In This Update:
• NBCU in ‘Exclusive’ Negotiations for Weather Channel
• Entrepreneur Media Bought by Austin Ventures & 2 Private Equity Firms
• F.C.C. Chief Backs XM-Sirius Deal
• Google-Yahoo Deal Poses Ad-Rate Worries
• ESPN Acquires High School Sports Media Company Student Sports
• Torstar Digital Buys Toronto Interactive Shop EyeReturn Marketing
• YuMe Signs Deal with Microsoft to Handle Video Ad Defaults
• Support Grows for Green Plug Universal Power Adapter
• eBay Opening Up Add-On Marketplace, APIs
• Meraki’s Free Wi-Fi Starts to Thrive in San Francisco
• Report: U.S. Game Sales Up 37% in May to $1.12 Billion
• AT&T May Charge Top Users More
• Digital Challengers to MP3 Format Face High Hurdles
• Jivox Gets Another $10.7 Million Funding for DIY Online Video Ads
• Blog Search Engine Technorati Raises $7.5 of $10 Million Fourth Round

NBCU in ‘Exclusive’ Negotiations for Weather Channel
MULTICHANNEL NEWS
Landmark Communications, the owner of The Weather Channel and its attendant Web site, Weather.com, said Friday it has entered into “exclusive” negotiations with NBCU and private equity firms Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LLC. Friday afternoon Time Warner Inc. dropped out of the auction for the properties, which were put on the block by Landmark in January. The NBC group had reportedly offered $3.5 billion — $1.8 billion in equity, $1.7 billion in debt, according to several published reports — well below Landmark’s $5 billion asking price.
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Entrepreneur Media Bought by Austin Ventures & 2 Private Equity Firms
PAIDCONTENT
Entrepreneur Media, the Irvine, CA-based media company which focuses on small-business owners, is being bought by two private equity firms, and Austin Ventures is the lead. The sale price is going to be less than $200 million, in the lower range of what it was expecting….the company did about $60 million revenues last year. The final due diligence is going on, and the deal is expected to close by late July, our sources says. A Boston-based PE firm that has remained unnamed is the minority partner in the deal, and not the lead. The company was founded as a newsletter in 1973 and launched as Entrepreneur magazine in 1977. It also has a biggish online presence and operates book publishing unit Entrepreneur Press. Entrepreneur.com was launched in 1996, and has been popular and very profitable, a big part of the appeal to the buyers.
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F.C.C. Chief Backs XM-Sirius Deal
NEW YORK TIMES
The proposed merger of the nation’s two satellite radio broadcasters, bogged down in the regulatory process for over a year, has cleared a major hurdle with Federal Communications Commission chief recommending approval of the $5 billion deal. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin made his recommendation Sunday in exchange for a number of concessions, including turning 24 channels over to noncommercial and minority programming. That sets the stage for a final vote that could occur any time after Martin’s recommendation is circulated among his fellow commissioners. The provision on noncommercial and minority programming along with several others — including a three-year price freeze for customers — persuaded Martin to support Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.’s buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. The deal would affect millions of subscribers who pay to hear music, news, sports and talk programming, largely free from advertising, in homes and vehicles.
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Google-Yahoo Deal Poses Ad-Rate Worries
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Some marketing executives said they are fearful that a new partnership between Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. may raise advertising rates while reducing control over where their ads are displayed. But others cautioned that the impact of the deal — announced Thursday as Yahoo ended talks about selling its search business to Microsoft Corp. — remains unclear. They said a lot hinges on how Yahoo chooses to implement the complex agreement and whether Yahoo continues to give advertisers incentives, such as higher placements, for working with it directly.
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ESPN Acquires High School Sports Media Company Student Sports
MULTICHANNEL
ESPN has furthered its commitment high school sports, acquiring digital media and production company Student Sports, Inc. The sports giant will integrate the Torrance, Calif.-based company, whose assets include Studentsports.com and DyeStat.com, along with the rights to 160 events, including the Elite 11, Area Code Baseball and Nike Combines/Nike SPARQ Mini Camps, within ESPN Rise, its multimedia high school sports unit. In conjunction with the acquisition, terms of which were not disclosed, ESPN will enter into a licensing and content sharing agreement with SPARQ, the dynamic athletic training and assessment company based in Portland, Ore.
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Torstar Digital Buys Toronto Interactive Shop EyeReturn Marketing
PAIDCONTENT
Torstar Digital, the online arm of Canadian media company Torstar Corp., has acquired fellow Toronto resident EyeReturn Marketing. Terms were not disclosed. Torstar says it plans to keep the eight-year-old interactive agency’s staff and executives in place. Its purchase of EyeReturn was inspired by the company’s client roster as well as the desire to expand Torstar’s service offerings alongside other properties like online job site Workopolis and ad targeter Olive Canada Network.
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YuMe Signs Deal with Microsoft to Handle Video Ad Defaults
CENTERNETWORKS
Last September, video ad provider YuMe Networks announced that they would be handling advertising for Microsoft’s Interactive TV. Today, both YuMe and Microsoft are making another announcement regarding a new partnership. Beginning this summer, YuMe will provide video advertising network management capabilities and sales for unsold inventory on Microsoft’s online properties. Basically YuMe becomes the default video advertising partner for Microsoft. This means that if Microsoft can’t fill an ad impression through their network, YuMe will handle the ad serving. No details were provided on the estimated number of ads nor the financial terms of this new relationship. YuMe currently reports 46 million monthly unique visitors.
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Support Grows for Green Plug Universal Power Adapter
COMPUTERWORLD
A technology that could help the environment by eliminating the need to ship a power adapter with every electronics device got a vote of confidence from consumer electronics maker Westinghouse Digital Electronics LLC. Westinghouse on Friday said it had committed to using a “smart power” technology developed by start-up Green Plug Inc. that aims to let people use a single “universal adapter” to power their laptops, cell phones and other electronics gear. Most products today ship with a custom adapter that converts AC power from a wall socket into the correct DC power required for each device. Green Plug’s technology allows each device to communicate its individual power requirements to the power adapter, allowing several devices to share one adapter. The technology’s success depends partly on getting support from electronics manufacturers, which will need to embed Green Plug’s firmware into their devices so they can send their power requirements to the adapter. That’s why Westinghouse’s support is significant.
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eBay Opening Up Add-On Marketplace, APIs
WEBWARE
At the eBay Developers Conference this week, the auction company will announce a new marketplace for sellers’ add-ons to its online auctions. Essentially the program gives developers access to all the data that eBay’s existing online app for medium- and large-scale retailers, Selling Manager, already has. Like other online apps that have become platforms, such as Salesforce.com and Facebook, eBay’s new initiative, called Project Echo, will give developers not just access to rich data they can package up for customers, but also a marketing channel for their applications. Project Echo will allow app developers to pitch their apps to just the potential customers they are looking for. For example, if an app is designed only for high-volume electronics sellers, Project Echo will make sure that those sellers get queued up to see pitches for the app; other sellers won’t be bothered with it.
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Meraki’s Free Wi-Fi Starts to Thrive in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said Wednesday that citywide wireless Internet access is slowly becoming a reality despite political infighting – and that 144,000 residents will be surfing the Web for free by the end of the year at no cost to the city. Standing on the rooftop of a Mission District single-room-occupancy hotel, Newsom pointed to a “repeater antenna” – which looks like an oversized, white computer mouse – and said the devices someday will blanket the city with free Wi-Fi. The devices are made by a South of Market company named Meraki, and hundreds now dot the rooftops and balconies of private residences, nonprofit hotels and public housing projects. Meraki is donating the devices plus free Internet access to any San Francisco resident who wants them. Neighbors within a block’s radius of the device can tap into the Internet for free, too. Blanketing the city is expected to require 15,000 devices.
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Report: U.S. Game Sales Up 37% in May to $1.12 Billion
DIGITAL MEDIA WIRE
Sales of video game hardware and software in the U.S. were up 37% in May from a year ago, to $1.12 billion, boosted by Take-Two Interactive’s bestseller “Grand Theft Auto IV,” which sold 871,300 units during the month, according to data from market research firm NPD Group. Nintendo led hardware sales for the fourth consecutive month, moving 675,000 Wii consoles and 453,000 DS handhelds, compared with sales of 209,000 Sony PlayStation 3 consoles and 187,000 Microsoft Xbox 360s. Despite strong sales of Grand Theft Auto IV — which has racked up 4.2 million in sales to date — this again does not appear to be translating into corresponding sales bumps for the consoles they are played on. So far this year, the industry has tallied $6.6 billion in sales, and is on track to reach $21 billion to $23 billion for the full year.
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AT&T May Charge Top Users More
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONCICLE
AT&T Inc., the country’s largest Internet provider, is considering charging extra to customers who download large amounts of data. “A form of usage-based pricing for those customers who have abnormally high usage patterns is inevitable,” spokesman Michael Coe said last week. The top 5 percent of AT&T’s DSL customers use 46 percent of the total bandwidth, Coe said. Overall bandwidth use on the network is growing, doubling every year and a half. AT&T doesn’t have any specific plans or fees to announce yet, Coe said. Most cable companies have official or secret caps on the amount of data they allow subscribers to download every month. Time Warner Cable started a trial this month in Beaumont, Texas, under which it will charge subscribers who go over their monthly bandwidth cap $1 per GB.
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Digital Challengers to MP3 Format Face High Hurdles
REUTERS
The Motion Pictures Experts Group, otherwise known as MPEG, will meet this month in Germany to consider making a new digital audio format called MT9 an international standard. Developed by the South Korean company Audizen, the MT9 format — commercially known as Music 2.0 — splits an audio file into six channels, such as vocals, guitar, bass and so on. Users playing the track can then raise or lower the volume on the different channels like a producer on a mixing board, to the point of isolating a single item. Its inventors say the new format will replace MP3 as the standard for all digital music. But certain music industry realities stand in the way of their goal. From a technical perspective, replacing MP3 with a new digital music standard would be rather easy. Digital retailers in a matter of months could refresh their entire database with music containing the new format — just as Napster and Wal-Mart quickly switched from digital rights management to non-DRM formats. But to do so, these retailers would need their label partners to provide them with music encoded in the new format, meaning that all the major labels and the host of independents would need to one day agree to start using a new technology to sell their music.
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Jivox Gets Another $10.7 Million Funding for DIY Online Video Ads
MASHABLE
Jivox, which provides a do-it-yourself online video platform, has raised $10.7m in a Series A funding round led by Opus Capital. Returning backers and new investor Helion Venture Partners also took part in the round, which adds to a $2.7m seed funding round in March. Founded in California last year and launched in Mar this year, Jivox’s automated platform and ad creation tools lets advertisers design and place online video ads onto its network of publisher sites. Ads can be in-stream and support Adobe’s Flash player and Windows Media player. Jivox claims that publishers keep full control over what types of ads are displayed on their site and how often they show. Meanwhile, advertisers can target their ads by location, demographic profiles and other contextual factors.
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Blog Search Engine Technorati Raises $7.5 of $10 Million Fourth Round
PE HUB
Technorati Inc., a San Francisco-based search engine for the blogosphere, has called down $7.5 million of a $10 million Series D round, according to a regulatory filing. Return backers include Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Mobius Venture Capital and FG Incubation, operator of Technorati Japan. Technorati has now raised over $30 million in VC funding.
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Tags: Adobe, Austin Ventures, Bain Capital, Boston, Cisco, DRM, EBay, EMC, Entrepreneur Media, ESPN, EyeReturn Marketing, F.C.C., Facebook, FCC, Google, HBO, Helio, ISP, Jivox, Microsoft, Music, Napster, NBC, NBCU, Nintendo, Salesforce.com, SEC, Seed, Series A, Sony, Student Sports, Technorati, Time Warner, Torstar Digital, Turn, U.S., VC, Venture Capital, Video, Wal-Mart, Weather Channel, Wi-Fi, Wii, Yahoo, YuMe