The Morning Fix: Zynga’s big plans! ‘Lone Ranger’ saddles up. Rosie’s ratings.
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After the coffee. Before shaking this sore throat once and for all.
The Skinny: Isn’t nice to watch playoff baseball in the afternoon? Wednesday’s headlines include a look at Zynga’s plans to expand and Disney’s moving ahead with its ‘Lone Ranger’ movie.
Zynga grows up. Online game giant Zynga (FarmVille) has big plans to expand and cut down on its reliance on Facebook as the primary platform for its products. Zynga announced plans for four more games and a new site separate from the social networking giant. Zynga previously said it plans to raise $1 billion in an initial public offering. More on Zynga from the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal.
Saddle up! Looks like Walt Disney Co. is moving ahead with its plans to make a new ‘Lone Ranger’ movie starring Johnny Depp as Tonto. The movie was in jeopardy when Disney wanted to trim the budget proposed by producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski. Details from Deadline Hollywood.
Rosie’s ratings. Rosie O’Donnell’s new talk show made its debut on OWN, the cable network owned by Oprah Winfrey and Discovery Communications. As a promotional stunt, the show ran on not only OWN but also a bunch of Discovery’s other channels. On OWN it got just under 500,000 viewers, which was not a strong start. That said, OWN is less than a year old and it is going to take time for it to establish itself, regardless of whose name is on the channel. Ratings coverage from USA Today and the New York Times.
Fouled out. The delay of the National Basketball Association’s regular season is bad news not only for TNT and ESPN, but also the dozens of regional cable channels that carry professional basketball. Although it is impossible to put an accurate number on the financial effect the loss of games will have until after the season starts, it won’t be pretty. More from the Los Angeles Times and New York Post, with the Post focusing on MSG, the owner of Madison Square Garden, the Knicks and the MSG channel.
Hacked again. Sony Corp.’s Playstation has once again fallen victim to hackers with almost 100,000 accounts suspended after they were compromised. Another reason I don’t play video games online and am thinking more and more about living my life off the grid. Coverage from Bloomberg.
Inside the Los Angeles Times: James Rainey on media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement. A look at the documentary ‘Lost Angels,’ which focuses on skid row.
-- Joe Flint
Follow me on Twitter. I help pass the time while you’re on jury duty. Twitter.com/JBFlint
