Well, at least no one outside Houston and Chicago watched

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Backe.jpgThe White Sox’s four-game World Series sweep over the Stros generated the lowest television ratings on record for the Series, and resulted in the Fox television network not meeting its ratings guarantees to sponsors. The World Series averaged about 17.2 million viewers and drew a record low rating of 11.1 (A rating point represents approximately 1.1 million homes), which is a 30% decline from the 25.4 million viewers and 15.8 rating that the Boston Red Sox-St. Louis Cardinals Series averaged last season.
Frankly, the numbers aren’t particularly surprising. Neither the White Sox nor the Stros have a national fan base such as Fox enjoyed in last season’s Series with the Red Sox. Moreover, the Stros’ Roger Clemens — who pitched a total of two innings — was the only well-known star in the Series. Finally, comparing ratings from recent Series with those of even more than five years ago can be a bit similar to comparing apples and oranges. The increase in television entertainment choices has diluted ratings for all special programs such as the Series, reflected by the fact that the ratings for this Series were still 50% higher than the prime time average of NBC, CBS and ABC combined this season. Interestingly, Fox was still able to charge $350,000 for each 30-second commercial spot this season, which was up from $330,000 it charged last season.

Former Seitel CEO sentenced

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seitel.gifThe former CEO of Houston-based geophysical seismic company Seitel, Inc. — 58 year old Paul Frame, Jr. — was sentenced today in federal court to over five years in federal prison for converting $750,000 from the company to fund a settlement of a civil lawsuit filed by a former fiancee. Here are previous posts on Seitel and Mr. Frame’s case, and here is the Chronicle story on the sentencing.

Unconstructive criticism

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David_Carr getting hit.jpgKevin Whited over at blogHouston.net is one of the most insightful local bloggers on matters relating to football. In this post, he observes that John McClain — the Chronicle’s main beat writer on the National Football League for many years — is a rarity among Houston media types in now suggesting that Houston Texans owner Bob McNair ought to fire General Manager Charlie Casserly along with Texans Head Coach Dom Capers for the Texans’ miserable 0-6 start to the 2005 season. Kevin notes that Mr. McClain’s criticism of Mr. Casserly is unusual in comparison to the normally fawning treatment that most local sports media types give to the personable and media-savvy Texans General Manager.

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Reflections on the 2005 World Series

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White Sox celebrate.gifWell, for Stros fans, the end of the 2005 World Series certainly did not turn out not to be as fulfilling as the ride to get there.
Nevertheless, the past two days have been a ton of fun and filled with exciting, nailbiting baseball. This was not your typical World Series sweep as each of the four games went down to the wire and could have literally gone either way. The White Sox are the better team overall and clearly deserve to be World Champions, but the Stros certainly made them earn it.
Interestingly, the first 24 innings of the Series generated more runs than expected from these two relatively weak hitting and strong pitching clubs — the Sox scored 17 runs and the Stros 13. However, the final innings of the Series reverted to the expected form — the White Sox scored a total of 3 runs in their final 18 innings, yet won Games 3 and 4 because the Stros scored only 1 run on 6 hits (four singles and two doubles) in their final 19 innings. In the end, the Sox slightly superior bullpen depth and better overall hitting performance in the Series was the difference.

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“Uh, remember that hurricane damage? Never mind”

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thunderhorse3.jpgGiven what I endured last night, I’m in the mood for some disaster news.
As noted in this earlier post, BP Global had been going through a difficult stretch earlier this year when Hurricane Dennis (remember that one?) apparently caused the near total collapse of its huge $1 billion Thunder Horse Drilling Platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
Well, never mind about that hurricane excuse.
BP has announced that the collapse was the result of “human error” rather than damage from the hurricane:

“After a thorough investigation, we have concluded that it was not storm-related, but was caused by a design weakness in the ballast system,” Lord Browne of Madingley, BP’s chief executive, said.

Translation: “Attention insurers! Grab your wallets!”

Light blogging

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blum3_372.jpgBlogging will be on the light side today because I didn’t get home last night until quite late, . . er, make that early.

In defense of urban sprawl

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urban sprawl.jpgRobert Bruegmann is a professor of architecture, art history and urban planning at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he is chair of the art history department. He is also a well-regarded author on the issue of suburban growth and is the author of the recent book Sprawl: A Compact History (UChicago Press 2005). In this LA Times op-ed (free reg required), Professor Bruegmann challenges the conventional wisdom that Los Angeles is the epitome of urban sprawl run amok and that the northeastern metro areas are paragons of sound urban planning:

Los Angeles is not a particularly good example of urban sprawl. Take the part about being unplanned. The truth is that New York, Chicago and most of the older American cities had their greatest growth before there was anything resembling real public planning; the most basic American land planning tool, zoning, did not come into widespread use until the 1920s.
L.A., by contrast, was one of the country’s zoning pioneers. It has had most of its growth since the 1920s, during a period when planning was already important, and particularly since World War II, when California cities have been subject to more planning than cities virtually anywhere else in the country.

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The Frasier Lawsuit

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frasier_season_one_dvd.jpgIn many respects, investment in an entertainment project is similar to investment in an oil and gas well. Often, individuals involved in putting together such a project negotiate “sweat equity” in the form of a “back-in working interest” — i.e., an interest in the net profits of the project after payment of all expenses of creating and maintaining the project.
The agents involved in putting together the popular Paramount Pictures’ television sitcom Frasier cut such a deal with Paramount and, after the show ran for 11 seasons and grossed over $1.5 billion, it looked like they had made a pretty good deal. When the agents demanded an accounting from Paramount regarding their back-in interest, Paramount responded by asserting that the show had never reached profitability and had actually lost $200 million. Lawsuit ensues, as this L.A. Times article reports.
This type of lawsuit is becoming increasingly common in Hollywood, as reflected by this earlier post about Peter Jackson’s lawsuit over the Lord of the Rings movies. And you thought the oil and gas business was hard-knuckled?
Hat tip to Craig Newmark for the link to the LA Times article.

Wilma devastates Cancun

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cancun-inside.jpgIf you were thinking about a holiday vacation in the popular Mexican resorts of Cancun or Cozumel, then you better start considering other alternatives.
As predicted earlier here, reports are now confirming that Hurricane Wilma devastated the Cancun and Cozumel hotels and shopping areas that are at the heart of Mexico’s tourism industry. Hotels in the area will not open for the Christmas season because of the extensive damage, and early indications are that the area will not be in a position to take on large numbers of tourists until at least Easter weekend in 2006. Marriott International Inc. closed its three resorts in Cancun until at least the end of December and the Ritz-Carlton Cancun said it was closing and not taking reservations until the New Year. The two Hyatt Regency hotels will also be closed for at least a month. Hotel damage in Quintana Roo state — where both Cancun and Cozumel are located — is currently estimated at $1.5 billion.

What really happened at Refco?

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Refco Logo4.jpgThose of us who have been following the Refco case are familiar with the allegations that have brought the big securities trader to its knees in bankruptcy — Refco’s former CEO, Phillip R. Bennett, hid ties to the bad debt to improve Refco’s balance sheet and mislead investors. The theory of the case against Mr. Bennett is that he assumed about $430 million in bad debts of Refco — some of which arose years ago — that let Refco avoid reducing net income and wiping out nearly all of the company’s profits for the past three years. The alleged purpose of hiding the losses was to facilitate Refco’s recent IPO and an earlier deal in which Thomas H. Lee Partners LP acquired a controlling interest in Refco. For his part, Mr. Bennett has denied wrongdoing, and his lawyer has said that his client will fight the charges.
Despite the superficial allure of criminal charges against crafty businessmen, I remain skeptical of criminal cases against anyone until I truly understand them, and the post-Enron era of the government playing to the public’s resentment of wealthy business executives has only reinfored my skepticism. So, I continue to look for a coherent explanation of the details behind the government’s above-described theory of the case against Mr. Bennett, and this NY Times article comes closest to date of actually breaking down the transactions on which the government’s indictment of Mr. Bennett is based. However, even the Times’ explanation is not clear:

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