Acquisitions

TV Guide magazine is decreasingly profitable on the market in recent period. It is 54-years old magazine which is loosing readers and also money, because it is not able to adjust to new requirements, especially technological. Nowadays, people have usually no problem with access to Internet and so they find all the information about TV program there, when they need it and practically for free. Therefore TV Guide magazine started to concentrate more on writing about the people and characters from movies, serials and shows. That was surely a good step, but still not enough to ensure a position on a market which would be sufficient. Macrovision, which is a company providing copy protection, digital rights management, electronic licensing and software asset management technologies, is interested in buying TV Guide. Macrovision is planning a project of combining those companies and therefore its customers will be able to find out information about TV shows, have their space for photos, music library, and generally access to entertainment through different electronic devices. The price which offered is $2.8 billion. But it is still not clear what will happened if Macrovision buys TV Guide, nor weather it will actually be sold.

by Petra Calovkova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

Beliefnet Web site dealing with faith communities is being sold to Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. media conglomerate. News Corp. phrased on Tuesday, December 4th, that it would buy faith-based Web site Beliefnet. The amount of money for the Beliefnet is not known, is still undisclosed. Beliefnet has been founded in 1999 in New York. This Web site offers various editorial content, such as blogs, news, religious reference, or even a message boards and non editorial things, such as photo gallery or various social-networking items. Beliefnet Web site is not dedicated to any specific religion, it's content is addressed to religion in general, also politics or social and family life as well as any other trend of modern life. Beliefnet Web site is visited by more than 3.1 million visitors per month and about 7.6 million of subscribers. Beliefnet is planned to become a part of Fox Digital Media. Don Fawcett, a Fox Digital Media President, said: "Beliefnet has garnered respect for its commitment to quality, editorial strength and unbiased approach to faith and spirituality from a broad range of consumers, religious and political leaders, journalists and advertisers." Mr. Don Fawcett also phrased what is Fox Digital Media up to: "leverage these characteristics across a broader media canvas and provide programming, production, advertising sales, technology and marketing expertise." News Corp. also runs the popular MySpace Web site, which is ruled through Fox Interactive Media and owns several different resources focused on religion as well. These are for instance National Geographic Channel with it's programs on religious history, Fox Faith, a faith-based filmmaker, and many others.

by Daniela Simkova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

The world's leading video game publishers are about to unite in a single company. According to the computer magazine Game Developer's chart of 20 video game publishers published every year, which is an evaluation of several factors, such as revenue, number of titles, reputation and other factors, Activision ranks the third in this chart, whereas the company that intends to buy the 52 per cent share of it & Vivendi Games & ranks 13th. (http://www.gdmag.com/archive/oct07.htm). Why would a third want to join in with the thirteenth, is the question here? Possibly to beat the competitors & the largest and most powerful game publisher these days Electronic Arts (which, by the way ranked second in the aforementioned chart of the Game Developer). The representatives said the joined company would have revenue of $ 3.8 billion this year, while Electronic Arts will have a revenue of "only" $ 3.1 billion this year. (http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/02/technology/acti03.php