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POPSNBC's Zucker: The Industry's Punching Bag Though Zucker's resume includes far more successes (cable, news, today show) than it does failures (prime-time), he is most associated with NBC' prime-time problems and will remain a press pinata until the network climbs out of the ratings basement -- or Comcast brass replace him, whichever comes first.
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POPSWhat Oprah Did Right A study in what Oprah has done (and continues to do) right, reports the NY Times. Will signing off after 25 years to focus her efforts on OWN be added to the list? If history is any indication, the answer is yes.
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POPSBBC-Ya Garth Ancier’s list of impressive positions he formerly held just got longer. Before joining BBC America as President 3 yrs ago, he held chief roles at Fox, NBC and the since-shuttered WB. During his tenure at BBC, he’s credited with doubling the networks ratings, raising the company's profile and increasing profits nearly 80%. No reason for his replacement has been provided.
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POPSOdds of conception
I saw this posted on Slate, and just want to make a comment about the math. The "extraordinary odds" of a 43-year-old conceiving naturally are only 1-3 (or maybe 5)% in a given month, says the article. Question: what are the odds in two months? This is just a basic probability question. What are the odds of not getting pregnant two months in a row? Say there's a 5 percent chance of getting pregnant, there's a 95% chance of not getting pregnant. The odds of not getting pregnant for two months are thus (.95*.95=.9025). So there's a .05 chance in one month but a .0975 chance of pregnancy in two months. For three months it's (.95*.95*.95=.857). For a three month affair, that'd be a 14.43% chance of pregnancy. Still unlikely but not really extraordinary. Say an affair lasts for 16 months, from February 2006 to May 2007 perhaps. At 3 percent per month, the math works to a 41% chance of getting pregnant. At 5% it's a 59% chance of pregnancy. "Extraordinary odds"? The math says not
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POPS9 Questions for Ben Bernanke This is very sharp. A lot of commentary on the Fed quickly devolves into conspiracy theory and pumping gold portfolios, and so it's refreshing to see some substantive ideas.
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POPSIn Denial About Financial Reform Also see Dan Indiviglio over at The Atlantic: http://business.theatlantic.com/2009/09/why_is_washington_ignoring_the_real_causes_of_the_crisis.php The danger of putting a lawyer in charge of something like this is, in my opinion, best exemplified by Neil Barofsky, the attorney they put in front of TARP oversight. Barofsky has used his pulpit to put out some really meaningless and misleading numbers. We need real information from these guys, not noisy innumerate numbers. See: http://www.forbes.com/2009/07/27/bailout-bad-math-business-washington-barofsky.html
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POPSFinally, Some Late-Night Stability As NBC tests the waters with another (risky) hour of late-night fare (in prime-time) CBS is wise to hold on to its stable alternative. After a decade-plus at no. 2, the tiffany network's veteran host has a real shot at poaching former Leno viewers and winning the ratings war.
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POPSObama to Lunch with Credit Card Execs Credit card debt is a huge burden to the average American. Since rates can jump at anytime to any level, cash-strapped consumers are at the mercy of cc companies. Here's an idea: why not refinance credit card debt instead of mortgages? That's the real interest rate crunch and principle writedowns wouldn't be necessary since it's the interest accruing and not the amount owed that's the trouble.
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POPSDelta Bags More Fees Delta Airlines will slap a $50 fee on all passengers checking a second bag on international flights, pressuring competitors to do the same. Delta also reports a $794 million quarterly loss, but says the worst may be behind it.
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POPSExodus Out of the Big Banks There's an intriguing idea here that it's good for the talent to disperse to smaller institutions. That it will be a sort of Darwinian process that whittles big banks down until they're no longer too big to fail. And it creates a more diverse Wall Street in the process. Well, really? It seems to me that's no longer true if a handful of the big banks (say Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan) are able to pay off their TARP funds early. Shrinking Citi and Bank of America to beef up Aladdin Capital and Broadpoint may be dandy and help the too-big-to-fail problem. But aren't we just as likely to be shrinking Citi and Bank of America to enlarge Goldman and JPMorgan? I'm not suggesting anything in particular other than that I'm not sure this talent reallocation really does anything material to the bank size issue.
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POPSAriad Patent Dead Derek Lowe does a dance of joy. Eli Lilly had compared the patent in question to "patenting gravity." Ariad basically described some basic biology, then hand-waved the potential drugs that could affect it.
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POPSStanford Tearfully Denies Wrongdoing It has been tough on Stanford since accusations surfaced he is running a Ponzi scheme. This article reports the ex-billionaire has been forced to fly commercial flights after his private jets were seized. "They make you take your shoes off and everything, it's terrible," reportedly said Stanford.
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POPSFreezing Football Ticket Prices Coming off a 1% drop in attendance in 2008, the NFL doesn't want the recession to drive more fans away this year. So most of the league won't raise ticket prices in 2009.
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