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Liberty Media Corporation ( LMCA ) is slated to release its third-quarter 2014 results before the opening bell on Nov 4.

Last quarter, Liberty Media delivered a huge negative earnings surprise of 80.28%. Moreover, the company's earnings have missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the last four quarters, with an average miss of 11.05%. Let's see how things are shaping up for this announcement.

Factors to be Considered this Quarter

Liberty Media is steadily restructuring its business model, with an aim to control several subscription-based businesses. The company has also started providing cable TV services through its partial acquisition of Charter Communications Inc. ( CHTR ) and is determined to strengthen its foothold in the pay-TV market. Moreover, the combination of Live Nation and Sirius XM should considerably drive revenues and subscriber tally for the company.

On the flip side, Liberty Media's businesses are prone to rapid technological changes. Large cable TV operators are deploying digital TV networks, which are rapidly garnering huge market traction. This may adversely impact the channel positioning of Liberty Media's networks.

Notably, growing deployment of personal video recorders, video-on-demand technology and IPTV network are steadily changing distribution and viewing habits among the general public. Also, stiff competition from pay-TV operators coupled with macroeconomic fluctuations in the U.S. may hurt housing sector growth.

Earnings Whispers?

Our proven model does not conclusively show that Liberty Media is likely to beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate this quarter. This is because a stock needs to have both a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1, 2 or 3 for this to happen. Unfortunately, that is not the case here as elaborated below.

Zacks ESP : Liberty Media's earnings ESP is 0.00%. This is because both the Most Accurate estimate and the Zacks Consensus Estimate are poised at 26 cents.

Zacks Rank : Liberty Media carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) which increases the predictive power of ESP. However, a 0.00% ESP makes surprise prediction difficult.

Original post:
Will Liberty Media's (LMCA) Earnings Surprise this Season? - Analyst Blog

Buying your vote, online. Were just days away from the election, and theres a new battleground, with candidates trying to sway voters on social media.

Social media consultant Trish Moratto said, If you want to earn a new demographic, which is younger voters, you really need to go where they are.

The stakes in Novembers midterm are high: control of Congress. But mid-terms have historically had low turnout, forcing campaigns to get creative.

For close elections like the race for the 7th Congressional District, that means tapping into social media.

Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus are platforms used by retailers to get you to shop for their products. And now, theyre the new battleground for elections.

The social media stuff allows us to interact with people directly, real time about issues that affect their everyday life, 7th District Congressional candidate Doug Ose said.

President Barack Obama laid the groundwork bywinning younger voters and raising money in an unprecedented way in 2008: online.

With 1.3 billion Facebook and 271 million Twitter users monthly, the opportunities are endless.

All the political world stopped thinking about digital as a website and started thinking about it as a tool they could use to win, saidCampaign consultant Bryan Merica.

So, if you feel inundated with phone calls, door knocks or mailers, just add social media to the mix.

Read more here:
Using Social Media to Reach Younger Voters in Close Races

People gather around the wreckage of a car bomb in Homs last week. Isis fighters control up to a third of Syria as well as swaths of Iraq. Photograph: Sana/Reuters

Islamic State (Isis) fighters in Syria claim they have taken control of a gas field in the central province of Homs, the second it has seized in a week after battles with government forces.

The hardline Sunni Islamist group posted 18 photos on social media showing the Islamic State flag raised in the Jahar gas field as well as captured vehicles and weaponry, according to the Site jihadi website monitoring service.

Reuters could not independently confirm the events due to security restrictions.

Isis fighters, who control up to a third of Syria as well as swaths of Iraq and have declared a caliphate in the territories they control, seized the larger Shaar gas field on 30 October.

So after the (Shaar) company and the (positions) surrounding it became part of the land of the caliphate, the soldiers advanced, conquering new areas, and all praise is due to Allah, Islamic State said in the message.

Yesterday they tightened control over Jahar village and the Mahr gas pumping company, and nearly nine (positions) supported by heavy weaponry such as tanks, armoured vehicles, and heavy machine guns of various calibres, it added.

The report said Isis had captured two tanks, seven four-wheel drive cars and several heavy machine guns.

A US-led coalition has conducted air strikes against Islamic State since September. The US says it is not coordinating with forces of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to combat the Islamist group.

Originally posted here:
Isis fighters capture second Syrian gas field in a week

WASHINGTON (AP) The U.S. government agreed to a police request to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace surrounding Ferguson, Missouri, for 12 days in August for safety, but audio recordings show that local authorities privately acknowledged the purpose was to keep away news helicopters during violent street protests.

On Aug. 12, the morning after the Federal Aviation Administration imposed the first flight restriction, FAA air traffic managers struggled to redefine the flight ban to let commercial flights operate at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and police helicopters fly through the area but ban others.

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They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out, said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on.

At another point, a manager at the FAAs Kansas City center said police did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR (temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didnt want media in there.

FAA procedures for defining a no-fly area did not have an option that would accommodate that.

There is really ... no option for a TFR that says, you know, OK, everybody but the media is OK,' he said. The managers then worked out wording they felt would keep news helicopters out of the controlled zone but not impede other air traffic.

The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County Police Department, which responded to demonstrations following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, that the restriction was solely for safety and had nothing to do with preventing media from witnessing the violence or the police response.

Police said at the time, and again as recently as late Friday to the AP, that they requested the flight restriction in response to shots fired at a police helicopter.

But police officials confirmed there was no damage to their helicopter and were unable to provide an incident report on the shooting. On the tapes, an FAA manager described the helicopter shooting as unconfirmed rumors.

See the article here:
AP Exclusive: Ferguson no-fly zone aimed at media

Denis OBrien. Photograph; Dara Mac Dnaill

The Department of Communications will mark Halloween by taking charge of the new dual-notification system for media mergers, as government responsibility for the area transfers from the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to its domain.

Minister for Communications Alex White will make the call on whether or not a media merger is in the public interest, while the new Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) will determine if a deal can go ahead on competition grounds.

The legislation governing media ownership and control was updated earlier this year in Part 4 of the Competition and Consumer Protection Act, 2014, which commences tomorrow.

Whites department is still working on the guidelines that will underpin how the media mergers process will work in practice. These guidelines are expected to address the levels of media ownership that would be regarded as contrary to the public interest.

They may also detail the indicators that will be used to assess diversity - both of content and ownership - in the media sector and determine whether a merger should go ahead.

The guidelines will be published in draft form in early November, the Department says.

They are unlikely to prove too spooky for Independent News & Medias biggest shareholder, Denis OBrien, who also owns the Communicorp radio group. OBrien is officially deemed by the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland not to control INM.

But there are some who find OBriens growing media influence a concern. Communicorp station Newstalk is now the largest supplier of radio news in Ireland after last week signing a contract to provide news to six UTV radio stations. The agreement prompted Samus Dooley, Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, to call on White to cry halt to what he described as this latest threat to media diversity.

In Dublin alone stations either owned by Communicorp or already supplied news by Newstalks syndicated service have a combined market share of 39.1 per cent, while UTVs music stations FM104 and Q102 have a combined 18.5 per cent share of listeners.

See original here:
Media mergers regime change tomorrow