Facebook Crashed - Did The World End?

Facebook, the world's most popular social network, temporarily crashed globally yesterday afternoon.
OMG! Who was to blame?
No, it wasn't Chinese chopping into the Pentagon, nor Iranians intent on injuring Israel. *shock*horror*probe* Anarchist digital group Anonymous patted itself on the back and claimed credit.
But why would it wangle such a wicked thang?! No explanation was given...evil, huh?
Here in New Zealand, the site appeared to stop loading and, for a while after it returned, a number of its search and news group functions didn't work. Sinistre...oui?
Over on rival social media Twitter, this caused major multi-lingual melt-down. One Portuguese Twitter user said: "TANGO DOWN by ANONYMOUS LEADER Blame it for global warming and everything else."
Diabólico! Others on Twitter were ever so slightly lighthearted:
"Where were you during the Great Facebook Crash of 2013?"
"Productivity rates just skyrocketed after that Facebook crash". [Methinx a truer word was never written in jest!]
Another wondered if they were personally responsible: "I used status update on Facebook, and now seem to have caused the entire site to crash for the last 5 minutes. MyBad. Sorry."
Mega founder and internet millionaire Kim Dotcom jokingly tweeted that the crash was linked to the American NSA's PRISM programme:"NSA is upgrading Prism capacity on Facebook today. Expect service interruptions on Facebook for the next few hours. :-)"
...meanwhile the rest of us - actually functioning happily in the real world - carried on, oblivious to this global catastrophe! *sigh*

MediaWorks: THIS Is How It's Done

NZ taxpayers may wind up covering MediaWorks' butt. Again!
A restructuring deal may allow it to worm out of a $22 million bill to Inland Revenue. Bankers have put the company into receivership. Those big lenders have formed a new company, and the debt's miraculously shrunk from $700 million to $100 million along the way.
This phoenix-from-the-ashes transition will be managed by receiver KordaMentha. It says under the new set-up a disputed $22m IRD debt before the courts probably won't be paid. That means taxpayers will carry MediaWorks. Again. Just like in 2010, when it scored a $43m govt loan to pay for radio licence renewals!
MediaWorks' most recent financial accounts show total liabilities of $698m, and KordaMentha says the current debt's about the same. It says a disputed debt to IRD before the courts over the use of Optional Convertible Notes is likely to be unpaid: "If it was to come home and be a legitimate debt, it will be very unlikely it will be carried across to the new company." Receivership was chosen as the means to restructure debts that had become unsustainable for Mediaworks: "This is a story about a debt structure that has killed a business."
But wind that thought back to Ground Zero, and one must ask: when a media giant operates two TV networks, and eight nationwide radio networks covering every possible demographic, how could it still not have been able to reduce these debts?
How did its debt grow from $561m (in 2007) into today's $700m? Surely its various repeated financial restructurings would have straightened things out? But no, MediaWorks seems to have performed like the proverbial bottomless pit!
No business can expect to run at such monstrous loss, and still be smiled upon benevolently. Either there've been inept hands at the tiller...or MediaWorks was just too damn greedy. Take your pick: there aren't too many other options.
Meantime, if you want to dodge a $600m bullet, that's how it's done!

MediaWorks Bites The Dust

The troubled owner of TV3 and half of New Zealand's commercial radio stations chomped into the dusty ol' receivership sandwich yesterday.
MediaWorks owes about $700 million - that's from its 2007 sale to Australian private equity firm Ironbridge by Canada's CanWest Global Communications. After more than six years, MediaWorks has struggled to pay even the interest bills!
But managing director Sussan Turner says there're no plans to make any of the company's 1400 staff redundant: "It's business as usual." It's hoped it'll emerge from the receivership in a restructured form, with debts of less than $100 million. So, just how will it either discover a spare $600m or write it off? And with no redundancies? "Our core business is strong and all divisions are trading well. We're confident we can successfully build on this solid platform." She did say no redundancies, right?
A possible new board appointee may be Julie Christie, reality tv show producer (who can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear - see how her tv shows manage to score taxpayer subsidies while not adhering to their original briefs!)
MediaWorks' tentacles extend over the whole country. It operates two TV networks, and its insatiable hunger for every possible radio frequency has enabled it to establish eight nationwide radio networks. It also owns five regional stations, and a new media division, MediaWorks Interactive, that includes 18 websites and a mobile network.
Ironbridge bought MediaWorks in 2007 for $561m, but the broadcaster has needed repeated and ongoing financial restructuring, breaking several debt deals. In 2010 it scored a $43m govt loan to pay for radio spectrum licence renewals - remember the howls from opponents, citing Communications Minister Steven Joyce's conflict-of-interest as past managing director of the company's RadioWorks division??? (That loan was repaid in Oct.2012.)
It's understood Ironbridge and its co-investors have lost all the money they invested. MediaWorks was significantly larger than any of their other investments.
OK, so just to clarify: no redundancies? Watch this space...

PS: 18 June 2013 - MP Winston Peters calls the deal "shonky"!