Curiouser and curiouser. Wonderland's Alice would feel right at home in the topsy-turvy world of Silicon Valley, where companies never have to show a profit to make their founders wealthy, and where probable courtroom adversaries invest in each others' businesses. That's exactly what happened August 17 at <A HREF="http://www.replaytv.com/">RePlay Networks</A>, which received a whopping $57 million in financing from a group of investors including Time Warner Inc., The Walt Disney Co., Liberty Media Group, United Television Inc., Showtime Networks Inc., and a division of industrial giant Matsushita, whose Panasonic company makes one version of the RePlay hard-disk-based video recorder.
A former graphics-chip manufacturer has been in a feeding frenzy lately, buying a stalled personal video recorder company and a relatively unknown specialty electronics maker. <A HREF="http://www.sonicblue.com/">Sonicblue, Inc</A>. has acquired <A HREF="http://www.replaytv.com/">ReplayTV, Inc.</A> and <A HREF="http://www.sensoryscience.com/">Sensory Science</A>, maker of dual-deck VCRs and combination DVD player/VCR units, and the distributor of Loewe television sets, a German-made high-end brand.
Personal video recorder pioneer <A HREF="http://www.replayTV.com/">ReplayTV</A> has decided to abandon the product category it co-created last year with competitor <A HREF="http://www.tivo.com/">TiVo, Inc</A>. The Mountain View, California-based company will concentrate instead on licensing its technology to cable providers and hardware maanufaturers for inclusion in a new generation of set-top boxes.
Size is definitely an advantage in commodity retailing. In an antitrust suit begun in mid-June, the7800-store chain <A HREF="http://www.blockbuster.com">Blockbuster, Inc.</A>—the world's largest video retailer—admitted that it has an advantage over its smaller competitors, but claimed no wrongdoing in the process of negotiating favorable revenue-sharing deals with Hollywood studios.
Electronics retailers are lobbying Congress to ensure their right to sell broadband cable converter boxes. Wary of the coming dominance of the combined power of merger partners <A HREF="http://www.aol.com/">America Online</A> and <A HREF="http://www.timewarner.com/">Time Warner Inc.</A>, retailers such as <A HREF="http://www.circuitcity.com/">Circuit City Stores, Inc.</A> are seeking legislative help.
R<I>obert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods. Directed by Martin Scorsese. Aspect ratio: 1.85:1. Dolby Digital 5.1. 179 minutes. Univeral 20159. Rated R. $26.98.</I>
As applied to Hollywood's profits and losses, creative writing could soon become a much more difficult craft. On September 18, a new set of strict accounting guidelines for film studios was taken under consideration by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, a movie-industry panel that establishes rules for accountants. The new standards are designed to bring Hollywood accounting more into line with standard business practices, or "to make the balance sheet tighter, more representationally faithful," as Standards Board project manager Frank Scheuerell puts it.
Money changes everything. <A HREF="http://www.circuitcity.com/">Circuit City</A>, parent company of <A HREF="http://www.divx.com/">Divx</A>, has enjoyed a stock run-up recently due to rumors of a possible equity partnership deal with video-rental chain <A HREF="http://www.blockbuster.com/">Blockbuster</A>. In the deal, Viacom-owned Blockbuster would buy into Divx, considerably strengthening the pay-per-view startup's financial footing and giving it instant credibility in the video-rental market. Blockbuster has more than 600 stores nationwide.