Reposted from last year: Comcast inks Santa to exclusive rights deal
Tom Paine
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Comcast today announced it had reached a ten year agreement for the exclusive media rights to Santa Claus, through which it will use him and his image across all its multimedia platforms.
"Santa is a unique, universally beloved media personality", said Comcast Chairman & CEO Brian Roberts. "We believe he will be a great addition to the Comcast family. We will cover and cross-promote him across our various channels on broadcast and cable, as well as online, wireless and on-demand".
Comcast would not comment on the financial terms of the agreement, but industry sources said the deal was in the range of $2 billion over the ten-year period.
While some questioned whether the deal could be profitable for Comcast, one analyst compared Santa to the NFL package Comcast just spent a reported $9 billion to keep and enhance. "You just can't tell your kids they won't be able to watch Santa this year, at least I won't", he said , saying that the move will discourage cord-cutting among subscribers. Vice Chairman and CFO Michael Angelakis said that "this will absolutely be a profitable contract for Comcast".
Comcast says it will not restrict the use of Santa to its subscription-based cable channels, but rather he will appear on its over the air broadcast networks and stations, as well as in other venues. Although Santa will be busy with other duties over Christmas, he will make his first official appearance for Comcast at the Winter Claasic hockey game at Citizens Bank Park on January 2. He is already booked for an appearance on Leno, and there is some talk he may appear along side Howard Stern on "America's Got Talent". An appearance on the opening day of Xfinity Live! in Philadelphia is also a possibility. Comcast is also exploring other concepts and vehicles for Santa, including new TV shows and a possible "North Pole" theme park attraction at Universal Orlando. Comcast believes it can expand the Santa Claus franchise's appeal beyond the Christmas season and make him a year round attraction.
Santa attended the press conference Comcast held to announce the deal, making his first public appearance in Philadelphia since that infamous December day when Eagles fans pelted him with snowballs . He said he had no hard feelings about that, and that he and Mrs. Claus were pleased with the deal, saying it would help him keep up with the ever mounting expenses of his operation. Sanata has faced an increasingly difficult environment, due to rising energy costs, labor pressures from the elves who have organized with the SEIU and seek a minimum wage and collective bargaining rights, criticism from environmental groups concerned about Santa's impact on the North Pole, protests by PETA over Santa's alleged mistreatment of his reindeer, and complaints from politicians and trade groups over his preference for less expensive Chinese-made toys.
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Daily Links 12/24/2012: A look inside QVC; New features for Salesforce.com
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Inside QVC: The Semi-Scripted Reality of the $8 Billion Business Next Door (Hollywood Reporter)
Holiday gift idea: Neat Cloud, Neat Mobile for post-PC scanning (Gigaom)
Analysis: Amazon, Google on collision course in 2013 (Reuters)
Guest Blog: 2013 - A year for big changes in BI (QlikTech's Donald Farmer/Computer Business Review)
Upcoming Salesforce.com release focuses on Chatter, analytics, Touch
Spring '13 will be in preview soon (IT World)
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Philly Tech People News 12/23/2012: Vijay Vijayasankar joins SAP from IBM; NBCU Names Atish Banerjea CIO
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Leading the way for women in cable (phillyBurbs.com)
Comcast's LeAnn Talbot.
NBCU Names Atish Banerjea CIO
Former top Pearson, Dex One executive will oversee Information Technology organization (Broadcasting & Cable)
May The Bridges I Burn Light The Way – I am Joining SAP ! (Vijay's thoughts on all things big and small)
Vijay Vijayasankar joins SAP from IBM as Global Vice President - SAP Labs.
Robert Litzenberger Selected as the Recipient of the 2012 IAFE/SunGard Financial Engineer of the Year Award (Business Wire)
Philadelphia launches office of new urban mechanics (CivSource)
To be co-directed by Jeff Friedman and Story Bellows.
Poptent Hires Charles “Sandy” Dondici as Chief Technology Officer, Surpasses $7 million in Creator Cash Payments (Business Wire)
Veteran Software Analyst Yun Kim Joins Janney Capital Markets; Expansion of Technology Research Team Adds to Firm’s Research Offering
(Business Wire)
evoke interaction Bolsters HCP Marketing Practice With Appointments of Heather Coyle, Executive Vice President, and Brian Whalen, Ph.D., Vice President (Marketwire)
Leadnomics Hires Andrew Gansler as Chief Operating Officer (Leadnomics.com)
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Young entrepreneurs create their own jobs, to mixed results (Philadelphia Inquirer)
Overhaul of California government payroll system at risk of collapse
The controller finds that the firm hired for the project is in over its head and may be unable to reach its goal. The system upgrade is five years overdue and has nearly tripled in cost. (LA Times)
SAP is managing the project, after having taken over from BearingPoint in 2010.
Saturday Highlights 12/22/2012: Broader implications of Oracle's Eloqua buy; “Ariba Doesn’t Have Customers, It Has Prisoners”
SAP in 2013: Five Things to Watch (CIO.com)
“Ariba Doesn’t Have Customers, It Has Prisoners” (Spend Matters)
Oracle to buy Eloqua – the Broader Implications (Brian Sommer/Enterprise Irregulars)
Motorola & Arris: Product Gaps & Overlaps (Light Reading Cable)
IT spending up overall, but lags for pharma (NJBiz)
Daily Links 12/21/2012: Fast Company on Conshohocken's Artists & Instigators
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How Marc Ecko Is Rebranding Venture Capital With Artists & Instigators (Fast Company)
TV Everywhere, for Real, for Now: NimbleTV Starts a New York Trial Run (All Things D)
It's Time To Admit That Hulu Is A Failure (Business Insider)
Arris's Exposure To TiVo Lawsuit Capped at $50M (Light Reading Cable)
An industry insider’s thoughts on Arris’ pickup of Motorola (CED Magazine)
Allscripts Fires CEO as Company Says It Won’t Pursue Sale (Bloomberg)
11 predictions for enterprise software in 2013 (Computerworld)
Google’s retail search
Commentary: One of the era’s great brands destined to open stores (John Dvorak/MarketWatch)
The QVC Effect (Fox Business)
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Philly Fed Index shows strong December improvement
Tom Paine
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The Philly Fed general economic index rose sharply in December, surprising many forecasters. The Business Outlook Survey’s broadest measure of manufacturing conditions, the diffusion index of current activity, increased from a reading of ‑10.7 in November to 8.1 this month. A positive index number generally indicates expansion. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for an improvement to -3 from November's reading, which was negatively impacted by Sandy.
To some degree, the extent of the December pickup may reflect a snapback from the most difficult period of recovery from Sandy. The survey’s future indicators suggest improved optimism among reporting manufacturers for the next six months. In New York, however, the Empire State index continued to be in negative territory.
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Daily Links 12/20/2012: More on Motorola Home sale; Oracle acquires Eloqua
Arris Swings for the Fences
(Light Reading Cable)
Oracle buys another cloud software company, Eloqua, to market to marketers (San Jose Mercury News)
Oracle will spend $871 million for Northern Virginia-based Eloqua.
Salesforce May Go Shopping in Response to Oracle Deal (All Things D)
Marketo, Hubspot named as possible targets.
T-Mobile rolls out iPhone-friendly coverage across 14 cities including New York, Boston (The Verge)
Philadelphia among them.
NJ lawmakers give final OK to Internet betting (AP via KTVN)
Eurotech and ThingWorx Partner to Enable Rapid M2M Solution Delivery (ThingWorx Press Release)
Pa.-Based Journal Register to Be Auctioned in 2013 (AP via ABC News)
Penn expands its social media landscape (Penn Current)
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