VOOM PVR/DVR Release Soon... Echostar/Rainbow information coming soon as well (???)

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It's hardly worthless. Rainbow Media may be worthless on its own as a continuing investment, but VOOM absorbed into a company that can properly use it would have subustantial value.
 
HeavyC said:
It's hardly worthless. Rainbow Media may be worthless on its own as a continuing investment, but VOOM absorbed into a company that can properly use it would have subustantial value.
I agree with the spirit of your statement, but the problem is that for Cablevision, who is stuck with not only the assets, but also the debt, Rainbow Media decreases the value of their stock. Technically, that makes RM less than worthless for an equity owner. The issue is why would Charlie, or anyone for that matter, buy just programming from V*? Especially when he could have the whole thing, and have Cablevision thanking him for buying, for very little money (just assume some, but not all, of the debt).

For Voom/Cablevision, the key questions:
  1. How much of their content do they own, versus merely have broadcast rights to?
  2. How much is the satellite worth?
  3. How much pain is Cablevision willing to continue enduring?
The answers to 1 & 3 are probably "very little". The answer to #2 is about $200 - $500 million (haven't really price-shopped satellites recently, but I think that's the ballpark for what the sat cost). To D*, it would be worth less since they would have to move it (precious fuel that shortens its lifespan).
 
Rainbow Media is more than the 21 Exclusives. They own probably the entire library of movies on the Monster channels since they acquired a whole library of movies last year or the year before. They own IFC and IFC production and Films which has made big independent film movies. They own 50% of FSN and are big in some markets. They have their own uplink facility which makes money by uplinking not only their own channels but channels like Bravo, NBC and others. They own VOD and are the architect behind the engineering. They own rights to various VOD products from film to sports. They own Fuse, WE, IFC, AMC... I know I have forgotten a few more stuff that they own but they are not "worthless".


Here's the link to their operation and you can look at their business:

http://www.rainbow-media.com/rainbow/index.jsp
 
The programming networks (AMC, IFC and WE) are money-makes, which has been posted on the VOOM Forum many times in the past. "As of June 30, 2004, AMC, IFC and WE had approximately 75.3 million, 32.6 million and 48.8 million viewing subscribers, respectively." During the 2nd Quarter, the increase of paying subscribers was 500,000, 600,000 and 1,000,000 - not too shabby.

The main drag on Rainbow Media Enterprises, Inc. is Rainbow DBS (aka VOOM). VOOM lost a 97.6 million dollars during the first 6 months of 2004.
 
Rainbow Media has a cap of 150 mil it can spend on voom annually so it is costing V* about $1000.00 to acquire each sub. So even if they make there target of 200,000 subs in 2 months they will be broke. The less subs they have the less money they will burn. Voom has no future until its sold. Its a no brainer .....



"Friday's filing, pointed out Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Richard Greenfield in an intraday note, specifies that financing covenants for Rainbow will prevent the spun-off company from spending more than $150 million annually on Voom and more than $600 million in total, barring a new financing."


http://www.thestreet.com/tech/georgemannes/10175624.html
 
Sean Mota said:
Rainbow Media is more than the 21 Exclusives. They own probably the entire library of movies on the Monster channels since they acquired a whole library of movies last year or the year before.

They do not own the movies,they have the rights to show the movies,as do other movie channels,like for example "The Terminator" which I believe was on Voom will be on HDNet Movies in about two weeks,and I know there have been others that have been on Voom and on other channels,cable or other wise.When older movies become of certain age,studios will sell the rights to show to as many channels as they can to make as much as they can off them.

By the way,I ran the spell check on this post,I love how it wants to change Voom to Boom.
 
bruce said:
They do not own the movies,they have the rights to show the movies,as do other movie channels,like for example "The Terminator" which I believe was on Voom will be on HDNet Movies in about two weeks,and I know there have been others that have been on Voom and on other channels,cable or other wise.When older movies become of certain age,studios will sell the rights to show to as many channels as they can to make as much as they can off them.

By the way,I ran the spell check on this post,I love how it wants to change Voom to Boom.

I did not say every movie. But certainly a big percent of them. I cannot find the press release but it was about two years ago when they bought the horror films and created the big film festival horror. So they do own a lot of these movies.


Here's some flashes of the press release:

American Movie Classics for the first time has purchased a film library: 89 pictures made by American Intl. Pictures, including 34 films made by James Nicholson and Sam Arkoff, often called the father of independent film.... WANT TO READ THE WHOLE STORY?

Variety.com - AMC buys 1st film library
... the 1950s and '60s -- includes genres such as sci-fi, horror, rock 'n ... to American
Movie Classics and American Pop!, is owned by Rainbow Media, the programming ...
www.variety.com/article/VR1117489402?categoryid=13 - Supplemental Result - Similar pages
 
If the merger happens or E* buys Voom, all Voom receivers will have to be swapped out.
The reason for that is that Voom uses Motorola Digicipher2 proprietary technology and can't be upgraded to receive DVB-S used by E*. Digicipher2 has never been hacked and probably never will be as it will stay proprietary to keep it secure. This also means no VOOM DVR. I agree that E* hardware sucks but that is what is going to happen.
 
Excuse my ignorance, but is it possible to replace the Smart Card, install an add-on module, and update the firmware to support the different crypto technology? I don't know why any sane individual would do this, but is it possible?
 
Dvlos said:
I think Voom's going to buy Dish... yep.
Actually, Microsoft is buying VOOM. They will migrate the service to 100% WM9 to demonstrate that they have the best codec in the industry.
Bottom line: it's so easy to speculate... ;)
 
Personally Id MUCH MUCH rather have microsoft buy it than dish..... Microsoft would probably make the box xbox compatable and make the DVR work with windows... IMO a microsoft buyout would be much better than dish.
 
If I had a choice I'd rather see Martha Stewart take VOom... it'd be in every home, and we all get free months when she goes to jail.
 
riffjim4069 said:
Excuse my ignorance, but is it possible to replace the Smart Card, install an add-on module, and update the firmware to support the different crypto technology? I don't know why any sane individual would do this, but is it possible?


It is not only encryption. Digicipher2 is encryption and transmision together. You can send Digicipher2 in the clear (unscrambled) but even then it is totally incompatible with DVB-S standard.
 
CKNA said:
It is not only encryption. Digicipher2 is encryption and transmision together. You can send Digicipher2 in the clear (unscrambled) but even then it is totally incompatible with DVB-S standard.
I guess my question is would these upgrades (Smart Card, add-on module and firmware) be enough to enable the VOOM STB the ability to process anE* (DVB-S) signal?
 
So no news is good news? When a post entitled "VOOM PVR/DVR Release Soon" degrades to a Krispy Kreme post, theres no news to report. If this were a train, not only did it derail, it went over the hill and down to the bottom of the canyon.
 
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