已将其2005年全球广告预测值分别提高到5%和6.1%。
一场广告复兴将使电视网络恢复信心，但是对于全国发行的各家报纸而言，前景却比较黯淡。事实上，许多滞销报纸的发行商正看好因特网上的强大需求。
时代华纳最近预计，2005年美国在线（America Online）的广告收入有可能达到10亿美元。
经受不住竞争挑战的公司或许会被吞掉。人们可能看到，在2005年结束时，包括破产的有线电视集团Adelphia Communications以及家族电影制片厂米高梅（Metro Goldwyn Mayer）在内的一些公司已经易手。
不过，这只能解决这类公司的短期前途问题，至于它们能否有一个长期前途，尚需拭目以待。
