ross levinsohn

Hulu buyout heats up with four reported bidders

Companies looking to get a piece of the Hulu pie had until this week to put in their first round of bids for the video streaming service. And, it appears that four companies have gone in for a slice.

Former News Corp president Peter Chernin, private equity fund Guggenheim Digital Media (which is headed the former interim Yahoo CEO by Ross Levinsohn), satellite operator DirecTV, and cable operator Time Warner Cable have all put in bids, according to Reuters.

Hulu has supposedly been looking for a buyer over the past couple of years, and recently several companies have allegedly expressed … Read more

Hulu may not be for sale yet, but buyers are lurking

Hulu might not be on the auction block, but that hasn't stopped buyers from expressing interest.

A report from AllThingsD said several potential purchasers have reached out to Hulu's corporate owners, though none have made a formal offer. The site lists Ross Levinsohn, the former interim Yahoo who now works for Guggenheim Partners, as one potential acquirer. Yahoo and Amazon are a couple of others that have "kicked the tires," AllThingsD said.

Hulu, Yahoo, and Guggenheim Partners declined to comment. We've contacted Levinsohn and Amazon and will update the report when we have more information. … Read more

Ross Levinsohn: Marissa Mayer needed 'clean slate' at Yahoo

Ross Levinsohn, in his first interview since departing Yahoo, told Bloomberg he left the company in part because CEO Marissa Mayer needed a "clean slate" and the ability to choose her own team:

In talking to Marissa I think we agreed that you need a clear path, and I think I was pretty well entrenched with the guard that was there. I felt like it was right for her to have a clean slate going forward and if I stayed it probably wasn't the right thing to do. I took a good run at trying to be … Read more

Marissa Mayer enters the Yahoo pressure cooker

Marissa Mayer is in her second week of running Yahoo, going about the business of learning more about the place she was brought in to run -- for a hefty sum -- as she seeks to reinvigorate and refocus a company long described as "beleaguered" and "troubled."

Everyone seems to have advice about how Mayer ought to go about her business at Yahoo, not to mention conduct her personal life. Mayer will face pressure of a different magnitude from anything that she faced during her 13-year stint at Google.

Mayer, who joined Google as a 24-year-old … Read more

Inside Yahoo, word is that Levinsohn's the one

Updated at 4:23 PM ET

Wishful thinking or loose lips? It's impossible to know for certain, but word inside Yahoo is spreading that the board intends to officially appoint Ross Levinsohn as CEO, perhaps as early as next week.

A shocker? Hardly.

The shocker would be if Yahoo's board chose someone other than Levinsohn, who has been the interim grand poobah since Scott Thompson stepped down as CEO this past spring. After a week of leaks floating the names of other possible candidates, Yahoo's board can claim to have done due diligence, and thus avoid criticism … Read more

Yahoo's Levinsohn hopes to prove himself with ad plan, report says

Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn has some ideas on how he's going to improve his company's standing among advertisers, according to a new report.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today, citing sources, that Levinsohn has decided to refocus Yahoo's business on Web ads. In order to achieve his goal, he wants to generate more content and cling to major events like the Super Bowl and Oscars to attract advertisers. One source told the Journal that Levinsohn believes his chances of keeping the reins at Yahoo will rely upon his ability to keep ad agencies interested in … Read more

Yahoo discontinues Livestand

Though Yahoo's Livestand digital newsstand app has been up and running for less than a year, the company has decided to pull the plug on it.

The company announced its decision in a blog post today, saying it has learned a lot about what works and doesn't work with Livestand and is "actively applying those insights toward the development of future products that are better aligned with Yahoo!'s holistic mobile strategy."

The app has earned four stars in the App Store and is one of the first products the company plans to discontinue this year. … Read more

Ross Levinsohn gets endorsement for permanent Yahoo CEO job

News Corp. digital media head Jon Miller is bullish on the odds of his friend Ross Levinsohn becoming the permanent chief executive at Yahoo.

"I would bet that Ross Levinsohn will be the CEO of Yahoo," he said today during an interview at the PaidContent 2012 conference in New York.

"Ross is as good a person as exists on the planet [to run Yahoo]," he said.

The two were once partners in a venture firm, Velocity Investment Group, which was formed after Levinsohn resigned as president of Fox Interactive Media and Miller left his post … Read more

Yahoo interim CEO may need to gear up to be permanent CEO

With Scott Thompson's vacated chair still warm, there's already chatter about Yahoo's next permanent CEO. In a companywide meeting today, Yahoo's new chairman, Fred Amoroso, told the staff that he wanted the new interim chief executive, Ross Levinsohn, to become the company's permanent CEO, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Thompson resigned as Yahoo's CEO yesterday, after his position became untenable because of a scandal involving a false claim to a computer science degree. Levinsohn, 48, was the company's executive vice president before taking over as interim CEO yesterday. Before Yahoo, Levinsohn worked … Read more

iCloud gets a lift

In today's show, Yahoo gets a fresh coat of CEO, iCloud gets a lift and it's IPO week for Facebook:

After four months on the job, Scott Thompson resigned as Yahoo's chief executive. Although he has been in the middle of a scandal about the false statements made about his education, he also is leaving for health reasons. It's been reported that Thompson told the board he's battling thyroid cancer. Yahoo named ad-guru Ross Levinsohn as interim CEO. Levinsohn is the sixth Yahoo CEO in the past five years.

After Best Buy dropped the prices … Read more