LOS ANGELES, July 18 (UPI) — “Breaking Bad,” “Downton Abbey,” “Game of Thrones,” “Homeland,” “House of Cards” and “Mad Men” were nominated for the Best Drama Emmy in Los Angeles Thursday. …read more
By Jane Levere, Contributor Dan Stevens, the late, lamented heartthrob of the wildly popular PBS series, Downton Abbey, is slumming it these days, portraying a Brooklyn drug trafficker in a new film currently being shot in Brooklyn.
Viscount Timothy Torrington’s story reads like a real-life version of “Downton Abbey,” the hit period drama about the family of an earl who has no direct heir to inherit his title.
Like the fictional character Lord Grantham, the aristocrat has three daughters but no sons. In order for his title to live on in future generations, the 69-year-old has no choice but to pass it to a distant relative abroad, someone he has not even met.
“It’s a sadness in life that my wife and I never had a son,” said the viscount, who lives with his wife in the countryside west of London. “But I suppose I would rather someone inherit it than have it dying out.”
“Downton Abbey” may be set in the early 20th century and its characters may be fictional, but the effects of a centuries-old rule that puts boys before girls are very real to Torrington and hundreds of hereditary peers in modern Britain. It’s still a man’s world when it comes to inheritance among Britain’s peerage, an archaic system of feudal class and power that first took shape almost a millennium ago around the time of the Norman Conquest.
The titles — earls, viscounts, barons, marquesses and dukes — no longer indicate great wealth. But for many they’re still a mark of prestige and social status more impressive than anything money can buy.
Julian Fellowes, the creator and writer behind “Downton,” knows this only too well: His wife, Emma Kitchener, is a descendant of the first Lord Kitchener, the famous imperial field marshal and statesman. She cannot inherit the storied title, which faces dying out.
Most hereditary peerages are bestowed by royalty and can only be passed to sons not daughters — based on the rule of “male primogeniture” — a principle as old as the peerage system itself. If a peer dies with no son, the title will go to a male heir like a cousin or uncle, and if there is no male heir to be found a title could become extinct.
There are exceptions: Some women, like the late Baroness Margaret Thatcher, become “life peers” by the monarch’s appointment, not by inheritance. She cannot pass her title on to her offspring. Among about 1,000 titles that can be inherited, only about 90 may descend in the female line.
Torrington’s title isn’t one of them. His eldest daughter, Hatta Wood, has just had a baby boy — but he, too, is locked out of inheriting the title because male primogeniture excludes the entire female line of the family tree. The nearest male heir is a distant cousin who lives in Toronto.
“It’s unfair to my son,” said Wood, 35. “When he was born, it suddenly felt like I could keep (the title) going down the family line … but it’s going to go to somebody else, a guy in Canada.”
Wood admits that she values her father’s title for its “sentimental value more than anything else.” Unlike the Downton ladies, she has her own career in publishing. Most noble titles are now
From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/W5fHwx7SZuc/
By Tom Gardner, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In the video below, Motley Fool CEO Tom Gardner sits down with Starbucks CFO Troy Alstead during a recent visit to Starbucks headquarters in Seattle. In this portion of the video, they discuss what Alstead believes is one of the biggest growth opportunities for Starbucks: the recent acquisition of Teavana. Alstead points out that tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world, after only water, and is a good complement to Starbucks’ core coffee business.
A full transcript follows the video.
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Troy Alstead: Another item certainly in that top three or four would be Teavana. And tea as a general category, again, with Teavana being a piece of that, tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world, second only to water. Consumed more than coffee is, and it’s in the core, in the heritage of Starbucks. It was part of the original name of our company, Starbucks Coffee, Tea, and Spices, and yet it’s been a category that we have not put enough focus into. We have a fantastic brand in Tazo, but we recognize we have opportunity both through our stores and through the CPG channels and globally to really reignite what tea means to us.
Tea is wonderfully complementary to coffee. If you think about the U.S. consumer, coffee is about that morning experience. It’s get up and go, it’s moving fast, it’s on your way to work, it’s on the way to taking the kids to school. Coffee is more of a morning experience in the U.S.
Tom Gardner: Tea is at four o’clock when you’re watching Downton Abbey.
Alstead: There it is. Tea is a slower, Zen-like experience for people. It tends to skew to the afternoon. It skews to the evening. It skews to the weekend.
Tom: Is Teavana going to be mostly separate locations from Starbucks? Will there be any combined locations or will there be a significant presence inside of Starbucks’ locations for the Teavana brand?
Alstead: Tom, it will be both and more. There’s opportunity to leverage the premium nature of Teavana into Starbucks’ stores, and we will do that. To use the deep capabilities that that Teavana team has around tea sourcing and blending, the wonderful things they do, brought together with our capabilities around beverage innovation, around store execution and to bring that capability into the Starbucks store, and we think add some layers of growth within Starbucks and to help us drive day-parts, which are also a critical part of our strategy.
Another leg of that Teavana growth …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By The Huffington Post News Editors
WASHINGTON — Newt Gingrich walks into a room, still short of breath from the three-flight walk-up that leads to the National Review Washington bureau, and sits down next to bureau chief Robert Costa.
Former House Speaker Gingrich, 69, briefly shakes hands with the small group of reporters invited to the early morning session Thursday. Then almost immediately, he launches into a soliloquy on how his grogginess is caused by his favorite TV show — which just so happens to be an apt metaphor for why the Republican party is in trouble.
“I have to tell you, I’m slightly not awake yet because once again last night we watched an additional episode of Downton Abbey,” Gingrich says. “One night last week we were up until two in the morning because it was one of those, ‘We have to see the next one.'”
Read More…
More on Barack Obama
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Huffington Post
By Deborah L. Jacobs, Forbes Staff
In what could have been a scene out of Downton Abbey, a former servant of onetime-billionaire Eric Greenberg testified in federal court today that his ex-boss was a tyrant, and admitted to sending an email in which he called him an asshole. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Amazon Expands X-Ray to TV, Powered by IMDb and Available on the Kindle Fire Family
Popular X-Ray feature expands to include the top TV shows on Amazon, helping to answer the classic questions – “Who’s That Guy?” and “What’s He Been In?”
SEATTLE–(BUSINESS WIRE)– (NAS: AMZN) —Six months ago, Amazon and IMDb introduced “X-Ray for Movies,” a new feature that revolutionized the movie viewing experience by bringing the power of IMDb directly to movies on Kindle Fire HD. With a single tap viewers can discover the names of the actors appearing on the screen and what they’ve been in. Today, Amazon announced that it is expanding X-Ray to TV, bringing the seamless, fully-integrated X-Ray experience to TV shows. Available today for the most popular TV shows on Amazon, X-Ray will quickly expand to even more shows. IMDb, an Amazon company for 14 years, is the world’s most popular and authoritative source for movie, TV and celebrity content, with more than 160 million monthly unique visitors worldwide. X-Ray for TV is also available as part of the free Amazon Instant Video app on Wii U.
“X-Ray has been one of the most loved features on Kindle Fire HD since it launched last September,” said Peter Larsen, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “For people who are passionate about movies and TV, there is no better way to watch than on Kindle Fire HD, which combines an exceptional viewing experience with the unbelievable power of the over 100 million pieces of data in IMDb’s catalog.”
“For over 20 years we have been cultivating a vast database of movie, TV and celebrity content,” said Col Needham, IMDb Founder and CEO. “Can’t remember where you’ve seen the actor playing Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey? No problem. Simply tap on the screen and you’ll see a full filmography, where you’ll realize that Hugh Bonneville was also in Notting Hill. Our vision is to make X-Ray available on every movie and TV show—we’re excited to make another big step forward today, and we are working hard to add X-Ray to more TV shows and movies in the future.”
X-Ray for TV is available starting today on the most popular TV shows from Amazon Instant Video, many of which are also available as part of Prime Instant Video: Justified, Downton Abbey, The West Wing, Sons of Anarchy, Falling Skies, American Horror Story, Grey’s Anatomy, Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Lost, Glee, Breaking Bad and Game …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Doug Ehrman, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
In the race for supremacy among streaming video services, original content has emerged as one of the critical differentiators that can allow one company to flourish where others flounder. A number of events, capped off with the release of the new original hit series “House of Cards,” has pushed Netflix back to the top of the pack. The stock has already doubled this year.
Before you get too excited, though, it is important to remember that the company’s two biggest competitors are not exactly stagnating. While Amazon’s Prime service and Coinstar’s venture with Verizon , Redbox Instant, have different focuses, they are coming hard for Netflix.
Content wars
Perhaps the single largest battleground on which streaming video services clash is on content; the technology side of the business is another differentiator and an area in which Netflix also excels. Because content is so important, and because gaining exclusive rights to content is so expensive, original content has become one of the most direct ways that video services seek to stand out. After a weak showing from its first attempt called “Lilyhammer,” the company has created a significant buzz with “House of Cards.”
The political thriller represents several firsts in programming: It is the first time a series has had an entire season released at once, has ever been developed with the aid of big data, and that completely circumvented traditional television or cable production release. The show, which stars Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, has been extremely successful for Netflix. While specific user data has not been released, Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos said that nearly everyone who watched the first episode also watched the second and it was one of the most-watched pieces of content on Netflix within a few weeks of its release.
Amazon understands the importance of content as well. Fellow Fool Steve Symington recently explained that CEO Jeff Bezos has explained with usual flair that his company is already spending more than $1 billion per year for content. Its Prime service recently secured exclusive rights to “Downton Abbey,” which is alone anticipated to attract new users. The service is also expected to pilot as many as a dozen of its own original shows in the near term .
The non-content incentives
In an attempt to compete with Netflix, both Amazon Prime and Redbox Instant offer ancillary benefits aimed at making each more competitive. Prime, which costs about $7 per month — less than a standard Netflix subscription — also gives subscribers free two-day shipping on all products offered by Amazon. Subscribers are also given one free book rental per month from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. The company’s strategy is constantly evolving to allow it to appeal to core Amazon users.
Redbox Instant offers subscribers four DVD rentals per month at its popular Redbox kiosks. The service costs the same as Netflix ($8 per month), but users who wish to forgo the DVD access can get streaming only for $6 …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By Adam Levine-Weinberg, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
On Wednesday morning, video-streaming leader Netflix announced the launch of a Facebook app for U.S. customers. Starting this week, U.S. Netflix users will be able to link their Netflix and Facebook accounts, so that their friends can see what they’ve been watching (and vice-versa). The move was made possible by a recent change to the Video Privacy Protection Act, which had previously made it illegal to share such information without written consent from the customer. This new feature was widely expected, insofar as Netflix had already offered Facebook integration in every one of its international markets.
The news sparked a nearly 6% rally in Netflix shares on Wednesday, adding approximately $600 million to Netflix’s market cap (based on an estimated diluted share count of 60 million). However, while Netflix’s expansion of “social” video is a nice feature that will please many customers (particularly the under-30 set), it’s hard to characterize it as a game-changer. Netflix’s valuation already reflects a very rosy view of future growth and profitability. Facebook integration could cause a modest uptick in Netflix’s user loyalty among younger customers, who tend to be heavier social-media users. Nevertheless, in the grand scheme of things, Netflix’s big move on Wednesday simply represented an overvalued stock that became still more overvalued.
How it will work
My Foolish colleague Rick Munarriz recently explained the workings of the new Netflix Social feature. By default, Netflix users who link to their Facebook accounts will be able to see what their friends have watched, and which movies and TV shows their friends like the most. This functionality should nicely complement Netflix’s existing technology for delivering video recommendations. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings frequently talks about Netflix’s ability to deliver personalized viewing recommendations as a significant competitive advantage, and Facebook integration is another step down this road.
What does it mean?
I see Netflix Social as a low-cost, low-risk move for Netflix that may persuade some users to stick around who might otherwise have canceled the service. Improving the user experience is a positive for Netflix, especially with Amazon.com making a big push to grow its Prime user base. Amazon is rapidly building its content library and has won some important exclusive contracts recently, such as the streaming rights for Downton Abbey.
On the other hand, Netflix’s user interface is already well ahead of Amazon’s, so it’s running up against the law of diminishing returns here. Amazon isn’t trying to compete by providing a better user interface; instead, it’s trying to attract subscribers through its lower price ($79 a year for Prime or $39 a year for students, versus $96 for Netflix), its exclusive content, and additional benefits (e.g., free expedited shipping and the Kindle Lending Library).
Netflix Social may provide some differentiation on the margin, but it doesn’t address Netflix’s core problem: its lack of a moat in the streaming business. With competition growing quickly, I think Netflix will struggle to improve its …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
Filed under: Company News, Market News
If you feel left out because you don’t watch the hot TV show that everyone’s talking about, now’s your chance to catch-up.
Have you ever marathoned?
Not the 26-mile race, the new practice of binge TV watching to catch-up on a whole season of a show you missed.
Comcast (CMCSA), the nation’s largest cable provider, will offer 100 TV series — more than 3500 episodes — for free to its Xfinity customers. It’s a one-week promotion at the end of this month, from March 25th through the 31st, that’s designed to get you hooked.
If you do get addicted to some of these shows, you might sign up for some of its more expensive tiers of programming.
It’s also intended to battle the increasingly popular video streaming services from Netflix (NFLX), Amazon (AMZN), Hulu and others. And we’re not talking about 30 year old episodes of “M*A*S*H.” Comcast has deals with all of the broadcast networks, as well as 30 cable channels, including premium ones such as HBO and Showtime. Some of the hot shows that will be available include “Downton Abbey,” “Game of Thrones,” “Homeland,” “Girls,” “Mad Men” and “The Walking Dead.” The promotion also includes some series that are no longer making new episodes, such as “The Sopranos,” “Sex and the City” and “The Wire.”
And you can watch these shows from their pilot episode all the way up to the most recent one.
You can park yourself on the couch for a week, or watch on the go. Comcast customers can also access all of the programs on mobile devices and tablets.
But if you’re a basketball fan, this “free” week could present a big dilemma: it’s right in the middle of March Madness, the college basketball championship tournament that also encourages marathon TV watching. You may need to clear your schedule of everything else so that you can take part in all of the water-cooler talk about TV shows and sports.
By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
Comcast Launches Xfinity ‘Watchathon Week’: The Biggest-Ever TV Catch-Up with Thousands of Episodes from Today’s Hottest Shows, Available for Free
From March 25-31, Xfinity TV Customers Will Enjoy an All-Access Pass to 100 TV Series; Binge on Every Episode of Every Season of Game of Thrones, Duck Dynasty, Downton Abbey, Spartacus, Girls, Dexter, True Blood, House of Lies, Californication, Psych and Much More
Also Catch Full, Current or Most Recent Seasons of Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Touch, The Bachelor, Revolution, The Americans, Portlandia and Many Others
PHILADELPHIA–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Comcast, a global media and technology company, today announced plans to bring Xfinity TV customers an all-access, free pass to the biggest TV catch-up in TV history from March 25-31. With every episode of every season of TV‘s hottest series, like Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey, Dexter, Girls, Spartacus and Duck Dynasty, plus full, current or most recent seasons of Mad Men, Revolution, The Walking Dead, Touch, Chicago Fire, Psych, Parenthood and The Americans, the first Xfinity Watchathon Week will offer a massive collection of content from the best networks never before available for free in one place.
During Watchathon Week, Xfinity TV customers will have access to more than 3,500 episodes of 100 TV series across 30 premium, cable and broadcast networks. Watchathon Week will also offer almost the entire on demand TV libraries of HBO, SHOWTIME, STARZ and CINEMAX, including the critically acclaimed shows that kick-started the TV catch-up phenomenon, like The Sopranos, Sex & The City, Dexter and The Wire. The event will also give viewers a chance to catch up on hit series Game of Thrones, just prior to its third season debut on HBO, March 31. All Video On Demand (VOD)-enabled Xfinity TV customers will have access to this content, and across multiple screens when available.
“The scale of Xfinity Watchathon Week is enormous,” said Maggie Suniewick, Vice President, Video Services, Comcast Cable. “This will be the biggest catch-up ever in TV history, offering Xfinity TV customers the opportunity to binge view the hottest shows on top networks for free. It takes the TV catch-up concept to an entirely new level with every episode of every season of TV‘s best shows, in addition to the tens of thousands of content options already available for free on Xfinity On Demand.”
Watchathon Week content will be available on multiple platforms and devices – through Xfinity On …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
By The Huffington Post News Editors
O’Brien (Siobhan Finneran) will no longer be terrorizing Downton with her conniving ways, and no one is more relieved than Finneran herself.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, the actress went into greater detail about why she left “Downton Abbey,” which she announced her departure from earlier this month.
“I signed up to do three series and that was all I wanted to do,” she explained. “I had great fun doing it but I just didn’t want to do it any more. I decided this before we even did the last series. When I stop loving something, I stop doing it.”
By Prabhat Sakya, The Motley Fool
Filed under: Investing
LONDON — In September of last year, I wrote the article “My Contrarian Picks Are Beating The Market,” which article summarized the performance of my contrarian picks over the past year, noting that their return was around twice that of the wider market.
This was a learning experience for me — I had not expected to beat the market. Whenever you spot such an outlier, you are curious to learn more. Over a longer period of time, will the outperformance continue, or will there be a “reversion to the mean”? So I thought I’d revisit this topic in the following year to see how things have progressed.
So here is my update on my picks:
|
Tip Date |
Company |
Share Price Change, % |
FTSE 100 Change, % |
|---|---|---|---|
|
09/07/2012 |
Barclays |
85.7 |
13.4 |
|
14/05/2012 |
Resolution |
23.0 |
16.7 |
|
14/05/2012 |
First Group |
(8.1) |
16.7 |
|
29/12/2011 |
Barratt |
171.6 |
14.6 |
|
14/12/2011 |
Fidelity China |
26.5 |
18.9 |
|
05/12/2011 |
Admiral |
36.9 |
14.6 |
|
05/12/2011 |
Inmarsat |
48.2 |
14.6 |
|
05/12/2011 |
Kazakhmys |
(38.3) |
14.6 |
|
02/12/2011 |
BMW |
25.8 |
14.9 |
|
23/11/2011 |
BSkyB |
20.5 |
24.1 |
|
23/11/2011 |
Aviva |
28.5 |
24.1 |
|
23/11/2011 |
BP |
2.6 |
24.1 |
|
17/11/2011 |
ITV |
84.2 |
17.6 |
|
17/11/2011 |
Vedanta |
(12.0) |
17.6 |
|
Average |
35.4 |
17.6 |
In the original article, my picks’ performance was impressive: They were up 16%. They are now up by nearly 36%. My contrarian picks are continuing to beat the market, with a return that is double that of the FTSE 100. And if you add the dividend yield to these numbers, the outperformance is even greater.
Let’s focus on some of the best performers:
Barclays
Barclays was the classic contrarian play. Take a situation where financials are seen as the most unloved, unwanted shares around. Throw in the eurozone crisis and then add the LIBOR rate-fixing scandal. It is a recipe for a share to be totally trashed. But contrarians know this is precisely the time to buy.
Since last summer Barclays has made an impressive comeback, nearly doubling in price. Chief Executive Anthony Jenkins is making substantial progress in sorting out its troubles. And the good news is: I see Barclays as a long-term investment that will continue to increase in price for many more years.
Barratt Developments
I remember a year ago that investing in homebuilders seemed out of the question. We were in the depths of the property slump, and there seemed to be no end in sight to the gloom.
Of course, this meant it was the time to buy rather than sell. Those brave enough to have bought Barratt Developments then would, by now, have nearly tripled their money.
Could the shares increase further? Absolutely. You might be surprised to hear that, even now, Barratt is only at 20% of its all-time high.
ITV
So, no one’s watching TV anymore? Of course, people still are. The nature of television has evolved, with a wide variety of programming available from Sky, Virgin, BT, and Freeview.
But despite the naysayers, ITV has been holding its own, and Adam Crozier‘s turnaround of the U.K. broadcaster is working a treat. The company still puts out hugely popular television, which ranges from “Downton Abbey” and “Coronation” Street to the “X Factor.” The shares have nearly doubled in value.
Foolish final thoughts
It’s been an exceptional year for contrarian investing. I can’t guarantee that 2013 will be anywhere near as good, but I am hopeful that contrarian investing will still produce decent returns.
If Ben Graham invented …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance
In the early part of the 20th century, it was unusual to see women behind the wheel. But as viewers of Downton Abbey know, that began to change during World War I, when women were permitted to do things previously deemed “unseemly”. Case in point: Gertrude Stein learned to drive so she could deliver hospital supplies to the French military (though… …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at The Car Connection
LONDON, March 1 (UPI) — British actress Siobhan Finneran says she won’t return for Season 4 of “Downton Abbey” on which she plays Lady Grantham’s mischievous maid Sarah O’Brien.
By The Huffington Post News Editors
ABC has cast “Kings” star Chris Egan in its modern horror pilot “Gothica,” according to The Hollywood Reporter. Egan will play the iconic Dorian Gray, the literary creation of Oscar Wilde who was the focus of the 1890 novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray.”
“Gothica” is being described as “a sexy, gothic soap set in the present day that weaves together a mythology that incorporates the legends of Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein and Dorian Gray, among others.” Egan’s character is described as “a beautifully charming and devastatingly sexy man with a smile like a switchblade. He’s an enigmatic playboy who develops a relationship with Grace Van Helsing and attempts to help her figure out who killed her family.”
The high-concept ABC pilot has also cast British “Eastenders” star Tom Ellis as Victor Frankenstein, “a brilliant doctor who’s trying to find a way to bring his late daughter, Anna, back to life.” Although the character is married to Madeline Usher, THR reports that he, too, has a past with Grace Van Helsing and is in love with her. Ellis was recently rumored to be on the shortlist to join “Downton Abbey” for a major role involving Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery).
By Eve Kaplan, CFP(R) Practitioner, Contributor
I’m hooked on Downton Abbey. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By The Huffington Post News Editors
As Season 3 of the acclaimed and addictive Masterpiece series Downton Abbey draws to its climactic close this Sunday, Feb. 17, many viewers are likely to go into withdrawal: No more sumptuous castle interiors, dramatic goings on in the servants’ hall, highly competitive cricket matches, or aristocratic garden parties. Don’t fret. Take some time this summer to vacation in England or Wales, where you can not only tour the regal Highclere Castle, on the Berkshire-Hampshire border where the series in filmed on location, but you can also indulge in some of the very same activities that the Crawleys and their guests enjoy.
By Victoria Pynchon, Contributor
If you think the 20th century’s teen years look an awful like those of the 21st – massive technological change and fault lines breaking open between the one and the 99% – you’re quite right. In the most recent season of the rare PBS hit, Downton Abbey the British aristocracy is reeling from post-World War I modernization. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
The first thing to do is to admit that I’m a Downton Abbey fan. In fact, I’ve watched every episode twice. But in my defense, I counterbalance my Downton viewings with at least one hour spent with my chainsaw for every hour tuned into Masterpiece Classic. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
