Free Republic

Date: Tue May 27, 2003 3:05:51 PM America/New_York Subject: NIGHTLINE: What Did We Miss? TONIGHT'S SUBJECT: Four separate attacks in Iraq yesterday, two soldiers killed and nine wounded today. It looks like the security situation keeps deteriorating. Should we have been better prepared? Did we misjudge the situation, or did we just get some things wrong? Actually there's a tougher question there, was some intelligence ignored or shaped to support a particular point of view? ---- Things aren't working out exactly according to plan. Post-war Iraq is proving to be a much tougher problem in many ways. It certainly appears...

EZ-D Will Feature Titles From Buena Vista Home Entertainment Including The Recruit, The Hot Chick, 25TH Hour, Frida & Signs NEW YORK, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Flexplay Technologies, Inc, a privately held company based in New York, today announced that Buena Vista Home Entertainment Division of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS - News) will use its flexible play DVD technology to make movies available to consumers in test markets beginning this August. The introduction of this innovative product, branded "EZ-D," will include BVHE titles The Recruit, Rabbit Proof Fence, The Hot Chick, 25th Hour, Heaven, Equilibrium, Frida and Signs....

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - This disc will self-destruct in 48 hours. That is the warning The Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS - news) will issue this August when it begins to "rent" DVDs that after two days become unplayable and do not have to be returned. Disney home video unit Buena Vista Home Entertainment will launch a pilot movie "rental" program in August that uses the self-destruction technology, the company said on Friday. The discs stop working when a process similar to rusting makes them unreadable. The discs start off red, but when they are taken out of the package, exposure...

Members of the DC Chapter were invited by Nightline to participate in a town hall meeting on the pending war with Iraq because, as we were told, they didn't want the audience in the show to be taken over by those against the war. We were told that they wanted the audience to represent the national trend in the country, which is currently 65-35 in favor of the President's policy on Iraq. What we experienced during the hour and forty-minute taping was the exact opposite of what we had been led to believe. The show started out balanced. The questions...

ABC asked to reduce prime time By DOUG HALONEN David Barrett, who heads the company that has the most ABC affiliates in the country, has a message for the network: Slash your prime-time schedule from 22 hours a week to 15 so his stations can make some decent money. "I would love to see the networks cut back to 15 [hours a week]," said Mr. Barrett, president and CEO of Hearst-Argyle Television, at a financial seminar hosted by Bear Stearns in Washington last week. Mr. Barrett has already had discussions with ABC suggesting that it return to affiliates the 10...

Winnie the Pooh Ruling Wallops DisneyIn a major setback to the Walt Disney Co. in the long-running Winnie the Pooh royalties case, a California appellate court Wednesday let stand potentially devastating jury instructions. Disney appealed an August 2001 order by L.A. Superior Court Judge Ernest Hiroshige imposing sanctions because it destroyed documents, including a filed marked "Pooh-legal problems." Hiroshige's order stated that a jury could be told as a fact that Disney willfully suppressed evidence. He also ruled deceased Disney employee Vincent Jefferds said the Slesinger family -- the plaintiffs -- would be paid royalties on video cassettes. Finally, the...

November 11, 2002 CNN's Parent May Postpone News Merger With ABCBy BILL CARTER and JIM RUTENBERG egotiators of the proposed merger between CNN and ABC News reported extensive progress late last week and predicted that an agreement in principle could be in place as early as January. But as the negotiators pushed ahead, new questions arose over whether the leadership of CNN's parent, AOL Time Warner, would delay any deal as it coped with other issues roiling the company. AOL Time Warner has been buffeted by a series of crises in the past year, including management changes, and it...