The State’s Budget, Economy, Redistricting and the GOP Race for President on ‘Arkansas Week’

Arkansas Week on AETN

Tonight

I’m back on AETN’s “Arkansas Week,” which airs at 8 p.m. tonight, along with host Steve Barnes, KUAR-FM’s Malcolm Glover and Doug Thompson of the northwest Arkansas edition of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

On the docket: legislators angle to fill two holes in the state budget, the latest on Arkansas’ economy, a lawsuit over redistricting, Gov. Mike Beebe weighing in on the severance tax, and this week’s GOP match-up in Florida.

You wait until tonight, or catch it online here later this afternoon.

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Ron Johnson Begins the Retail Revamp at JC Penney

See that image above? That’s former Apple retail store chief Ron Johnson’s full-page ad in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, and it heralds a new era for JC Penney, the lagging department store chain Johnson now leads as CEO.

From The Associated Press:

Johnson, who joined the company’s board in August, already has put his stamp on the retailer. He has tapped former colleagues at Apple and Target to join him at Penney. That includes Target’s top marketing executive Michael Francis to be Penney’s president.

Johnson also is borrowing from the playbook of Apple, which shuns discounting and focuses on selling products and offering services.

This will be fun to watch.

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Things to Consider About Apple’s Monster 1Q Earnings

Yep. Apple pretty much killed it yesterday. Top line, from its first-quarter earnings announcement:

The Company posted record quarterly revenue of $46.33 billion and record quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion, or $13.87 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $26.74 billion and net quarterly profit of $6 billion, or $6.43 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 44.7 percent compared to 38.5 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

As Slate tech writer Farhad Manjoo noted on Twitter yesterday:

And he’s right. Google’s most recent quarterly earnings report shows revenue of $10.6 billion, with a profit of about $2.7 billion.

Now, just for fun, let’s see how that compares with the world’s largest retailer. In its most recently quarterly earnings report, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville reported revenue of $109.5 billion. Profit was about $3.3 billion.

Finally, Apple’s current rival for world’s biggest company (by market cap), Exxon Mobil: its most recent quarterly profit? $10.3 billion.

So to recap: Apple has bigger quarterly profit than the world’s leading oil company, the world’s largest retailer and the world’s biggest search engine. In fact, it has more profit than Google has revenue.

How’d Apple do it? By selling lots of stuff:

The Company sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

Heck, Apple even sold 1.4 million Apple TVs, which it still considers “a hobby.”

Other fun facts:

Matt Richman notes:

In 2009, Apple sold more iPhones than it did in 2007 and 2008 combined. In 2010, Apple sold more iPhones than it did in 2007, 2008, and 2009 combined. Last year, Apple sold 93.1 million iPhones, slightly more than it did in in 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 combined.

And then there was this yesterday from Verizon’s earnings release, as reported by Bloomberg:

While iPhone sales more than doubled from the third quarter to 4.3 million units, total smartphone sales fell short, signaling waning demand for handsets that run on Google Inc.’s Android operating system, said Walt Piecyk, an analyst with BTIG LLC in New York.

“This is a little surprising during a holiday period, especially given all the marketing around 4G phones,” he said. Total smartphone sales were 7.7 million units, 1.5 million fewer than Piecyk predicted.

So more than half the 7.7 million smartphones Verizon sold were iPhones.

More: Dan Frommer’s excellent SplatF blog has the charts; John Gruber’s DaringFireball has the claim chowder.

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P. Allen Smith’s New Video Series, Part of YouTube Original Programming Effort, Launches

From ArkansasBusiness.com, by me:

A web video channel programmed by eHow Home and featuring Arkansas-based garden guru P. Allen Smith has launched on YouTube, the massive online video website owned by Google Inc.

Smith’s channel, which features video segments on gardening, landscaping, home construction and sustainable living, is among 100 other channels of original content that celebrities and media brands are programming for site and launching this year.

In one video series, Smith and friends plan and build a $150,000 environmentally friendly home in 150 days. Sounds like fun.

Episode one below:

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Andrew Beaujon, the ‘New Romenesko’

From the New York Observer:

Beginning next month, Andrew Beaujon will join the Poynter Institute as a media reporter, filling out the void left when Jim Romenesko quit late last year. Mr. Beaujon is currently the arts and entertainment editor at TBD.com, a Washington D.C. news site.

Prior to TBD, Mr. Beaujon worked at Washington City Paper, Martha Stewart Living and SPIN. He is the author of Body Piercing Saved My Life, a nonfiction book about Christian rock.

I’m sure Beaujon might be a tad irked at the “new Romenesko” billing the Observer has put upon him, given that the former TBD writer points out how his blog will be different from Romenesko’s.

On another note, I remember reading Romenesko’s original Poynter blog before I even understood what a blog was. In the relatively early days of the web (also the early days of my journalism career), the river of aggregated media news and gossip was like crack.

Here’s wishing Beaujon luck. And remember that “the old Romenesko” is still at it, churning out good stuff at his new site, JimRomenesko.com.

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New RIM CEO: No ‘Drastic Changes’ Needed

From TechCrunch:

“At the time, the company was growing but still acting as a startup,” said Heins. “But startup processes don’t scale. Every company goes through that phase. I had the opportunity to learn about RIM here. I don’t think that there is a drastic change needed. We are evolving our tactics and processes. I don’t feel that I was held back in any way to do what I needed to do.”

From PCWorld:

At first, Heins will focus on improving the company’s marketing efforts, which include hiring a new chief marketing officer as soon as possible, and the way it develops products.

“We need to be more marketing driven, and we need to be more consumer-oriented because that is where a lot of our growth is coming from,” said Heins.

Double #Facepalm. And this is just Day One.

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Jobs, the Budget, the Forestry Commission and the Presidential Race on ‘Arkansas Week’

Arkansas Week on AETN

Tonight

It’s the first edition of AETN’s “Arkansas Week” of the year. Auld lang syne and whatnot!

In this episode, Michael Hibblen of KUAR-FM, Dr. Hal Bass of Ouachita Baptist University, host Steve Barnes and myself discuss today’s better-than-expected December jobs report, this week’s better-than-expected Arkansas revenue report, the Arkansas Forestry Commission’s worse-than-expected financial situation and Mitt Romney’s, well, expected win in New Hampshire.

There’s other stuff too, about how Ron Paul is the top donation-getter in Arkansas, even ahead of Rick “Where Dreams Go to Die” Perry, and what that says about where Arkansas fits in this election cycle (spoiler: It doesn’t!).

So check it out, 8 p.m. tonight on your local AETN affiliate. It’s not like there’s anything else good on TV.

(Or watch here online.)

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Video: A Car Crashes into Pizza D’Action, Caught on Tape

Bad decisions, recklessness and regret. In other words, a typical night at Pizza D’Action.

More: Forbidden Hillcrest

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On HBO GO and Cutting Cable

MG Siegler’s open letter to HBO:

I’d gladly pay you upwards of $19.99 a month for direct access to HBO Go without a cable subscription. Netflix charges $7.99 a month for their streaming service right now, but thanks to your original programming, you’re worth a lot more. But Netflix original programming is coming soon, so your premium buffer won’t last forever. The time to strike is now.

If you could remove your lips from the cable company teet for a minute, you’d find hundreds of thousands — and likely millions — of customers happy to pay a premium for access to HBO Go without the cable requirement right now. That number is only going to grow. And fast.

Man, this is something I can totally get behind. All in all, our cable bill isn’t terrible — $130 a month for a Comcast package that includes Internet access and whatever that channel lineup is that’s a step above local channels only, plus HD. But it could always be lower, particularly given all the little channels we never watch.

Meanwhile, we watch something via Netflix streaming nearly every night of the week.

Siegler wants HBO GO now, and heck, so do I — its back catalog of every episode of “The Sopranos” and “The Wire” is worth the price of admission by itself. But I think we’re fooling ourselves if we think HBO’s going to decouple from the cable guys anytime soon.

Still, the existence of HBO GO is good sign, and it provides the company a quick way out should the cable TV environment suddenly change, say, when a certain Cupertino tech company decides to unveil its rethink of what TV should be. HBO GO is a great app, after all.

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Video: A Christmas Wonderland in Sherwood

Add this address – 2008 Covington — to your annual tour of Christmas lights in central Arkansas. In fact, if you’re in Sherwood, you might decide to check out the city display at the old Woody’s Sherwood Forest, then zip over to Covington for the finale. It’s something.

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