Thursday, April 29, 2004
Full Speed Ahead, Captian Nemo... Full Speed Ahead
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea was my favorite ride since the first time I went to Disney World. I was only about 8 when it closed. I still remember seeing it closed when I went one year. It never opened again.
They auctioned off parts of the subs on E-bay about a year ago (the bulk of the subs are sitting in a scrap yard next to Space Mountian) and I never really had any hope they would open it again. But there was talk of opening the sub ride at Disneyland, and if they could do it there...
And now its going to be gone for good. No hope. Nothing.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Comcast drops bid to acquire The Walt Disney Company
From CNN:
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Comcast Corp. dropped its $48 billion offer to acquire Walt Disney Co. Wednesday, citing no interest on the part of Disney's embattled management, but the nation's biggest cable company said it might bid for the assets of bankrupt rival Adelphia Communications instead.
Philadelphia-based Comcast also reported that it swung to a profit in the first quarter, though the results fell short of forecasts on Wall Street.
The dropping of the Disney bid, first announced in February, came as no surprise. Comcast's all-stock offer had been valued below Disney's current stock price for some time.
But it was enough to send Comcast (CMCSA: up $0.60 to $30.57, Research, Estimates) stock up about 2.3 percent in early New York Stock Exchange trading, while shares of Disney (DIS: down $0.53 to $23.65, Research, Estimates) fell 1.7 percent.
"We have always been disciplined in our approach to acquisitions," Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said in a statement. "Being disciplined means knowing when it is time to walk away. That time is now."
Roberts put the reason for the dropped offer at the feet of Disney's management, including embattled CEO Michael Eisner, who received the backing of Disney's board of directors Tuesday.
"It has become clear that there is no interest on the part of Disney's management and board in putting Comcast and Disney together," Roberts added.
Comcast executives said they were pleased with the first-quarter results, despite missing analysts' average forecasts.
They pointed to improved revenue and subscriber numbers for premium products such as digital cable and high-speed Internet service. They said the company is as healthy as it has ever been.
"We told you from the outset we would be disciplined and we wouldn't bid against ourselves," Roberts told investors on a conference call. "Consummating a transaction would have required us to give up substantially more Comcast shares than we originally proposed. That didn't make good financial sense, particularly given these results."
Comcast also said it will move forward with a previously announced $1 billion stock buyback program now that it has dropped the Disney bid. Roberts said some investors had believed Comcast was signaling it wanted to move away from cable when it made the Disney bid, and he said that was not the case.
"We love the cable business. We've never been more bullish," he said. "We know no way to make clearer our confidence (than with the share repurchase)."
And Roberts signaled that the company, which became the largest cable company with its 2002 purchase of AT&T cable, is not done with acquisitions, even though it's dropping its bid for Disney. He expressed interest in possibly bidding for the assets of bankrupt cable operator Adelphia, which were put on the block last week.
"I think as a matter of course we are going to look at new opportunities for growth," said Roberts. "The Adelphia situation did not factor into today's (Disney) announcement. The reality is the world keeps moving forward. We always look at cable systems. I'm sure we'll look at those."
Separately, Comcast reported a net profit of $65 million, or 3 cents a share, compared with a loss of $297 million, or 13 cents, a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by earnings tracker First Call had forecast earnings of 7 cents a share. Revenue rose 9.8 percent to $4.91 billion.
Profits were driven by adding lucrative high-speed Internet customers -- 394,000 subscribers in the first quarter -- and 192,000 digital video customers. The company also reaffirmed its earlier earnings guidance for the rest of the year.
"We continue to make each of our services even more compelling by adding more features and applications that provide more value to our customers," Roberts said in a separate statement.
Merrill Lynch analyst Amy Dickenson upgraded Comcast to a "buy" Wednesday from a "neutral" rating and reinstituted a 12-month price target of $46 for the stock, compared with its current level of about $31.
"In our view, Comcast's action is yet another testimony to the management's financial discipline and we would expect the company to exercise similar discipline should it pursue other opportunities in the future," she wrote in a note to clients.
But Marquis Investment Research analyst Greg Gorbatenko kept his "hold" recommendation in place, saying Comcast is not seeing the growth he had hoped in some products.
"Comcast is finding believers in its cable model. High-speed Internet sales look like they are slowing, largely due to Comcast not really price-cutting to match (phone companies') DSL. Lastly, we continue to wait for them to turn around their telephony biz, which continues to have subscriber loss," he wrote to clients.
I can hardly say that is surprising. Nothing had been said about the merger offer in some time.
How do I feel? Well, although Comcast promised a lot of new investment into the parks I doubt they could have run the parks like Walt or even the current management does. Its just part of the Disney company that only the Disney company can understand. On a larger scale, could you imagine Disney bought out by Comcast? Disney should be buying Comcast! So I'm happy this fell though.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
Geauga Lake Is Opening Soon
A whole week before Cedar Point too. It should be interesting when people start to report the on changes made.
A little while ago they announced the new names of the coasters. Some had to be changed and some remained the same. Batman: Knight Flight became Dominator, Serial Thriller became Tunderhawk, Mind Eraser became Head Spin, Superman: Ultimate Escape became Steel Venom and the Road Runner Express became Beaver Land Mine Ride. The Hurricane Harbor water park became Hurricane Hannah's and the river raft ride became the Cuyahoga River Logging Co. Ride.
Most people were not happy with the names and although I feel they were overreacting to the changes, I also think the people who told them they were overreacting were being insane too. Just take a look if you don't believe me.
Tower of Terror Previews
According to Al Lutz over at Mice Age California's version of the Tower of Terror is open for Cast Member previews and all is not well.
It's shorter then the Orlando version, with only one group of shafts and no 5-D room. The line and entry area to the building isn't as well themed and the 1930s theme is out of place in the modern blacklot section. I won't go into all the details because you can read that on his site. I just want to point out one thing from his story:
you start to wonder just how the general public will react, especially since this ride debuts in such a problematic park to start with.
While it was a very pleasant experience for me, with no lines that day, and as a result of that a second ride that was instantly taken - what will the general public think of such a short ride time? Especially after an hour-and-a-half to two-hour wait to get on it?
Most of the visitors to Disneyland are locals, most never having been to Disney World. Even some tourists have who go to Disneyland have never been to Disney World. How are they to know if they experience is any different from the Orlando Tower? For all they know it is longer and much better than the one in Orlando.
Although they should know the ride is not the best it can be (I hear it is good for what it is though) and if they find out though MiceAge, so be it. But, I doubt they will be storming Guest Relations because it is not as long as the Orlando Tower. I predict success for this ride. I just don't think it can save the rest of California Adventure.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
So Cedar Fair bought Six Flags Worlds of Adventure.
They changed its name back to Geauga Lake after just a few years of operating under the Six Flags name.
Cedar Fair also owns Cedar Point (their flagship park) which is only an hour or so away from Geauga Lake. The only other major amusement park in Ohio is now Kings Island, in the very south. I don't really care about the "monopoly" issues because Ohio parks is hardly something you can take over the industry with.
BUT! That does mean some interesting marketing to been seen from the parks in the future. According to the press releases they will be promoting Geauga as a small, one day, family park and Cedar Point as the giant resort. Maybe even offering combo discounts in the future.
They also are not honoring Cedar Fair season passes (which I have) at Geauga Lake. One could argue that the "cheap" price of the Cedar Fair pass never included Geauga and that they would lose money. However, when they bought Michigan's Adventure the passes were good at all parks. I even had a Michigan's Adventure pass that year, which I got for really cheap, and it was good at all the other parks.
They also choose not to honor a promotion Six Flags held, the "Read to Succeed" program, which gave free tickets to kids who met reading goals in school. The tickets were good at all Six Flags parks but for the people in the Ohio area, Geauga Lake was the only one close to them. There was much backlash and even some local news stories about it.
Some people on coaster websites argued that it could cost Cedar Fair millions in lost admissions. However, at most there might be 100,000 (and most likely closer to 50,000) free tickets in the local area (face it, families with kids who did this program and not coming from accross the country to get one person into Geauga Lake for free) and these kids would not be entering the park alone. They would come with their families who would all buy tickets and other park items.
In the end, Cedar Fair announced they would honor the tickets between May 1 and June 25 only. A wise compromise.
There is plenty of other news and "drama" about Geauga Lake but I will save that for next time.
