Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg West 20140423 : vimarsan

BLOOMBERG Bloomberg West April 23, 2014

A Top Hedge Fund manager says theres a clear consensus that we are in a tech bubble. In his letter to clients, David Einhorn says companies he is betting against may fall at least 90 if and when the market applies traditional valuation. He writes certain cool kid companies and analysts are pretending that compensation paid in equity isnt an expense because it is noncash. At ts profit dropped slightly in the first quarter. Revenue was up 4 thanks to a growing wireless business. The company added 625,000 monthly subscribers, up from 296,000 from a year ago. At ts next program which allows customers to make Monthly Payments on phones rather than signing contracts allows the company to pay less in subsidies. Amazon is apparently taking a sales hit in states that collect online sales tax. Researchers at ohio state say households have cut their amazon spending by about 10 in states where online sales taxes are collected. Amazon sales of items over 300 have fallen by 24 in those states. Now, u. S. Supreme court will be hearing the arguments today in what could be one of the most Important Media cases ever. American Broadcasting Companies against aereo. Aereo uses tiny antennas to transmit broadcast signals to subscribers without paying for it. Networks say this is Copyright Infringement since they are receiving no fees. Aereo claims they are not subject to copyright laws because users receive it privately over individual antennas. Aereo is available in 11 u. S. Cities, including new york, houston, atlanta, boston, and dallas. If it loses the case, it is likely finished. Joining me now is betty liu who was at the Supreme Court all day long. I know court just let out. What is happening on the ground . Moments ago, the oral arguments were finished. I saw an interesting dynamic play out. The two lawyers from both sides, paul clement and david frederick, came out and made their closing statements to the press. In that crowd was barry diller who backs aereo. He wanted to listen in on what paul clement, the lead attorney for the broadcasters, what he had to say. I guess he didnt get enough information in the court room. I asked barry how he thought things went and he said, i think they went well. He didnt want to make any more statements, but he listened in again on the broadcasters and then he walked off. A lot of people thought that barry who is the most highprofile ceo at this hearing that he would perhaps slip out the back door, but he couldnt help himself. Tell us who the players are. You have diller and aereo on one side. The broadcasters on the other side. And even the Obama Administration has come to their support. The department of justice came down on the support of the broadcasters. On the aereo side, lots of Silicon Valley players, facebook and google, support it. They say it is important for the future of Cloud Computing. Dish network have the sling technology very similar to aereo. They wrote a brief in support of the company saying this is basically what we have which is we allow people to get broadcast content in whatever way they want. It is new technology doing the same old thing that a vcr used to do. You sat down for an exclusive interview with the aereo ceo chet kanojia. He talked a lot about what if the vcr never existed. What did he have to say about today . It is interesting he didnt want to say anything today. Chet kenojia did sit down with us exclusively yesterday. He said he was optimistic that he will win. He said the law is on his side. This thing has been about making sure the consumers get the signal. It is not about making a couple of guys rich. In we come, a completely different technology. A Technology Based on the roots of broadcasting and antenna. None of them can dispute the facts because in this case they dont have a way to dispute facts because the Technology Works the way it did. There is all this concoction and false narratives being created that somehow this is a copyright problem it is not. It is a Business Model problem. The world is changing around these guys and they are reacting with what they know which is litigate and kill new companies that come in because they are making far too much money and continue to make far too much money and have no incentive to change. Can you understand that they are spending cbs, abc, fox, nbc, spending millions and millions of dollars in programming that basically you are charging people eight dollars a month to access. Can you see though that what they see what you are talking about as innovation, they are saying is theft . Here is the issue if we dont apply this technology to a cable channel like hbo, there is a reason why they are called free to air broadcast television. The essential bargain with the consumer and congress is they program in public interest, convenience, and necessity. Free to the consumer. They make money billions and billions with advertising,. That bargain is preserved. 60 Million People in america today, according to the National Association of broadcasters, uses an antenna. Are those people infringing on their copyrights . No. Tons of money make money selling equipment and Technology Like tivo. All these Companies Make money by selling technology. You are more than just an equipment provider even if that equipment is in the cloud. You do want to be more than that. The question is what are we on a factual basis. Lets say you get into original programming. Lets say you start developing your own channel, doesnt that change who you are . Tivo is a great example. You can get a retail tivo box. You can plug an antenna into it and tivo will sell you video ondemand movies. Where is this Copyright Infringement . It is only Copyright Infringement because i have located the box and made it simpler for the consumer to get it . Chet kanojia, ceo of aereo, not backing down. What happens afte today . For aereo and the broadcasters, nothing happens. I am sure there will be some drinking done tonight because it has been a long journey for both sides. For the court, it is going to be like any other case. The justices are going to retire to their chambers and discuss the case and vote on it, a tentative vote. At the end of june, that is when we are likely to hear a decision on this case. For more on this, i want to bring in rich greenfield from btig, the media and entertainment analyst because he was in the court room. Great to see you today. Tell me how you think things went. The overall case was very hotly decided. The bottom line is there was no clear one direction. We heard two cases in the court room. One was slanted one way. You can tell there was fear. How do you write this decision if you were to say aereo is illegal . How do you write the decision without impacting Cloud Computing . There was concern about how you keep this from impacting other industries. Chief Justice Roberts actually went after the plaintiffs attorney saying isnt aereo just like using a Public Parking garage . You go to that Public Parking garage and you are renting space for x amount of time. How is that different than if you go home and build a garage . Isnt that the aereo analogy . You are essentially renting versus buying. I think that is the key challenge the court is grappling with is this the same thing as renting versus buying or is there Something Special about broadcast television . Those are a lot of questions we expected from the justices. Were there any curveballs . Probably not. I think there was some concern when you think about what the overall impact could be on why this system is the way it is. There was a comment from justice ginsburg, basically the only reason you are creating millions of individual copies to circumvent copyright law and i would not call that a curveball. The pushing on why this system is built this way is it only built this way to circumvent copyright law was another key theme. Thank you for joining us. Rich greenfield, the media and entertainment analyst at btig. Emily, back to you. Thanks so much, betty. We will be waiting for this decision at the end of june. Barry diller has said if aereo loses, it is over. Experts tell us it is really 5050. Just a note of disclosure bloomberg tv does have a Distribution Agreement with aereo. The warriors fell short in their nba playoff game last night, but the team struck a huge deal with a tech giant today. We have all the details from team coowner peter guber next. You can watch us streaming on your phone, tablet, bloomberg. Com, and on apple tv and aereo as well. Welcome back. Im emily chang. The Golden State Warriors have abandoned plan to build a new arena on San Franciscos waterfront. They struck a deal with salesforce to purchase a 12acre site further south, but still in the city. The warriors will own the land outright and plan to build an arena with private financing. Warriors coowner peter guber joins us from l. A. Also with us, Jon Erlichman from new york. Peter, not long ago, you were looking at a spot not far from where i am sitting. On the waterfront, views of the bay bridge. You spent like 20 million on plans for it. Why this new site in mission bay . Why now . Because we control our destiny. We own it. Our relationship with the city is one as an owner, not as a tenant. We feel the site offers us some very attractive elements because the venue is a venue that is going to be for the city, for the bay area. It is one of the top 25 markets that does not have a venue like this. We believe it can be activated successfully, accessible by all four sides. It offers some strategic advantages. Yet, it has its own location. It defines itself. We are going to spend all that money privately, upwards of three quarters of 1 billion for the retail, office buildings, and the plaza sites, and the venue. We wanted something that we actually own. You bought the land privately outright from salesforce. I am curious how that conversation started. Did marc benioff personally try to recruit you . Marc benioff called and we met with him. Joe lacob, my partner, met with them. Together, we fashioned an arrangement. It was expensive and we decided that this was the place to make the move. It offered us a higher degree of certainty, a timeline that was most effective, and really the kind of accoutrements that were hardpressed to get at other places. When you talk about being privately funded, how do we think about where the money comes from, that whole process . Did you ever get a rotator cuff injury . You turn your hand and reach in the back pocket and pull it out . That is the kind of money it is. It is all privately financed by the ownership and by the partners involved with the enterprise. Without looking at public funds, we are going to be an active participant in the city and a good listener to the marketplace. We are going to be very responsive. The idea is we are a private Citizen Building a private venue for the benefit and purpose of all San Francisco bay citizens. It really gives us the opportunity to control our own destiny. What about what will be unique about this arena . When youre in a position to build one of these things from the ground up, what do you want to be sort of the signature thing tied to this . Everything is going to be unique. We are going to cast our line over the horizon, not make it a copy of something else. Have it really be an original venue. A venue that is attraction and a lightning rod to bring the best and brightest artists in San Francisco to the world. It will be a whole theater element of this. A whole Public Performance element of this venue, too. The point is we are going to have it digitally fit. We are very successful at oracle right now with this. We are going to bring stateoftheart sound. We are going have the right kind of visual display. We are going to make the audience not passengers, but participants. We think that we have the know it all and we have the relationship with Silicon Valley and the Business Community to really bring those talents. It is going to be if you want a metaphor, it is going to be Madison Square garden out west. It is going to be the kind of venue where artists and performers want to perform at. What about the people and the players the people inside the Golden State Warriors organization . How do you see San Francisco as a draw in terms of recruiting top talent on and off the court . We are sold out in our current site. About eight or nine miles as the crow flys. We are high up in the League Standings in terms of attendance, merchandise, everything. We do very successful. That allows us to undertake this proposition. Our audience is drawn from san jose, both sides of the bay, equally all around. Remember, the warriors played their first seasons in San Francisco. We are coming home in a sense. Coming back home. Warriors coowner, peter gruber, and Jon Erlichman. Thank you. Coming up, at t is teaming up with media mogul peter churnin to roll out its own online tv service. Can they take on netflix or amazon . That is next on bloomberg west. Welcome back. Im emily chang. Cable giant comcast reports big firstquarter earnings thanks to the Winter Olympics on nbc. A surprise growth in tv subscribers. Sales rose to 17. 4 billion and profits rose 30 . Comcast added 24,000 tv customers in the quarter bucking a broader industry trend and, of course, comcast could add millions more subscribers in its merger with Time Warner Cable is approved by regulators. At t is getting into the online tv game as well teaming up with the Chernin Group to invest 500 million in a digital tv service. The Chernin Group is led by former Fox Broadcasting executive peter chernin. The Company Plans to introduce the service by the end of the year. For more, i would like to bring in cory johnson. Interesting partners here. Theyre looking at ways to make deals for Live Programming and investing in ondemand services. Will other traditional players be challenged by this is the question. This is an odd partnership. It is not at t is a company that needs a lot of cash. The Partnership Began back about a year and a half ago when at t and the Chernin Group tried to buy hulu. Eventually that option did not go anywhere. Hulu took itself back off the block. The partnership had been made at that point. At t wants to get into content. Yet another Large Company that wants to get into content. We have heard yahoo recently wants to get in there. Amazon has made a much bigger play. At t wants to get into this game and who wins . The content companies win. At t and the Chernin Group want to get together and potentially buy newer content companies and build this thing up to compete with netflix. Jon erlichman is in the center of everything because there were so much going on in l. A. He spoke to people like Truck Drivers and people in special effects and every one is working. Pilot season doesnt even exist anymore because there are new shows and pilots being filmed all the time. We see companies in this all the time. Disney made an offer for maker. Relativity media comes out and says they want maker. There are these other media companies. These new start up companies that want to get into online content so that everyone can see it. That is what this bet is. At t in that game. They own a company that has 5 million subscribers the traditional way. Even comcast came out and said, we would get into this overthetop streaming game potentially if the market dictates that is the direction we are going. Interesting stuff. Fascinating we have the content world changing. It is happening fast. Thank you very much. We are going to go inside aereo. We are going to show you just how the technology at the center of todays arguments at the Supreme Court works. You can watch us streaming on your phone, tablet, and bloomberg. Com and apple tv. You are watching bloomberg west where we focus on technology and the future of business. Aereo has made its arguments at the Supreme Court today where traditional broadcasters are challenging the live tv streaming company, but how does this Technology Behind aereo really work . Jon erlichman went inside aereo to find out. At this manufacturing facility in salem, new hampshire, machines are assembling hardware. This is the aereo antenna. We have found a great design and did a lot of work on it. We have achieved great performance for the size. Aereo give us an inside look at the busy factory where the final product comes together product that is revolutionizing the way we watch broadcast tv. When you see how the Technology Works, it is different than using oldfashioned rabbit ears. Each antenna is rented to an individual subscriber, but the antenna is not mounted on top of the tv. They are stacked on

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