Reporters Notebook

May 9, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I read with great interest today TWICE Editor Alan Wolf’s report that Blockbuster and billionaire investor Carl Icahn may be offered the chance to acquire Circuit City after all.

The big-box CE retailer, apparently, is now caving to pressure from investors to entertain the offer, and Blockbuster reportedly notified Circuit City that Icahn was prepared to purchase the CE chain himself if Blockbuster does not.

The question is this: What possible synergies are at play behind the scenes to motivate such interest at a time when both Circuit ...Read More

March 5, 2008 | Link This | Email this | Comments (1)

According to reports from Japan, Pioneer is finalizing plans to halt production of plasma display panels (PDP) as early as this year due to strong competition and will focus instead on assembling finished television sets.

Instead of continuing to make its own panels, a Reuters report said Pioneer is negotiating to procure plasma panels from Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic), which is the global market share leader in the technology.

The news isn’t that surprising since a number of manufacturers have scaled back plasma-panel production for the past several years as LCD screens have become bigger and cheaper to p...Read More