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AT&T says it will receive an $43 billion in a combination of cash and debt ===================================================================== AT&T said Monday the U.S. telecommunication giant has reached a deal to combine its content unit, WarnerMedia, with Discovery, an agreement that would help the major Hollywood studios compete with such rivals as Netflix and Disney. AT&T says it will receive an $43 billion in a combination of cash, debt and WarnerMedia’s retention of certain debt, according to CNBC. The deal, if approved by regulators, effectively reverses AT&T’s years-long plan to combine content and distribution in a vertically integrated company. The deal would create...

Mark Zaid, an attorney for the anti-Trump whistleblower, threatened to use his clients’ intelligence capabilities to dox a random Twitter user who irritated him. The user, who went by “Rex,” has now been suspended from Twitter. Zaid tweeted: Hey ‘Rex’, why don’t you revel your identity instead of attacking someone while hiding? I’d love to have my intelligence and law enforcement clients see what they can find about your life. We can compare notes on our research efforts. What do you say? Game? The truly disturbing aspect here is Zaid threatening to use government power and U.S. taxpayer dollars to...

Hollywood executives Garth Ancier, David Neuman and Gary Goddard have been accused of sexually abusing teenage boys in lawsuits filed Monday in Hawaii federal court. “I would not wish on my worst enemies what I went through,” declared plaintiff Michael Egan at a Monday news conference at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. Ancier is the former president of BBC Worldwide America and also served as head of programming for Fox, NBC and the WB. He’s also the head of year-old Quad Media Partners, formed to launch four fully curated linear TV networks, “each built around a modern decade in...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLJ1m7artbE It's hard to imagine Hollywood making an animated short with this message nowadays but back in 1954, WB produced this Looney Tune teaching a short primer on capitalism and in favor of it! After seeing all those DNC delegates tell Peter Schiff how they want to "ban profit" makes me realize how many folks need to watch this cartoon.

The General Lee – Bo and Luke Duke’s vehicle of choice from ‘The Dukes of Hazzard‘ – is a classic and instantly recognizable Hollywood car. But it’s about to get a little less recognizable as Warner Bros., the studio that owns the theatrical, DVD and licensing rights to ‘The Dukes of Hazzard,’ has decided to remove the confederate flag from all future versions of the car. The news has reportedly been floating around the hobby community over the past few days as ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ collectors became aware of a new regulation. A collector on HobbyTalk.com was told by a...

"Casting him as a director or perhaps as the star of 'Judah Maccabee' is like casting Madoff to be the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission," says Rabbi Marvin Heir. Prominent Jewish leaders are beginning to speak out against Mel Gibson and Warner Bros. over their planned movie based on the life of religious icon Judah Maccabee. SNIP

It has been said that director Howard Hawks made Rio Bravo (1959) as a reaction to two popular westerns which angered him - High Noon (1952) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957). His comment on the former was, "I didn't think a good sheriff was going to go running around town like a chicken with his head off asking for help, and finally his Quaker wife had to save him." Hawks also considered 3:10 to Yuma, which had outlaw Glenn Ford playing psychological games with lawman Van Heflin, "a lot of nonsense." So Rio Bravo was the director's take on heroism...

Warner Bros. today will launch a service giving the public the opportunity to custom-order DVDs of films never before released via the medium. The move is seen as a response to dwindling DVD sales and also to customer demand for titles that while not totally obscure, didn't necessarily generate enough heat to merit a full-on DVD release. The Warner Archive Collection, available at WarnerArchive.com, includes films dating back to the silent age and for $19.95 per disc Warners will burn, package and ship for receipt within an estimated five days. Currently there are 150 titles available with for a total...

Managers at the World Bank provided false information to the agency's board of directors about a $39 million, politically-connected European "coastal cleanup" project that led to the destruction and destitution of a powerless village in Albania in 2007 — and then spent nearly two years trying to cover it up, FOX News has learned. Bank insiders also misled and stonewalled a panel of independent investigators commissioned by the board to investigate the scandal, according to the investigators themselves. World Bank sources tell FOX News that the panel's report, submitted to the 24-member board in late November, is one of the...

In front of a ballroom full of N.C. bankers in January 2006, Wachovia chief executive Ken Thompson warned of the dangers of “toxic” home loans. A problem with so-called option adjustable-rate mortgages, he told the group, was that homeowners can end up owing more at the end of the month than the beginning, which can be a “tough situation” for customers and lenders. “I have literally been amazed at the terms offered by some mortgage lenders, thankfully not at Wachovia and thankfully not so much in North Carolina,” he said. Four months later in May 2006, Thompson took a $24...

Beyond the scores of angry fans that are protesting Warner Brothers' decision to delay the release of the sixth Harry Potter movie, is the untold story of retailers scrambling to deal with the merchandising fallout from the announcement. The most notable fallout is occurring in regards to the release of ...

Warner Brothers continue to face increasing backlash from tens-of-thousands of Harry Potter fans as news spreads of the delayed release of the 6th Harry Potter Movie - The Half-Blood Prince. Warner Brothers is preparing for an onslaught of red envelopes that will begin arriving later this week in addition to the massive email campaign and more than 35,000 signatures to a WB petition launched 3 days ago. From Accio Dumbledore's Army: Despite Internet rumors attributing the delayed release to the Writer's Guild Strike this past spring, further statements have made it clear that the movie is completed and that the...

With news broadcasts dominated by election coverage, the Edwards scandal and Russian Invasion of Georgia, the news has been slow to spread that Warner Brothers announced yesterday that they were postponing the November Release of Harry Potter: Half-Blood Prince until July of 2009. If you hadn't previously heard the news then I apologize for being the one to break it to you. In the immediate wake following Warner Brothers announcement, Internet rumors spread attributing the delayed release to the Writer's Guild Strike this past spring. However, upon further clarification by Warner Brothers it now seems that the movie is ...

Ok folks, its time for a long sit-down type of Ticker - the sort that I usually don't write. Let's start with Fannie and Freddie. As anyone who has been reading The Ticker knows, I have been saying for quite some time that Fannie and Freddie are in fact "short to zero" candidates for the common stock. This is simply due to the mathematics of their financial situation - they are levered up anywhere from 60 to more than 200:1, depending on what you include and exclude from "capital" and "credit book." I use the worst-case set of numbers, because...

The WB brand, born as a broadcast network in 1995 and closed in 2006, will return as an online video Web site, combining short original series with classic shows, the Warner Brothers Television Group announced Monday. TheWB.com, and a complementary site for children called KidsWB.com, are part of a “digital destination” strategy by Warner Brothers, a subsidiary of Time Warner, to tailor Web sites to specific audiences. In trying to compete for consumers’ time, Warner and other media companies have sought new outlets for content, sometimes bypassing the traditional network structure and creating broadband Internet channels. “My 20-year-old daughter and...

World Bank Scholar Paul Wolfowitz's judges may have ethical issues of their own. BY BRET STEPHENS Thursday, May 17, 2007 12:01 a.m. In the winter of 2006 an email was sent to the investigations hotline of the World Bank's Department of Institutional Integrity, or INT. Its subject was the "Hypocrisy of ED Tom Scholar." "Please know," read the text of the email written by a bank employee, "that UK ED Tom Scholar is continuing an affair with [a bank employee]. This woman has been given preferential treatment in [the department] because of her relationship with this powerful ED, this affair...

WASHINGTON -- The kerfuffle over whether Paul Wolfowitz, the World Bank's president, behaved badly regarding the contract for his companion to facilitate her departure from the bank involves no large issue. The bank's existence does. The bank's rationale, never strong, has evaporated. Born in 1944, at the apogee of confidence in governments and international governmental organizations, the bank's mission is "to fight poverty with passion and professionalism." The great prerequisite for curing poverty is, however, economic growth, and the world has learned that the prerequisite for growth is free markets allocating private capital to efficient uses. Much of what recipient...

WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has launched a behind-the-scenes campaign in defense of World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz against calls he relinquish his job. While President Bush and other senior administration officials have publicly praised Mr. Wolfowitz, Ms. Rice has begun a quiet but concerted effort to reverse low European support for his leadership. Over the last week, Ms. Rice "spoke with several European foreign ministers about her positive impression of Paul Wolfowitz and the job he is doing at the World Bank," said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack. Other U.S. officials said the involvement of the U.S.'s...

Axis of Soros May 9, 2007; Page A16 Mark Malloch Brown spoke Monday to a crowded auditorium at the World Bank's headquarters, warning that the bank's mission was "hugely at risk" as long as Paul Wolfowitz remained its president. Only hours earlier, news leaked that a special committee investigating Mr. Wolfowitz had accused him of violating conflict-of-interest rules. A coincidence? We doubt it. Mr. Malloch Brown, remember, was until last year Kofi Annan's deputy at the United Nations. In that position, he distinguished himself by spinning away the $100 billion Oil for Food scandal as little more than a blip...