Kentucky.com: Business - Wire
News, sports and entertainment from Kentucky.com

• Execs: Web ad spending should be higher
  Online advertising jumped 25 percent this year, raking in a cool $20 billion, but Internet executives say that figure could have been even higher if advertisers had reliable and consistent ways to measure online audiences.Unlike traditional media, where each format has one main ratings provider - The Nielsen Co. for television, Arbitron Inc. for radio and so on - there are many sources of data on online audiences. And they frequently conflict.Disagreement also continues over which criteria best gauge users' potential interest in a product or service. And the resulting data aren't easily comparable to ratings in other media anyway.It's a "problem of plenty," as Manish Bhatia, president of global services for Nielsen Online, a unit of The Nielsen Co., told a recent conference on online audience measurement.Web publishers are frustrated that the lack of cohesion is holding them back from capturing more of the $250-billion-a-year U.S. advertising pie, especially given the huge amount of time people spend online.
• Fed taking on abusive lending practices
  People taking out home mortgages may gain new protections soon against shady lending practices as the Federal Reserve seeks to back even the riskiest borrowers, already hit hardest by the housing and credit crunches.Rules expected to be proposed Tuesday would apply to loans made by all types of lenders, including banks and brokers. The plan from the Fed, which has regulatory powers over the nation's financial system, could be finalized next year. The effective date would be know then.The Fed is considering:-barring lenders from penalizing subprime borrowers - those with spotty credit or low incomes - who pay their loans off early.-forcing lenders to make sure that borrowers, especially subprime borrowers, set aside money to pay for taxes and insurance.
• Writers propose independent negotiations
  Faced with the indefinite suspension of negotiations, the union representing striking Hollywood writers told its members Saturday it would try to deal directly with Hollywood studios and production companies, bypassing the umbrella organization that has been representing them.The news was welcomed by the company that produces David Letterman's "Late Show," which said it hoped to broker a deal that would put the talk show host and his writers back to work.Talks broke off Dec. 7 after the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios, insisted it would not bargain further unless the Writers Guild of America dropped proposals that included the authority to unionize writers on reality shows and animation projects.Both sides in the strike, which began Nov. 5, have said the central issue is compensation for programs, movies and other content streamed or downloaded over the Internet."As you know, the AMPTP is currently unwilling to bargain with us," the guild said in a letter delivered to its members Saturday. "The internal dynamics of the AMPTP make it difficult for the conglomerates to reach consensus and negotiate with us on a give-and-take basis. We believe this multi-employer structure inhibits individual companies from pursuing their self-interest in negotiations."
• Investors await earnings, housing data
  This week's data on investment bank earnings, the housing downturn and inflation will help investors decide how the economy and corporate America are faring as they head into the new year.Wall Street hit a few snags last week: the tools in the Federal Reserve's arsenal look as if they may not be sufficient to battle the credit crisis, and inflation appears to be accelerating, which could prevent further rate cuts.Last week, the Dow ended 2.10 percent lower, the Standard & Poor's 500 index finished down 2.44 percent, and the Nasdaq composite index ended down 2.60 percent.Goldman Sachs reports its fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley reports on Wednesday and Bear Stearns reports on Thursday. Wall Street anticipates Goldman to have performed well this quarter, as it did in the third quarter, but expects big credit losses to hurt Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns.In other earnings this week, Best Buy Co., Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. and Palm Inc. report on Tuesday; General Mills Inc. reports on Wednesday; Discover Financial Services, ConAgra Foods and Research in Motion Ltd. report on Thursday; and Circuit City Stores Inc. and Walgreen Co. report on Friday.
• NYC hotel boom could ease room shortage
  While planning her vacation to New York, Lisa Werness was so horrified by the prices in Manhattan that she opted for cheaper lodging in Brooklyn - where she scored a room rate of just $400 a night. "Don't remind me. I'm trying to forget about it," the Raleigh, N.C., resident said of the price shortly after checking in at the New York Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge. "We're just kind of biting the bullet."In a city where even residents often pay more than half their salaries for a place to lay their heads, visitors in need of lodging have long faced a shortage of hotel rooms and rising prices.Now, with 8,500 hotel rooms under construction in the city - a growth of more than 10 percent - that crunch could ease ever so slightly in the coming months. By comparison, it took from 1998 to 2007 to make a leap of the same size."One of the challenges that New York has always had is having enough rooms for tourists," said Sean Hennessey, CEO of industry consulting firm Lodging Investment Advisors. "Most of the time the corporate travelers are willing to pay more than the tourists, and the tourists kind of get crowded out."New York sees more overseas and domestic visitors than any other U.S. destination except Orlando, Fla., according to analysts at Global Insight Inc. But it has fewer hotel rooms than less-popular spots including Las Vegas, Chicago, the Los Angeles metro area and Atlanta, according to Smith Travel Research.
• New 'Great Game' for Central Asia riches
  The driver of the 18-wheel tractor-trailer from China idling at the Kazakhstan-China border said apples were the cargo he brought to Almaty, Kazakhstan's booming commercial center.For Kazakhs, there's a tart irony in the shipment.Almaty's region is where the first apple trees were found and the first apple orchards planted. The city was a center of the Soviet Union's s fruit industry. Its very name means "Father of Apples."In the past few years, Chinese fruit, vegetables, TV sets, T-shirts and tires have flooded markets along the old Silk Road in former Soviet Central Asia. Each day, all along the Chinese border, hundreds of tractor-trailers rattle west.These goods are the most visible sign of Beijing's growing power here as China, Russia, the United States and others compete for financial and strategic advantage on the borders of some of the world's most turbulent countries - Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Whiskey maker George Dickel caught short
  One item may be missing from holiday parties this year: George Dickel Whisky No. 8. It's scarce because the Dickel distillery shut down production from 1999 to 2003, trying to reduce inventory of the Tennessee sippin' whiskey. It worked.And since whiskey must age, it's too early for a new batch.Dickel has taken out ads in several newspapers, apologizing for the shortage. The ad blames the situation on "an incredible surge in demand for George Dickel No. 8," but it's been known for years that the shortage was coming.Other Dickel brands - Superior No. 12, Barrel Select and Cascade Hollow Batch - are still available.Diageo PLC, the British beverage giant that owns Dickel, declined to provide production figures, citing competitive reasons. Dickel is one of only two brands of Tennessee whiskey, but it is a distant second to better-known Jack Daniel's, which ranks among the world's best-selling liquors.
• Retailers look to last-minute shopping
  With Christmas a little more than a week away, many stores are finding themselves in the same predicament as in recent years: waiting for those last-minute shoppers who seem to be procrastinating even more than a year ago.Based on early reports from analysts and malls, sales results were generally unimpressive this past weekend, as shoppers were held back by a snow storm that spread a mix of sleet, freezing rain and snow from the Great Lakes states to New England. Consumers, fretting about economic worries, were also delaying their shopping even more this year, knowing there's a full weekend before Christmas, when the bargains will be even better.Meanwhile, for online retailers, which finished their busiest days last week, their fate appears to be already sealed: holiday sales didn't live up to industry's hopes as lower-income shoppers pulled back on spending amid a housing slump. ComScore Inc. reported on Sunday that online sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 14 rose 18 percent, below the 26 percent growth rate seen in the year-ago period and below the 20 percent projection for the season."This holiday season at this point has been disappointing, whether they're brick an