Companies

The New York Times Company said yesterday that expenses related to job cuts would lower its fourth-quarter profit. The company is forecasting earnings per share of 45 to 47 cents in the quarter, compared with 75 cents in the period a year earlier, according to a statement. The estimate includes expenses of $34 million to $37 million, or 14 to 15 cents a share, for the job cuts. The company...

PHILADELPHIA, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Now that early-stage takeover offers are in for No. 2 U.S. newspaper publisher Knight Ridder (KRI.N: Quote, Profile, Research), interested bidders are working to build alliances as the slow-moving sale process moves into its second round, according to sources close to the process. Knight Ridder, which has a current market value of more than $4.2 bilion, has...

Media buyers are eagerly awaiting details and pondering the possibilities of the expected expanded alliance between America Online and Google. The most interesting tidbits surfacing in the published reports, they say, are the potential for AOL's sales force to sell display ads on Google's contextual network and the audience growth the deal could bring to AOL's Web properties. "Anything that...

Users of Google's search engine will soon see something they are not used to on the notoriously spare site: advertising with logos and graphics. And the advertisers will not be limited to America Online, whose talks with Google prompted the change in policy, according to two executives close to the companies' negotiations. As part of their deal, which is expected to be announced this afternoon...

A proposed $1bn deal between search engine Google and internet portal AOL could significantly damage the reputation of Google as an objective search engine. The deal will see AOL content receive preferential ranking with Google search results in return for a stake in AOL. The new deal will see Google provide AOL with search technology and replaces an existing marketing deal between the two...

European regulators have justified their antitrust case against Microsoft in new guidelines on policing companies' abuse of a dominant market share. The latest dispute between Microsoft and European officials focuses on trade secrets. In a 72-page "discussion paper" on monopolies, the European Commission, the antitrust enforcer of the 25-nation European Union, said trade secrets deserve less...

NEW YORK In 1985, for the first time, more U.S. TV sets were sold with remote controls than without. It was an amazing taste of empowerment for media consumers: The ability to control one's viewing habits with a click of a button would have implications for everyone from TV programmers and advertisers to consumer-electronics companies and even makers of Barcaloungers and snack foods. Americans...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Dissident shareholder Carl Icahn on Monday labeled as "disastrous" a new deal set to be unveiled this week between Time Warner Inc.'s America Online unit and Web search leader Google Inc., as the billionaire investor argued that AOL could do better. Icahn said in a letter to Time Warner's board of directors that the company appeared to be on the verge of a "disastrous...

Dick Parsons has no shortage of friends. This month, the affable chairman and chief executive of Time Warner has had a steady stream of phone calls from some of the world’s top corporate chiefs. heir message to him: we support you, even as Carl Icahn and Bruce Wasserstein team up to try to unseat you and break up the company you run. The messages come as Mr Icahn, who made billions of dollars as a...

It used to be that alternative weekly newspapers were like that Marlon Brando line from "The Wild One" – when someone asked him what he was rebelling against and he replied, "Wadda ya got?" There was war in Vietnam and an international nuclear stare-down, economic injustice and racial inequality, and a dominant corporate culture against which nonconformity was a political statement. Cut to late...