BARRON's Avi Salzman noted Guggenheim analyst Michael Morris yesterday "upgraded" Disney's stock to a "buy." Morris thinks that "pessimism about ESPN may be overplayed." He noted that "every new service offering smaller bundles of channels (in lieu of cable) has agreed to carry ESPN" (BARRONS.com, 3/14). CNBC's Jim Cramer last night said of the stock, "You buy a little bit of Disney every year. Give kids a share of Disney when they're born. ... We can sweat the programming at ESPN all we want, (but) there was a while when we sweat the programming at ABC. What happened? People missed (the stock rising) around 100 points" ("Mad Money," CNBC, 3/14). At presstime, shares of Disney were trading at $111.89, down 0.4% (THE DAILY).
CYBER CRIMES: USA TODAY's Jane Onyanga-Omara notes dozens of Twitter accounts, including Floyd Mayweather’s promotional account, were hacked earlier today in an "apparent large-scale cyber-attack." Many of the hacked posts "were in Turkish and featured a swastika and the hashtags #Nazialmanya and #Nazihollanda" (USATODAY.com, 3/15). NHL Network's account also was among those hacked (THE DAILY).
PLAYING AT THE NET: Tennis Channel's Nielsen Media figures for March show the net "added 7.8 million homes" from last month, increasing its reach to 52 million homes in the U.S. The increase "comes about one year after Tennis Channel was purchased by Sinclair Broadcast Group" in early '16 (BROADCASTINGCABLE.com, 3/14). Tennis Channel became a Nielsen-rated network beginning in January of this year (THE DAILY).
