I’ve Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway
My Young Frankenstein tickets are still good. The same can’t be said for The Farnsworth Invention . Don’t pity me, of course. I’ll be fine. And don’t expect me to chime in with a political opinion on the strike. Fellow Fool Nathan Alderman has already done so . So why am I even bringing this up? Well, there are some investing implications here.
This particular strike may not involve the breadth of public companies that stand to suffer if the screenwriters continue to picket out in Hollywood or if the news writers at CBS (NYSE: CBS ) go on the strike that was authorized yesterday, but it will sting several companies. Show producers and area restaurants are feeling the sting, but investors may not know that a prolonged strike can smack down Hollywood Media (Nasdaq: HOLL ) shareholders, too.
The company owns the Hollywood.com movie portal and a 26% stake in the MovieTickets.com multiplex ticketing site, but Broadway.com is its bread and butter. Broadway ticketing through the site now accounts for 89% of the company’s revenues. What’s Broadway.com to do now that all but a handful of Broadway shows are dark? “Strike-Free Zone,” pitches the site’s landing page, promoting the off-Broadway productions that have not been interrupted.
It’s the appropriate strategy, but tourists scrambling for refunds on canceled shows may be too incensed to care. Things get a little hairier over at eBay ’s (Nasdaq: EBAY ) StubHub. The site has pulled all of the listings — no matter how far into the future — for the 27 Broadway shows that have been shut down. StubHub doesn’t seem to address the issue beyond that on its site. Even its dedicated blog has been mum on the issue. The strike will still leave a mark.
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