Industry Moves: Zynga; Fairchild; Emmis; E!; Microsoft; FishBowl; Mesa; Publicis Seattle

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Industry Moves: Zynga; Fairchild; Emmis; E!; Microsoft; FishBowl; Mesa; Publicis Seattle

—Zynga: The FarmVille creator has hired Steven Chiang as president of the development studios, CEO Marc Pincus announced on his blog this week. Chiang co-founded EA-owned Tiburon Entertainment, the studio best known for the Madden NFL franchise. A longtime EA executive, he was most recently SVP and group GM for EA Sports.

—Fairchild Fashion Group: Patrick McCarthy, chairman and editorial director of Condé Nast’s Fairchild Fashion Group and de facto editor of the fashion magazine W is leaving the company at year’s end. He joined Fairchild as a reporter in 1977, rising to chairman and editorial director in 1997.

—Emmis Communications: One we missed earlier this month: Greg Loewen added president of Emmis Publishing to his role as chief strategy officer. The units regional and city mags include Texas Monthly and Los Angeles. Loewen replaced Gary Thoe, who left to focus on his family business, MidCountry Media, Inc. Loewen joined Emmis in 2007 from the Toronto Star, where he was VP-digital media and strategy.

—E!: Former Fox Business Network executive Bruce Perlmutter joins the newly created role of SVP of news and online. He’ll oversee the news division across all platforms, including E! News, Daily 10, E! Online and E! News Now. Perlmutter has also worked as a senior executive producer for MSNBC and CNN.

—Microsoft: Xiao Chen, MSN China’s VP of sales is leaving at the end of March to start up his own company, Reuters reports. He had been with the Chinese MSN venture since it it launched in 2005.

—FishBowl Worldwide Media: Susan Levison has joined as EVP of creative affairs, reporting to President and CEO Bruce Gersh. Levison comes from Fox Broadcasting, where she most recently was SVP of comedy development.

—Mesa: Mesa has opened a London office and chosen Co-Managing Partner Jerome Levy to head it. Newly appointed Managing Director Mark Labovitch will join him in launching the company’s European operations. Labovitch comes from Independent News & Media, where he was group director and CEO of Independent Digital Media.

—Publicis Seattle: Roger Baxter joins the agency as EVP and chief strategy officer. Previously, he was managing partner of Hall & Partners.

Amanda Natividad

@amandanat Mar 19, 2010 1:37 AM ET

Posted In: Industry Moves Roundup

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EPM Software

I like BSNL strategy because its work is provide to segmented.

Amitabh Kumar

The TRAI, whose public consultation paper on the allocation of WiMAX spectrum has recently closed for comments and its recommendations are expected by end of June 2008. However if one views how the government has considered its recommendations on auction of 3G spectrum, it is likely that the DoT will go its own way in deciding the spectrum slots and auction policy.
The latest view of the governement are to invite all bidders , including foreign operators to bid in the auction of 3G spectrum and the bids are expected to run high. This implies giving a very high valuation to companies such as BSNL and MTNL ( the later being a listed company) unless they are required to pay at par with the average bidding price. The BSNL and MTNL also getting the 3G spectrum on a similar basis.

There are now two scenarios possible.One is that the BSNL/MTNL are required to pay as per the average bid prices. This could mean a very high cash outflow. In USA the spectrum is valued at $1 per MHz per POP. This gives a vaulation of $1 billion for 10 MHz for a 100 Million population. ( Rs 4300 crores). Even if spectrum in India, the fastest growing mobile market in the world goes at one tenth of this price i.e. 10 cents per MHz per POP, the tag comes to $ 1 billion or Rs 4300 Crores. This is far too high these companies to pay out as cash as they need to pay it for WiMAX as well as 3G and possibly LTE.

This is so as the expanses on rollout of 3G and WiMAX networks also need to be taken into account.

The second scenario is that they are given the spectrum free. In this case they get a bonanza of a similar amount and can help greatly in thier listing prices and ability to raise further funds.