LA Biz Observed: Invest in 'American Idol'?

Invest in 'American Idol'?

Mark Lacter • Bio • Email

Tonight kicks off the sixth season and of course the ratings will be through the roof. So why not buy stock in CKX Entertainment, which owns 19 Entertainment, the company that produces "American Idol"? Writing in Blogging Stocks, Peter Cohan says the stock is overvauled - and with a P/E of 107, I would tend to agree with him. Cohan also notes a recent bout of insider selling (42 insider sales totaling 1.38 million shares in the last six months, compared with one 2,000 share insider buy). That's not a great sign, and besides, CKX is a strange mish-mash of a company (besides 19 Entertainment, it has the rights to the names and images of Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley and operates Graceland). Yet 19 Entertainment keeps popping up - specifically Simon Fuller, who founded the company and is the mastermind behind not only "Idol" but the Spice Girls. Fuller is said to have brokered the deal to get David Beckham (whose wife is an ex-Spice Girl). Steven Mallas over at Motley Fool is more bullish about CKX than Cohan, but the stock isn't going anywhere - down about 1 percent today. Advises Cohan: "Enjoy 'Idol,' skip the stock."

11:03 AM Tuesday, January 16 2007 • Link
Email or share:

8:33 PM Fri | Eli Broad offers $30 million to save MOCA

4:10 PM Fri | Villaraigosa wants 'emergency' cuts

3:57 PM Fri | Crest Theatre put up for sale

3:38 PM Fri | Reading 'The Maltese Falcon'

12:58 PM Fri | NYT's White House team

Two words: Retail liquidators

4:49 PM Fri | Forget plastics, the real action these days is arranging going-out-of-business sales.

Rags to riches to rags

4:10 PM Fri | Louis Verdad was one of L.A.'s hottest designers, but he had little idea of how to run a business.

Going through 'The Changes'

TJ Sullivan | Without referencing its recent layoff, the Ventura County Star's editor says the suburban LA paper is now "more streamlined and, in many ways, much more efficient."

Lost thunder: BLM preparing to execute 30,000 wild horses

Deanne Stillman | We stripped the Indians of their ponies, and now we're doing it to ourselves.

LA's fire-orange sun

TJ Sullivan | When the sun looks like that, there's a big fire somewhere regardless of whether we see or smell smoke.

Contributors • RSS feed

Innovation chief Abrams not too impressed with Times

Lee Abrams, Tribune Company's chief innovation officer, doesn’t seem too impressed with the Los Angeles Times. That’s the feeling I got when he appeared at the Los Angeles Press Club.