Capital Cities Abc Inc

Capital Cities/ABC Inc., parent company of ABC, posted operating income 44% higher during the first quarter. ABC, the only network to increase its ratings during the 1992-93 prime-time season, also returned to profitability. On Monday, ABC announced its fall lineup, replacing eight hours of its 22-hour weekly schedule. In recent years, ABC has been the top-ranked network among adults age 18 to 49, whom advertisers pay a premium to reach.

Actor Dustin Hoffman, who last week won a $1.5-million lawsuit against Los Angeles Magazine, said Monday that the image used by the magazine could have damaged his reputation. "The industry knows there's a certain plane of entertainers who don't do American commercials," Hoffman, 61, said at a news conference in Century City. "I would have guessed if it was someone else, 'Why is that person doing commercials? Has it come to that?'

Capital Cities-ABC Inc. will have to pay Food Lion only $315,000 rather than the $5.5-million jury award for a hidden-camera expose that accused the grocery chain of selling rat-gnawed cheese and rotting meat, a federal judge ruled. In a 34-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Carlton Tilley of Raleigh, N.C., gave the company 14 days to accept the reduction or face a retrial of the punitive damages phase of the trial.

Capital Cities-ABC Inc. said Monday that its first-quarter profit dropped 28.8% from a year ago as a weak advertising market helped send the company's revenue down 13%. The ABC television network posted an operating loss in the quarter in contrast with a small profit a year ago, and operating earnings were down significantly at the company's eight TV stations.

Walt Disney Co.'s acquisition of Capital Cities/ABC Inc. will come up for a Federal Communications Commission vote at the agency's meeting Feb. 8. . . . French Cosmetics giant L'Oreal has extended its offer for Memphis, Tenn.-based Maybelline Inc. to Feb. 9 to give the Justice Department more time to complete its antitrust review.

Capital Cities/ABC May Lay Off 200: Capital Cities/ABC Inc. is expected to lay off about 200 people, mostly at ABC, sources at the company say. ABC News has been conducting an internal study of its news-gathering costs that could lead to cutbacks that include bureau closings. CBS and NBC recently announced bureau cutbacks.

Capital Cities/ABC Inc. Buys Chunk of Software Firm: In exchange for a minority position in Alpha Software, the media company will provide advertising on its television and radio stations as well as in its newspapers and trade magazines. Alpha is the first software company that Capital Cities has invested in. Alpha is known for the Bravo graphics and multimedia software.

In a landmark merger that creates the largest entertainment company in the world and promises to quicken the realignment of Hollywood, the Walt Disney Co. agreed Monday to buy Capital Cities/ABC Inc. for $19 billion in cash and stock. The combination brings together the No. 1 television distributor and network and the nation's premier producer of movies to create a one-of-a-kind global powerhouse with combined sales of $20.7 billion.

Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday confirmed rumors for the first time that it is exploring divesting the newspaper and magazine operations it inherited when the company acquired Capital Cities/ABC for $19 billion early last year. The move, which analysts believe will fetch more than $1 billion, had been predicted because the papers and magazines don't fit well with the entertainment and theme park giant's strategy.

At 21, she was Maureen O'Connor Reilly, separated from her husband, a single mother with a year-old son. Having dropped out of a local college, where she had been an English major, she moved back home with her parents and started looking for a job. She answered an ad for a post in the billing department at the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey "but it was filled. They said, 'Well, we have something open in traffic in the radio station.' I figured it was traffic reporting--'I can do that.'

The television networks try to beat each other's brains in nightly when it comes to ratings, but an effort is being made to maintain civility in their war of words. Capital Cities/ABC President Robert Iger sent a message to his staff earlier this week reminding them that their ratings press releases should not attack the other networks. The missive came in response to an ABC release Tuesday on prime-time results for Sept. 16-22, the first week of the new TV season.

It was perhaps appropriate that President Clinton appeared via satellite to address ABC television affiliates here Thursday, since the network's mantra boiled down to a variation on his 1992 campaign theme--in this case, "It's the programming and marketing, stupid." From that perspective, the network's new owner, Walt Disney Co., seemingly accomplished its mission to allay the concerns of stations that carry ABC programming.

ABC television affiliates aren't the happiest campers right now, so what better place to take them than to one of the happiest place on Earth? That seems to have been the logic behind this week's ABC affiliates meeting, the first annual gathering of executives who own and operate TV stations carrying ABC programming since the Walt Disney Co. acquired the network.

Capital Cities/ABC will postpone indefinitely its planned 24-hour cable television news network because the cost of launching a competitor to Cable News Network was too high, network executives said Thursday. The development leaves channels proposed by NBC and by News Corp., parent of Fox TV, as the challengers to Turner Broadcasting System's CNN. ABC officials said their all-news network would have to spend nearly as much as the $800 million that sources say Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Cap Cities/ABC Buys Out Partner: The unit of Walt Disney Co. said it acquired Alameda-based Spectrum HoloByte Inc. in a sports video game venture the two companies formed last year. Terms were not disclosed. The equally owned enterprise, called OT Sports, was formed to develop interactive game software under the ABC Sports brand. Spectrum said it sold its 50% stake to focus on nonsports categories such as simulation, 3-D action and strategy games. Capital Cities Inc.

In the wake of Walt Disney Co.'s recent acquisition, the radio division of Capital Cities/ABC Inc. underwent a shake-up Wednesday with the company's three Los Angeles stations getting a new chief executive. She is Maureen Lesourd, 47, senior vice president of affiliate relations for ABC-TV in New York and a longtime radio executive, who on Monday becomes president of KABC-AM (790), KMPC-AM (710) and KLOS-FM (95.5).