Was when we have the last gas prices this high. Lots of snow, but also lots of profits. Talking about the Weather Channel and direct tv and what happens if you decide not to watch the Weather Channel when the weather is the super bowl. Does this winter storm have a name . Janis. Janis . I heard that by watching the Weather Channel. I think we should let our guest host name it. We will do that, but first i want to get to the earnings, here. We have a fresh batch of earnings this morning from Corporate America and julie hyman. A big movementg in the shares this morning after a disappointing earnings report. Ofexpected to see a lot disappointments in retail. This is not a huge surprise here. Coaches one of those retailers who gave fewer discounts. Those were the big themes of the holiday season, so it did take a toll. Dropping, people basically shopping other places where they could get better deals. Seemed like that happened at north american comparablestore sales. A huge drop. We will dig more into this later. The other numbers as well, there are so very many this morning that we are watching. Lets talk about u. S. Bank, for a moment. They came out and beat analyst estimates last quarter. Setting aside less money to account for bad loans, the income the income was up 2. 5 . Some of the regional lenders have been doing better here as the economy improves. Also, as we start to see at the beginning, we have started to see a yield curve widening. The larger banks have more of a capital on the business as well. Drugmaker,on to a out just a little while ago. Analysts had been anticipating the earningspershare front, but in terms of sales it missed analysts estimates. The head of chilies, the restaurant company, coming in with comparable sales at 9 10 of one percent. They have not been faring well lately. I was surprised by those results, we will talk more about them in a moment. You are still focused on coach . Are you implying something . The most Interesting Company that we heard about. Joining us in the next hour, our guest host, also the. Ofounder of Oxygen Network this is why we talked about you earlier, you were it instrumental in acquiring the Weather Channel. We will have a chance to talk about that in a moment. Story that had everyone surprise yesterday. Mohamed elerian, moving abruptly out of his role. Still surprised. Yes, he is going to be leaving. He has had this great sort of platform to talk about ng policies and the economy, yet bill gross with record redemptions last year. 30 billion . Team,is like a baseball right . Good cycle, bad cycle, mediocre cycle. 2. 5 is not exactly the best flavor. The general manager gets thrown out and he does not make the announcement himself . Bill gross, conscious that exemptions,cord tweeting out one hour after the announcement saying that pimco is fully engaged, batteries 100 charged, ready to go for another 40 years. And by the way, the ceo resigned for no reason and no one knows why. Did he have to say . 40 billion in redemptions, but if that is a 100 charge . The bottom line is people are wondering if he got pushed out and they are wondering what happened between he and bill gross. You think . You are going to be a more exceptional person if you complete that course. More exceptional than you already are. [laughter] there is a term for people who have mastered these. Oks. Onks mo they are one flavor, you have to take it that number take a look at that number pretty hard. At first it was about for profit. Then it was about the mooks. Distribution with liquidity credibility depends on who is offering it. Is offered when it for free i read this anecdotally even when offered for free it is hard to keep them engaged. Because it is free . Offeredkets investor and if someonee looked at the quality programs and translatesay them to where they work. That is a different side. Version 1. 0. We have kind of buried the lead. 91 of the people who signed up for those courses did not complete them. I am one of them. It turned out to be too complicated, above my head, and i am lazy and not committed. I think we are seeing online 1. 0. This is going to be the future. Even if you look at the students but if you think about it, this is my favorite do not, a lot of people want to buy four years. Were talking about Sheryl Sandberg earlier. There is a lot of focus on these new upandcoming women executives. Buffett has i do not know if you know this, a 29 yearold protege. She might become the replacement for david vogel, if you remember , he was the right hand man for Warren Buffett, going around and doing all the deals for him. She has become that person for him. She is the chairman of several of his companies. She has made some tough decisions, fired people. But she has had some good outcomes from that. Those companies have shaped up. 29 years old. A 29yearold kid who is the chairman of four Berkshire Hathaway companies. She has fired three ceos. Amazing. She is unusual, one because of her age, to because she is female, but obviously her parents knew something that we did not know. Farmers. As opposed to harvard. Twoputted in that context, to put it in that context, he has a generation of leaders he is grooming. They are there right now. Those oriental painting catalogs . Think about it for one second. Look at who started some of the Biggest Companies in the country today. They were all started by 20 yearolds. Bravo to Warren Buffett for picking a young person to lead his company and a time when are in charge. But this is not a new internet startup. She is thinking about compound interest. She is doing the most boring thing on the planet, which is why Warren Buffett loves her. He says that she thinks like him. Poll onay, we did it bitcoin. 47 of those that we pulled would be sellers of bitcoin. Only 11 wouldbe buyers. Some 30 did not know what they would do with it. I also heard a lot of other people i think it is interesting that 60 of the people on the pole have heard of it. Then they even know what it is. You show them the special, did you not . We did a lot about it here. It is an interesting phenomenon. I think a lot of people are aware, and they are not sure what to think. Why you have people saying not so sure i would buy it. It. Nd how do i buy and what do i do with it once i have it. But there is an obsession that i find fascinating. It has gone up so much. That is right. There has been so much coverage. The media has inflated the far beyondnd value efficacy in the market. When the early days, company was trying to do internet currency, there was not that much attention, but this is getting a lot of attention. Of dollars from big investors, right . The list is long. You could do a lot of theirve things for all of businesses, individually. Practically, for all of us. Retailers, even victorias secret, are they not accepting it . You could go over and buy lingerie. [laughter] look at the huge benefits. Target would not have lost 17 billion customers credit data if they had not been using it. Well, they have computers powerful enough to do so. All right. It would be easy. Go, buy it, spend it at target. There is a lot more to come. More than the united states, it is being used overseas. He knows where they are taking it, now. Coming out in ships. [laughter]. Those . Matt damon is there. That is right, hans nichols got a chance to speak with him about a lot of things, but most importantly about his blogging initiative. We will speak with him in a moment. Headlines this week are about the future of Online Television and about what we watch, indicating that perhaps the revolution will not be televised, but it will be streamed. Yesterday verizon spent 200 billion to obtain a struggling Internet Company that was built by intel. They will be reporting results. Investors waiting this year on competition from other streaming outlets. Amazon came out and denied a report of recent talks to acquire online paytv services. No matter who wins, it is clear the future of television will be based on that. Lisa gershom knows a few things about this business. A former executive at nbc universal, cofounder of oxygen media. You have been reading these headlines, what is your impression so far . It is its own story, in a lot of ways. The bottom line is always going to be content. If you look at these others platform these other platforms and how they developed, that was the story. Cable in the early days was just a bunch of acquired programming. People got cable because they got better reception. It did not really take off until hbo started the program and create original content. Original content is what has driven cable and driven the success of every new network. Look at amc. Muchnyone really care that about them before they started madmen . No. Is it going to matter if for example, apple tv, xbox, playstation, hulu, i do not watch cable tv that much. Amazon prime . No. Just checking. Is, i gravitate towards the best operating system, the ev the easiest to use. Does that draw content . I think so. I also think it is a matter of convenience. When i am home, i am more likely to turn on television. If i am traveling, i watch everything that i just i never watched 24. So lucky. Right. Now i can watch it, but i do it through i count itunes and i did not want to rely on wireless. If i could rely on wireless, i would watch it on netflix. Does the price matter . Think that i am more price sensitive if you look at my kids, who are very price sensitive. They have a budget. But they absolutely dont care. Up, we grew up, when i grew there were networks. There was network television. We used to talk about cable versus broadcast. My kids have no idea that there was any difference. Right now, as we talk about all the time with the younger generation, who are cord cutting , i would say that i watch a lot of tv, but my kids, who are nine years old, never turn on the television. They watch the internet. They watch everything on the computer or on my ipad, by the way. Their that is where all content comes from. All of the shows originated on television, however. It is the content that matters. I think that netflix took a big jump when they launched orange is the new black, house of cards, that was the only way to get them. Great shows, they are not 24. I have to say, i watched orange is the new black in todays. Let me give you these numbers. This is all about business. The online paytv service business, eight billion dollars, up 30 from last year. Television is about 150 billion. It only grew five percent. That is not surprising to me. I think you have to really look at what is happening with cord cutting and cable homes. Is cable growing . Is the platform growing . Netflix has taken subscribers away . I do not think that is true. You have to look at what is happening with cable. The only reason you have cable is so that you can have broadband internet. The only reason i still have cable is because i want high Speed Internet and a landline. As well, but you can watch that on the internet. We watch Bloomberg Television on apple tv, by the way. Of note, by the way, broadcast networks, yes, we see them as old school, but they are the ones that can still produce that really highend programming. That is where the advertisers are going, thinking about reality programming. American idol, the voice, dancing with the stars i am sure none of us watch it. At the same time, those are highend, highly produced. And to a certain extent they are event tv. I think that all the platforms do serve different services. You will see highend programming on a services and uncertain cable networks. Of 3pranos was in excess million, that is highend, expensive television. We are going to continue this conversation. We are. You are not going anywhere . Going shopping. [laughter] the cost of, another winter storm . We will coyou what it is doing to sit cities, the country, and your programming. Loopu are watching in the , live on Bloomberg Television. We have matt miller, pimm fox, and our guest host for the hour, lisa gershom. Equity futures are being dragged down just a little bit. As you know, we mentioned earnings that had disappointed expectations, including coach. How did you know i would say that . Massive drop, 14 . Eyepopping. It is, which we will talk about in a moment. We are on the markets again in 30 minutes. We know about the cold weather, the snow in january. Yes, if you need to get to work, school, maybe even stay home . We were chopping up the desk for firewood to stay warm. What is going on in the rest of the country . What is the cost of these storms to the economy . For that, we turn to michael mckee. As long as it is the weather, i will start with the bad fun it is a matter of degrees. [groaning] technical term. There is a cost of the economy. The folks who analyze the weather the weather and economics think that the earlier storms cost us about 5 billion. We might see even more this time, not only do we have a record cold, but we have snow shutting down commerce, really closing down much of new york, boston, and philadelphia for a day or so. Maybe 10 billion to 12 billion in damage, but we are talking about a 15 billion economy. The biggest losses are in things like closing down the government. That work will never be recaptured. Flex can this money be respent . People are not actually flying. Are they not buying everything they can to stay warm . The airlines still lose. A lot of people do not read book. Go ahead, do your retail shopping, or they will do it next week. Of course, you see stores like grocery stores, hardware stores, doing extra business during a storm as people stock up. I guess that means tough luck for the airline business, but everyone else . You have to watch those economic statistics. There was a theory that we lost jobs and the reason the report was so bad was 273,000 people could not get to work. Normally the people who cannot get to work because of the weather is 73,000. The good news is that the early storm and late storm bracketed the jobs survey, so maybe this month we will not have the same kind of weather. I feel like we lost jobs, snowplow jobs, there were not any on the streets of manhattan. It is so weird that all the sidewalks westchester was clear this morning, all the highways were clear, but as soon as i get into manhattan . There is still snow on lexington avenue. I was surprised about the i met the street. Wire the sidewalks clearer than the streets . They say it is hard to melt that snow because the temperatures are so cold. What will really get you is when you have your utility bill. The cost of natural gas coming into new york city right now, hundreds of thousands per cubic feet. That is an alltime record, there. A real tradable price. You may not be able to trade on it, but you do have to pay it. Frome earlier spike january, we will all be paying more to keep warm. Sounds expensive and cold. Thanks a lot. Matt damon is in. Lous, switzerland, talking about water, not ice. We have more, next. All right, today at 10 a. M. The eastern, james gorman joins bloomberg, live from davos, switzerland. Looking forward to that interview. We are back with our guest and cohost for the hour. Look, all of us had a hard time coming into work this morning, given the weather. Last nights snowstorm, the Weather Channel named it snowstorm janet. At any rate, when you were at nbc, you helped to acquire the Weather Channel. I watched a little bit of it last night. It got me thinking, how many people do tune in to the Weather Channel . This . Ou a part of did you tune into the Weather Channel during the snowstorm . I did, just to have it on. We talk about it endlessly. When there is a storm like that, you just want to hear about what is going on with the weather. I want to hear about it, i want to know where it is coming from, i want to hear words like polar vortex, arctic jill. You want a name . I am warming up to the names. I think it is appropriate, at this point. They are as significant as hurricanes, why not name them . People running to the Weather Channel . It, did were running people call you for the Weather Report . Friends would call me to find out if they had to tend to their backyard or not. I would always say we do not have a secret forecast. We really dont, turn on the wood network. People do tune in for the forecast, and we bring this story up the channel, rather, there is this huge issue with directv, which is knocked off the Weather Channel, saying that they do not deserve higher programming fees. The response from the Weather Channel has been look, people turn to us from the weather. It is not just about getting an online. Where do you stand on this . I think that the Weather Channel, in addition to being great if you are really into the weather, which most people are i think it really is one of the big conversations of our time, but another thing i would say is that they do this is part of their mission they save lives. If there is a major tornado coming dave says that the met the Weather Channel is a matter of public security. Do you agree with him . I think there is validity in saying that it is important for people to be able to see it. Some of us may get our weather on at or mobile, but not everybody does. More people probably see it online than on television. It is very popular. It has a great url. Weather. Com, does not get better than that. For directv to take the position that you could get your weather online or other places i think it is not really fair. Before it was online, you would get it in a newspaper. Thisat is what i thought, is about money. What else would it be about . Explain the money angle. All operators pay licensing fees. When they do the calculation on the licensing and say is someone going to pick this over cable or another form of delivery . Is it going to impact my decision . That is a really hard thing to come out and approach. There is a lot of pressure on the Cable Operators and satellite providers in terms of costs. Verys Networks Command high fees. People will drop if they cannot get sports. That is clear. That is the only reason to have direct tv. But other than