Press Quotes by Peter Kreisky

(pre-2002)

2001
The New York Times (December 22, 2001):
Ted Turner Signs 2-Year Agreement with AOL
"[Ted] Turner [Vice Chairman of AOL Time Warner] may be outspoken at times, but underneath it all he has very sound business sense," said Peter Kreisky, head of Mercer's media practice. "He maintains a treasure-trove of experience and a very sound long-term perspective."

The Economist (December 13, 2001):
Conrad Black�s newspapers: Not so black and white
Economies of scale in the newspaper market are best achieved with the local and regional press. The ideal business model, says Peter Kreisky...is a geographic cluster of regional titles.

Mediaweek (December 10, 2001)
New Era Begins at Hearst
"One of the things [Victor Ganzi]'s going to have to face up to is the future role of Hearst in the media industry, surrounded by giants like AOL Time Warner and Bertelsmann," said Peter Kreisky. "The world in which Hearst competes has changed radically over the last 10 years, and it is time for a fresh assessment of its positioning."

Los Angeles Times (December 7, 2001)
Pittman: Passed Over But Still a Key Player
Elevated from co-chief operating officer to the sole COO managing the disparate businesses within the world's largest media conglomerate, Pittman must make bottom-line sense of AOL Time Warner. "His job is to make the trains run on time, have the divisions work together. Synergy, growth, budget," said Peter Kreisky of Mercer Management Consulting, which counts AOL Time Warner among its clients.

Wall Street Journal (December 6, 2001):
Levin Leaves Corporate Battles to Purse Life�s "Poetry"
Peter Kreisky...said Mr. Levin's legacy [to AOL Time Warner] will be "leaving the largest media company in the world with a coherent business model. That's pretty cool."

The New York Times (December 6, 2001):
AOL Time Warner Gets a New Chief�
"[Gerry Levin's willingness to take a chance...for something [he] believed...], and his success at it, finally earned him respect in the industry that he had long been denied," said Peter Kreisky.

Reuters Newswire (December 5, 2001):
Levin Leaves Quiet AOL Time Warner Legacy
Asked what will be Levin's legacy, Peter Kreisky said: "An effective model and the most powerful media company in the world. It's an amazing legacy.''

Wall Street Journal (November 30, 2001):
Inspired by Martha and Oprah�s Example,
Publishers Envision Magazines as Brands
"In ten years' time, you're going to see examples of brands that originate in magazines where magazine revenues are going to be one of the smallest parts of total revenues and profits," says Peter Kreisky, who heads the media and entertainment practice at Mercer Management Consulting.

Business Week (November 12, 2001)
Where Do Media's Big Dogs Go from Here?
"Having one player [a combined DirecTV/EchoStar] out there with 16 million subscribers tends to make everyone look at their hand again," says Peter Kreisky, a media consultant.

Wall Street Journal � Heard on the Street (October 30, 2001):
After Bid Fails, What�s Next for Murdoch?
"This [the creation of a global satellite platform] is something Rupert has been obsessed with for more than [ten] years," says Peter Kreisky...Although Mr. Kreisky says he thinks it is possible Mr. Murdoch could... forge some [other] content-distribution deal... "I don't see anything as dramatic as forging that last link in satellite distribution." Still, Mr. Kreisky is among those who think Mr. Murdoch may not yet be done with the DirecTV saga. "I think in the long term he'll get what he wants," he says.

The Economist (September 8, 2001):
Trade Publishing: Reshuffling the Titles
Trade publishers are trying to use their specialist brands to sell other services, such as conferences, trade fairs, training, or market research. "Publishers need to migrate from the old single-revenue model to a multiple-revenue model, organised around their customers," says Peter Kreisky. While the idea is not new, the need to apply it is all the more pressing now that ad revenues are drying up.

The Economist (August 11, 2001):
Satellite Television: Another Twist in the Tale
Owning a distribution channel, whether satellite or cable, guarantees an outlet for your content, making it easier to launch new networks, and fortifies your bargaining power over carriage rights. With a global satellite presence, News Corp would be able to chop up and repackage content for different markets many times over. "If you control lots of channels, 24 hours a day, across the globe, the economics change almost exponentially," says Peter Kreisky, head of Mercer's media practice.

The New York Post (March 5, 2001):
Time Stands Still
"The [magazine] industry is far more vulnerable this time," said Peter Kreisky. "The last time around, the infrastructure was sound. This time around, you might see a different industry emerge at the end of the recession."

The Washington Post (February 26, 2001):
BET Tries New Approach to Convergence
Amid declining viewership of broadcast television, �networks are trying to use the Internet to put a giant Band-Aid on what is a gaping wound,� said Peter Kreisky, head of the media practice of Mercer Management Consulting. �Cable channels are in a better position than the networks, but they still have to think about how to take their niche brands and apply them across a whole variety of different media, print, electronic and beyond.�

The Washington Post (January 26, 2001):
Digital Radio Works, But Will It Sell? Marketing Obstacle
The digital future of radio is not guaranteed. "The advantage to the consumer is not as discernible with the wide use of CD players and the like," said Peter Kreisky.

Reuters (January 17,2001):
Gerald Levin: from Time Warner Chief to AOL No. 2
Peter Kreisky...attributed the rise of Time Warner to Levin's vision. "When Steve Ross died, Time Warner had huge strength in individual businesses, but relatively no cohesive force to pull it all together, "Kreisky told Reuters earlier this year. "Jerry emphasized the need to create a globally oriented company with common vision and values."

Business Week (January 8, 2001):
Industry Outlook 2001: Media and Entertainment
�The Internet is being integrated into the thinking and strategy" of established entertainment firms, says Peter Kreisky.

2000
Mergers and Acquisitions Journal (November 1, 2000):
Writing Finis to Mattel's Harsh Learning Co. Experience
Peter Kreisky, entertainment and media analyst, likens Learning Co.'s CD-ROM technology to the "buggy whip" of software because access is rapidly shifting to the Internet. "Mattel invested in yesterday's technology rather than upgrading to tomorrow's" he says. "It then failed to make the investment required to make the transition. Learning Co. is CD-ROM-based and the company had to convert the consumer franchise into Internet franchises." Kreisky warns that the shift is expensive and risky - two issues that Mattel may not have wanted to tackle. He points out that several Learning Co. competitors have been moving to the Internet but none have made any money from it. The Learning Co. that Mattel acquired in fact was the product of a faltering strategy that couldn't keep up with a breakneck pace of change. "At the time of the Learning Co. roll-up, nobody expected that it would be essentially the last buggy whip manufacturer," Kreisky states. "CD-ROM-based software was undermined by the Internet at a speed that nobody anticipated." Aggravating the technology problem was that Learning Co. sells into an entirely different distribution channel than Mattel. "With software, there is a 100% return privilege," Kreisky says. "It was not something that Mattel was used to."

The Economist (August 5, 2000):
Pearson: Scardino�s Way
"The holy grail of the educational publishing business," according to Peter Kreisky, "is to create personalised educational materials." That is what Marjorie Scardino is after. "America has one-size-fits-all education. By marrying our content to NCS's systems, we can start to create a customised educational system," she says.

Sunday Business (UK) (September 24, 2000):
The Street Dithers Amid Crisis
Peter Kreisky...said: "[Consumer spending on the Internet] is a huge market that is being heavily competed for with a lot of different business models. Companies need to define exactly what piece they are fighting for, and the business model through which they are going to make a profit."

Mergers and Acquisitions Journal (May 1, 2000):
Clear Channel Exploits the Synergies Between Radio and Live Events
Peter Kreisky believes that the deal [the acquisition by Clear Channel Communications of SFX] evolved from brilliant insight that there are synergies between radio and live entertainment, in terms of the local nature of both businesses, and real scale efficiencies from having size and national coverage. "One of the great powers in this deal is the ability to cross-promote on a local level. Many people can get national or international scale, through the use of the Internet, for example, but very few can reach the local level in depth," says Kreisky.

Mergers and Acquisitions Journal (May 1, 2000):
Tribune Widely Expands Its Media Coverage
Peter Kreisky...believes that Tribune is making "an intelligent bet" that regulations governing broadcasting property ownership will no longer exist by the time its licenses come up for renewal - in 2006 and 2007..."Those regulations were made in days when the only sources of news information were from local broadcasts...and from newspapers. But today we have many more sources, such as cable and the Internet, so the thought of local monopolies will start to fade away." The real power, he says, is that Tribune has been able to demonstrate that if you combine newspapers and TV stations in the same market, you can achieve awesome operating margins... "That is due to the company's ability to cross-promote and to have your information gatherers and journalists be the same people."

The Scotsman (March 19, 2000):
America�s Paper Tigers Agree Uneasy $6.3Bn Merger
"This deal [the acquisition of Times Mirror Co. by Tribune Co.] is about reinventing local media and moving from being newspaper proprietors to multimedia content proprietors," says Peter Kreisky.

Financial Times (March 14, 2000):
Tribune to Buy Times Mirror for $6.5Bn
"The big picture here [Tribune/Times Mirror merger] is the reinvention of local media," said Peter Kreisky. "...They�re buying some problems. But it's an opportunity not to be missed."

Los Angeles Times (March 14, 2000)
Tribune�s Strategy Seeks Opportunities
by Melding �Old Media� with the �New�
�Tribune, since 1992, has been the leading edge of newspaper companies in terms of its embrace of the new media,� said Peter Kreisky�..�They have a track record of being very respectful of talent in the companies they�ve invested in and purchased.�

The New York Post (March 14, 2000):
�Cereal Killer� Willes Knocked out of the Box
Peter Kreisky noted, �Understanding how to put promotions on the back of a Wheaties box is not the same as knowing what to put on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.�

Upside (March, 2000):
AOL Time Warner: What�s the Big Deal?
"There isn't a copycat deal to be done. Nothing else provides the same scale and breadth," says Peter Kreisky.

The New York Times (January 30, 2000):
Leading Bertelsmann�s Race to the Future
Two weeks ago, "I would have said Bertelsmann was clearly ahead of the pack with respect to the Internet," said Peter A. Kreisky, a consultant who advises media and entertainment companies. "Bertelsmann got it very early on, because of Thomas Middlehoff and only because of Thomas Middlehoff. He [determined to integrate] the Internet as an intrinsic part of every single business." But with...the transformation of AOL into a media rival, Bertelsmann may have lost something indefinable, but crucial, Mr. Kreisky said. "What AOL did was give them a seat at the front of the train, able to really view the track ahead without any filtering," he said. "They were standing next to the driver, and they could see very clearly."

Financial Times (January 25, 2000):
Rivals: Exile on Main Street
[On music company mergers]�This is not a business where unfriendly takeovers make any sense,� says Peter Kreisky� He pointed out that any deal which risked damaging the fragile relations between record labels and their artists would be foolish.

The Boston Globe (January 11, 2000):
For $178b, an AOL Time Warner
Peter Kreisky� said, �It�s a marriage that was destined to happen. It�s an industry defining moment. Their [AOL-Time Warner] merger eliminates the division between old and new media, for good. AOL is the child that Time Warner always wanted to have.�

Financial Times (January 11, 2000)
A New Media World
Some analysts�were betting that sheer size alone should carry AOL Time Warner through. �This will leave everyone else in the dust,� said Peter Kreisky. It was �impossible� to find two companies with similar strengths in their respective businesses. ��AOL is the company Time Warner has been trying to create for years.�

The Guardian (January 11, 2000):
A Media Giant Caught in the Web
Peter Kreisky said: �This is a marriage made in heaven and one that we�ve been waiting for for a long time.�

Washington Post (January 11, 2000):
AOL-Time Warner: A Match for the Media Age
�The magic of these companies is how familiar they have become to the fabric of daily lives,� said Peter Kreisky. The companies have achieved this ubiquity in vastly disparate entertainment landscapes, he said, and depending on what fast-changing course technology takes, it would seem that both companies have entered into a combination of convenience.

USA Today (January 12, 2000):
Where Will AOL Time Warner Take Us?
Still, AOL Time Warner could generate additional revenue�by providing a one-stop shopping service for marketers who want their messages to reach consumers in new and traditional media alike. �Now you can go to General Motors and say, here�s a package across all these media that will reach 90% of your target audience,� says Peter Kreisky.

Business Week (January 10, 2000):
Prognosis 2000: Media Industry
The need to be large is so crucial that in 2000 for the first time, Internet companies may try to buy traditional media companies, says Peter Kreisky. With its stratospheric stock price, figures Kreisky, America Online Inc. may go shopping for a traditional media company to give it exposure beyond the wired world.
(Note: PK was interviewed for this article in December 1999).

Kreisky Media Consultancy, LLC