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	<title>Business &#38; Money &#187; Josh Sanburn &#124; TIME.com</title>
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		<title>Business &#38; Money &#187; Josh Sanburn &#124; TIME.com</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com</link>
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		<title>Inside the New Lab That Predicts Viral Videos</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/06/11/inside-the-new-lab-that-predicts-viral-videos/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/06/11/inside-the-new-lab-that-predicts-viral-videos/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:30:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=81527</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For companies looking to reach consumers online and through social media, the ultimate success is for their ads to &#8220;go viral&#8221; — that is, to be passed around the Web on a scale that surpasses anything a conventional marketing or ad campaign could hope to achieve, thereby burrowing deep into our collective consciousness with minimal expense. But of course, if going viral were easy, everyone would do it. In fact, it&#8217;s proved all but impossible to manufacture viral content on demand — or even to predict with any degree of accuracy which videos are most likely to be passed around. But the folks at Unruly Media think they&#8217;ve now figured it out. (MORE: Testing the Science of Sharing at the Super Bowl: Can Viral Ads Be Manufactured?) Founded in 2006, Unruly Media is a U.K.-based video-technology company in the business of predicting virality. Last year, revenue for Unruly tripled — from about $9 million to $27 million, and the company has been expanding its global reach with offices now in Amsterdam, Sydney and New York City, where it recently launched its new &#8220;social video lab.&#8221; The space is designed to showcase the technology the company uses to predict viral videos. Unruly uses facial-tracking technology to determine when viewers of a video are feeling a range of emotions, from happy to sad to distressed or angry. That real-time information is used in combination with traditional focus-group questions after a video is viewed. Cat Jones, Unruly&#8217;s head of business development, says by using those tools, her team can make predictions with 80% accuracy. Last week, TIME visited Unruly&#8217;s social video lab to check out the process for ourselves. Our conclusion? This isn&#8217;t yet a pure science, but predicting virality is getting much more sophisticated. Check out the video above to see for yourself. VIDEO: Does Kmart’s Hilarious New Ad Acknowledge That Kmart Stores Are Hopeless?<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=81527&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Advertising</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/advertising-companies-industries/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>How to Fix the Post Office: Keep the ‘Last Mile,’ Outsource the Rest</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/06/03/how-to-fix-the-post-office-keep-the-last-mile-outsource-the-rest/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/06/03/how-to-fix-the-post-office-keep-the-last-mile-outsource-the-rest/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Jun 2013 09:45:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Economy & Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=81113</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A proposal to create a “hybrid” United States Postal Service would keep postal workers on their routes while allowing private companies to compete for mail collection, transportation, and processing. Now all it needs is a divided Congress and a reluctant postmaster general to sign off on it. A new study released today by a non-partisan Washington think tank recommends a radical departure for the struggling United States Postal Service: a public-private partnership that would open up much of the service’s back-end logistics to outside competition. (MORE: The &#8216;World&#8217;s Longest Labor Strike&#8217; Ends in a Whimper) The idea to partly privatize the Postal Service has been floating around for at least a decade, and it’s been the subject of other recent studies too, including a white paper written in part by former postal employees and released by the National Academy of Public Administration; and an analysis of that paper funded by Pitney Bowes, a shipping and packaging company that would almost certainly benefit from the post office’s privatization. But the study released today by The Information Technology &#38; Innovation Foundation adds a bit more to the discussion. This public-private hybrid proposal centers around private companies competing to accept, transport, and process much of America&#8217;s first-class mail. The USPS’s mail carriers would keep their “letterbox monopoly” on existing delivery routes, and the Postal Service would determine a national average for delivery costs that it would charge those private carriers. The author of the paper, ITIF President Robert Atkinson, likens it to the break-up of AT&#38;T in the 1980s, which allowed competition among long-distance carriers for the first time. “If you want to go to a post office in the future, you might go to CVS or a Safeway or your local bank branch,” says Atkinson. “And then they might contract with FedEx to move that mail, which would all end up at a local USPS processing facility.” From there, mail would essentially be delivered like it has been since the development of the postal service two centuries ago — but, in Atkinson’s view,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=81113&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/economy-policy/government-economy-policy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/168420277.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">A U.S. Postal Service (USPS) letter carrier prepares mail for delivery at the Brookland Post Office in Washington, D.C., U.S., on May 9, 2013.</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>JCPenney’s ‘Hitler’ Teakettle Sells Out Online</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/05/29/jcpenneys-hitler-tea-kettle-sells-out-online/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/05/29/jcpenneys-hitler-tea-kettle-sells-out-online/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 29 May 2013 09:45:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=80937</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Updated, May 29, 1 p.m.: You’ll have to visit JCPenney stores in person to buy the teakettle that resembles former German Chancellor and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Over Memorial Day weekend, a user on social news site Reddit noticed something odd: a teakettle that looked like Hitler. The Michael Graves Design Bells and Whistles Stainless Steel Tea Kettle ($40) recently showed up on a JCPenney billboard near Culver City, Calif. (If you don&#8217;t see the leader of the Third Reich, it&#8217;s all about the negative space created by the kettle’s Hitler-hair handle, like seeing the arrow in the FedEx logo.) By Tuesday morning, the kettle had gone viral. By Tuesday afternoon, it was sold out on JCPenney’s site. (PHOTOS: Hitler’s Bunker and the Ruins of Berlin, 1945) While J.C. Penney didn’t respond to messages about the product, the out-of-stock kettle was the only one of the 31 teakettles sold on jcpenney.com to be sold out on Tuesday afternoon. (As of Wednesday morning, it appears the teakettle has been completely removed from JCPenney&#8217;s site. The company has also taken down the billboard where the advertisement was first spotted, according to the CBS affiliate in Los Angeles.) The retailer, which has had to put out one fire after another over the past couple of years, soon began trying to explain its latest hiccup over Twitter, calling the teakettle&#8217;s resemblance to the man responsible for the Holocaust unintentional. “If we had designed it to look like something, we would have gone with a snowman or something fun ,” the company tweeted. (MORE: The 5 Big Mistakes That Led to Ron Johnson&#8217;s Ouster at J.C. Penney) J.C. Penney has recently been through the most tumultuous period in its history, from the hiring of former Apple and Target superstar Ron Johnson as CEO to his radical reinvention of the entire brand to his eventual firing and the subsequent rehiring of former CEO Mike Ullman. The company is now reversing many of Johnson’s decisions, once again embracing the use of sales and discount pricing. Considering everything J.C. Penney has been through recently, the Hitler-teakettle ad<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=80937&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://business.time.com/2013/05/29/jcpenneys-hitler-tea-kettle-sells-out-online/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/retail-big-companies/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/picture-9.png?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Tea Kettle Resembles Hitler</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Moonshine Is Growing in the U.S., and Big Whiskey Wants a Taste</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/05/27/moonshine-is-growing-in-the-u-s-and-big-whiskey-wants-a-taste/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/05/27/moonshine-is-growing-in-the-u-s-and-big-whiskey-wants-a-taste/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 27 May 2013 09:45:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food and Beverage Industry]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jack Daniels]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jim Beam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ole Smoky]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ole Smoky Moonshine Distillery]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=79720</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For decades, most people had never even seen a jar of moonshine, let alone tasted it. These days, you can find it at stores and restaurants around the country thanks to loosened liquor laws and changing consumer preferences. Even the industry&#8217;s biggest distilleries are experimenting with moonshine. Moonshine has been distilled in backwoods Appalachia since the 1800s. By its most traditional definition, the term means &#8220;illegal spirit,&#8221; and many families in that historically independent-minded, libertarian-leaning area of the U.S. made a living off making it — partly because the liquor could be produced and sold quickly, as it didn’t require years of aging in barrels. (That, by the way, is also what gives the hooch its oftentimes harsh character.) Today, moonshine is generally used as a catchall term for unaged white whiskeys, many of which are made in Tennessee and North Carolina. (MORE: JetBlue Proves There&#8217;s a Reasonable Way to Hit Us With Fees) Another difference with modern-day moonshine is that the people distilling it aren&#8217;t operating outside the law. Making moonshine is now legal in Tennessee and is quickly gaining popularity around the country. When the recession hit in 2008 and 2009, a number of states looked for ways to generate employment and keep tax revenue rolling in. One way to accomplish both goals was to loosen laws regulating distilleries. For years, the production of distilled spirits was legal only in a handful of Tennessee counties. But in 2009, the state legislature opened dozens of other counties to the business, including several in eastern Tennessee that had been home to unlawful moonshine production for decades. The biggest operation is Ole Smoky Moonshine Distillery, which opened in 2010 in Gatlinburg, Tenn. Roughly 130,000 cases of moonshine were sold in 2012, a jump from 50,000 in 2010 and 80,000 in 2011, according to food-and-beverage-analysis firm Technomic. (A case holds 12 750-ml jars.) Ole Smoky accounts for the vast majority of all sales — 100,000 of the 130,000 cases sold last year. Ole Smoky founder Joe Baker expects the company to sell 250,000 cases (3 million jars) this year.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=79720&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Food and Beverage Industry</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/food-and-beverage-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/moon.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Moonshine</media:title>
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		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/d88247e41871fc555c4a2747167091d2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<item>
		<title>A Q&amp;A With the Real-Life Maker of &#8216;Arrested Development&#8217;s&#8217; Bluth&#8217;s Frozen Bananas</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/05/15/a-qa-with-the-real-life-maker-of-arrested-developments-bluths-frozen-bananas/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/05/15/a-qa-with-the-real-life-maker-of-arrested-developments-bluths-frozen-bananas/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 15 May 2013 13:00:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Entrepreneurship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hollywood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Small Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=79989</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[To coincide with the release of Season 4 of &#8220;Arrested Development&#8221; on May 26, the Bluth&#8217;s Original Frozen Banana Stand is popping up in locations around New York and London. But these frozen bananas aren’t being hand-dipped by George-Michael. They’re made by Chuck Pheterson, the founder and president of Florida-based Totally Bananas, a man who hadn’t watched a single episode of the show when he started the company in 2009 and didn’t even realize his frozen bananas were the frozen bananas being handed out to &#8220;Arrested Development&#8221; fans this week – until I e-mailed him to set up the following interview. How did you get involved with the Netflix plan to offer frozen bananas at the replica Bluth&#8217;s Frozen Banana Stand? We sell through distribution channels, so for the most part, we don&#8217;t know where our product ends up. We started sending our product out last week, and another order this week for a total of about 14,000 bananas. We knew it was Netflix, but we didn’t really know what this was all about. Wait. So you didn’t know this was for the Bluth Booth? When I got your e-mail, we looked at it and said, holy moly! That’s when I found out. I thought this was a Netflix party. (WATCH: TIME on the Scene at &#8216;Arrested Development&#8217;s&#8217; Bluth&#8217;s Banana Stand) That would be quite the party. We have companies that buy thousands of bananas. So this wasn’t an unusual order for you guys. That’s mostly what we do. We supply all the Niagara Falls concessions on the Canadian side. We have products at CVS, at Shell stations throughout the state of Florida. Major zoos like the Bronx Zoo or the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans order from us. For me, this was just another order that I thought was for a company party. In our e-mail exchange, you said your phone was ringing off the hook. Do you now think it was related to Netflix and you didn’t realize it? Now, yeah. When we found out, we started sending out<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=79989&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Entrepreneurship</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/small-business/entrepreneurship-small-business/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/cera.jpeg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">cera</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>How MTV Decided to Abandon Rebellion</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/05/14/how-mtv-decided-to-abandon-rebellion/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/05/14/how-mtv-decided-to-abandon-rebellion/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 15:27:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Future of TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=79845</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Not so long ago, reality programs featuring wealthy teens and twenty-somethings &#8212; shows like &#8220;The Hills&#8221; and &#8220;Laguna Beach,&#8221; both set in affluent California communities &#8212; were garnering strong ratings for MTV. By the time Stephen Friedman became the network&#8217;s president in 2008, however, viewer tastes were beginning to change. In particular, the 43-year-old Friedman found that these programs simply weren&#8217;t resonating with so-called millennials, the generation of Americans born between 1980 and 2000. So Friedman launched an across-the-network reinvention of MTV&#8217;s programming, quickly dropping the two shows and replacing them with programs like &#8220;Teen Mom,&#8221; which became one of MTV’s highest-rated shows during its three-year run and led to &#8220;Teen Mom 2;&#8221; and &#8220;Awkward,&#8221; now the network’s longest-running scripted comedy. We recently spoke with Friedman about the kind of programming that appeals to millennials; the reason that he toned down the network&#8217;s long-standing ethos of rebellion; and why it suddenly became OK to acknowledge the existence of parents on MTV. You’ve spearheaded a reinvention of MTV to target millennials. How exactly have you changed the network&#8217;s programming? When I got the job in 2008, one of the first things I did was partner up with our research department to do a very deep dive into where our audience was. We really wanted to look at this generational shift that was very much in process, and what we found was that our programming was still too focused on Generation X. How so? &#8220;The Hills&#8221; was an example of a show that was pioneering at the time. It looked unlike any other reality show with its cinematic quality. That show was still very popular, but our audience started questioning, &#8220;Is this really reality?&#8221; What became clear is that this audience seemed to be looking for something that was much more authentic to their experience. So while there were a lot of fans of a show like &#8220;The Hills,&#8221; we saw the age range moving up. Our typical average age of a show now is around 21. Then it was much closer to<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=79845&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Media</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/media-companies-industries/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/tm2-final-logo_full.jpeg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">TM2 FINAL LOGO_FULL</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>McDonald&#8217;s Removes Angus Burgers as it Tries to Reverse Declining Sales</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/05/10/mcdonalds-removes-angus-burgers-as-it-tries-to-reverse-declining-sales/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/05/10/mcdonalds-removes-angus-burgers-as-it-tries-to-reverse-declining-sales/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 10 May 2013 17:21:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food and Beverage Industry]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=79760</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For the last several years, fast food has gone “gourmet.” Specialty salads, premium wraps, and signature sandwiches and burgers have been added to menus in an attempt to better compete with so-called fast casual restaurants like Five Guys and Panera Bread. But McDonald’s is removing one high-profile &#8220;premium&#8221; item from the menu, possibly signaling that the trend toward higher-priced fast food is coming to a close. On Thursday, McDonald’s announced that it would cut its one-third pound Angus burgers. One reason for dropping the item from the menu would seem to be the ever-rising price of beef, which hit record numbers this week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. NBC News reported the price of beef is up 5% this year alone. (MORE: Elizabeth Warren: Students Should Get the Same Rate as the Bankers) More importantly, as McDonald&#8217;s has felt compelled to refocus efforts on its Dollar Menu to boost flagging sales, it&#8217;s gotten more difficult to convince customers that a single Angus burger is worth $4 or $5. Richard Adams, a McDonald’s consultant, told the Associated Press that the Dollar Menu is to blame for the Angus&#8217;s demise because $1 snacks and sandwiches are such attractive options for consumers. “When you can get four or five burgers off the Dollar Menu, nobody’s going to buy the Angus burger,” Adams said. “The Dollar Menu has become a real problem for these chains.” Adams said essentially the same thing to the trade publication Nation&#8217;s Restaurant News last fall, when McDonald&#8217;s was launching a more robust selection of Dollar Menu items: “Who would pay $4.79 for a sandwich when the two sandwiches on the Dollar Menu are perfectly good?” he said. “It’s just the math. The more you raise prices, the more you encourage people to buy off the Dollar Menu.” (MORE: Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation) And yet, because of troubling sales figures, McDonald&#8217;s has felt it&#8217;s necessary to stick with the crowd-pleasing Dollar Menu. In 2002, McDonald’s was in a similarly tough situation when it reported its first<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=79760&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Food and Beverage Industry</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/food-and-beverage-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/mcdonalds1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">McDonald&#039;s</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Casino Revenues Are Up in 2012 – Thanks in Part to Gambling in Kansas</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/05/07/casino-revenues-are-up-in-2012-thanks-in-part-to-gambling-in-kansas/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/05/07/casino-revenues-are-up-in-2012-thanks-in-part-to-gambling-in-kansas/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 May 2013 09:45:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Economic Indicators]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy & Policy]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=79381</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We&#8217;re gambling almost as much as we were before the recession, and the biggest growth comes from an unlikely state. In 2012, U.S. casinos earned $37.3 billion in gross gaming revenue, a 4.8% increase from 2011. It was the highest since 2007, when gambling brought in a record $37.5 billion, according to the American Gaming Association. (MORE: Hot Pizza: So Popular Restaurants Will Try Almost Anything) Not surprisingly, Nevada led all states with $10.86 billion, a 1.5% increase year-on-year. But traditional gambling meccas like Las Vegas saw only modest growth. And some states, including New Jersey (home to Atlantic City), had declining gaming revenues – largely due to damage from Hurricane Sandy. The most substantial growth came from a state rarely associated with gaming. Kansas’s gross casino gaming revenue grew by 603.7% in 2012. It went from $48 million in 2011 in revenue to $341 million, with several casinos either opening in 2012 or operating for their first full year. The state legalized casinos in 2007. Two years later the first one opened – the Boot Hill Casino in Dodge City. The state now has three, including the Kansas Star Casino in Mulvane and the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City. The peculiar thing about Kansas’s casinos is that they’re state-owned. The 2007 bill passed by the state legislature allowed the state lottery to oversee privately operated casinos. Some antigambling organizations oppose state involvement, but the casinos are bringing in a bundle of tax revenue. In 2012, the casinos brought $92 million to state coffers, a 605% increase from 2011. (MORE: Can Uniqlo Save Japan?) Overall, 15 of 22 states with commercial casinos saw an increase in revenues from 2011 to 2012, according to the American Gaming Association’s annual report, which was released this week. Kansas (604% increase), Maryland (143%), Maine (67%), and New York (43%) all saw double-digit growth thanks to new casinos opening or operating for their first full calendar year. New Jersey revenues dipped the most (8%) due to Hurricane Sandy, along with Delaware (4.7%),<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=79381&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Economic Indicators</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/economy-policy/economic-indicators/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/gam_0506.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Gamble</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Why is Texas Governor Rick Perry in Illinois?</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/04/24/why-is-texas-governor-rick-perry-in-illinois/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/04/24/why-is-texas-governor-rick-perry-in-illinois/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Apr 2013 18:41:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy & Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Energy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Financial Reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jobs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Labor]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=78359</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Like an aging rocker, Texas Governor Rick Perry is currently on the 2013 I&#8217;m Coming For Your Jobs tour across America. His first stop: California a couple months ago. This week he’s in Illinois, where he got a nasty reception from public officials. The trips are part of an effort to get businesses from highly taxed and heavily regulated states to relocate down South — but his efforts may fall flat, if recent history is any indication. (MORE: Europeans Are Thinking the Unthinkable: That Debt Defaults Might Make Sense) Texas has arguably become one of the few true economic success stories since the recession. The state has an unemployment rate of around 6% and a $9 billion budget surplus, even as many states struggle with 8% and 9% unemployment and severe budget deficits. The state is run by pro-business Republicans in the state legislature, along with Gov. Perry, who supports low regulation and low taxes. Texas doesn’t have an individual income tax, either. Its minimum wage is lower than other left-leaning states, which keeps labor costs down. Prices for land and housing are low. And the oil and natural gas boom in recent years has kept jobs from leaving the state. The tradeoff for all this, of course: Texas&#8217;s relatively flimsy social safety net. But Perry still isn&#8217;t satisfied with business in Texas. The governor sees even more potential if he can just lure corporations away from states that aren’t as friendly to business. The two states he&#8217;s visited so far, California and Illinois, rank 50th and 48th, respectively, in a survey of best states for business, according to a recent poll in the Wall Street Journal. In February, Gov. Perry visited California, a state with high labor costs, high taxes, and heavy environmental regulation, all of which can make it onerous for businesses to set up shop. According to Reuters, Ron Mittelstaedt, chairman and CEO of Waste Connections Inc., moved his waste business from Sacramento, Calif., to The Woodlands, Texas, and was able to build new facilities in 16 months. In California,<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=78359&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Government</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/economy-policy/government-economy-policy/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Does Kmart&#8217;s Hilarious New Ad Acknowledge That Kmart Stores Are Hopeless?</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/04/19/does-kmarts-hilarious-new-ad-acknowledge-that-kmart-stores-are-hopeless/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/04/19/does-kmarts-hilarious-new-ad-acknowledge-that-kmart-stores-are-hopeless/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 19 Apr 2013 09:45:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[E-commerce]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Retail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[free shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kmart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[layaway]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[same-day shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sears]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shipping]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Target]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Walmart]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=78046</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[In just over a week, Kmart&#8217;s 30-second &#8220;Ship My Pants&#8221; spot &#8212; go ahead, say it quickly &#8212; has received close to 13 million views online. The viral hit should give the struggling retailer some much-needed buzz. It might also call attention to why some shoppers stopped going to Kmart. Let&#8217;s be honest: Kmart isn’t cool. In the pantheon of big-box general merchandise retailers, Walmart is the 600-pound gorilla, inexorable in its pursuit of efficiency and cheap prices. Target is sort of the hip one. And Kmart, well, it&#8217;s just kind of there, right? If you associate the Kmart brand with anything these days, it&#8217;s a kind of Martha Stewart-flavored aspirational respectability, or perhaps layaway, or bankruptcy court. That’s why the retailer’s irreverent “Ship My Pants” ad, released last week, is so surprising. Not because of the faux-scatological content per se &#8212; though that did raise a few eyebrows &#8211; but because this somewhat edgy and definitely funny ad came from such a tired snooze of a retail brand. (MORE: How Far Can the Mighty Apple Fall?) The commercial highlights the store’s Ship to Home service, which Kmart launched a year ago, offering customers free delivery on any item they can’t find in stores. Andrew Stein, Kmart&#8217;s vice president and chief marketing officer, says the company wasn&#8217;t trying to make a viral ad. The goal was to just create a funny, compelling commercial that promoted the service. About a month ago, the “Ship My Pants” ad ran in a town hall meeting of Kmart employees. Stein says everyone loved it. “The outpouring of affection, the goodwill and the laughter that we got internally told us we really had something here,” he says. The video had been uploaded to Stein’s personal YouTube page, and the only way to view it was through the specific url, which was getting passed around from employee to employee following the town hall. The next morning, Stein discovered the video had been viewed 2,500 times on his page. Since then, it’s had about 13 million views on YouTube and has<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=78046&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Retail</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/retail-big-companies/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/kmart.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Kmart</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Say Goodbye to Bones: How the Chicken Nugget Won</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/04/15/say-goodbye-to-bones-how-the-chicken-nugget-won/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/04/15/say-goodbye-to-bones-how-the-chicken-nugget-won/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:45:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food and Beverage Industry]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=77713</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[“No mess. No fuss. No bones about it.” That&#8217;s the new mantra at Kentucky Fried Chicken corporate headquarters these days, according to Jason Marker, KFC’s chief marketing officer in the U.S. “It’s just a very simple expression of where we’re going.&#8221; Indeed, on Sunday, KFC rolled out Original Recipe boneless chicken in all 4,500 of its U.S. locations. But this modest innovation may not be just another new offering in a long line of new offerings. Executives at the 61-year-old franchise &#8211; long associated with family-sized buckets of traditional fried chicken &#8212; are so convinced that boneless chicken is the next big thing that they are starting to envision a KFC that doesn&#8217;t have on-the-bone chicken on its menu at all. (MORE: The Real Significance of the Bitcoin Boom (and Bust)) Marker acknowledges that the chain’s customer base is aging, and that off-the-bone chicken is critical if the brand is to stay relevant and contemporary. “We joke a lot that young people today barely know that chicken has bones in it because of all the forms and formats that we eat it in,” he says. “We’ve got to make sure we meet the needs of those people.” In short, they’re trying to cater to the McNugget Generation. Back in the 1970s, when most of us still ate chicken that looked like chicken, the industry’s processors were already working on ways to squeeze profit out of their product. Chicken historically offered meager profit margins &#8212; around 2%, says Steve Striffler, a University of New Orleans professor and author of Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food. For decades the only way processors could increase those margins was through mergers or acquisitions. But by the ‘70s, Tyson and other industry giants realized they needed to do more with the chicken itself. “It wasn’t just Tyson,” says Striffler. “It was all of the poultry companies trying to figure this out, and the ones that didn’t aren’t around anymore.” Around the same time, fast food restaurants started realizing there was a world beyond burgers and fries. According to several<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=77713&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
	<primary_category>Food and Beverage Industry</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/food-and-beverage-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/970_biz_nugget_0415.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
		<media:thumbnail url="http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/970_biz_nugget_0415.jpg?w=240" />
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			<media:title type="html">Chicken Nugget</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/d88247e41871fc555c4a2747167091d2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>The Post Office’s Biggest Problem Isn&#8217;t Saturday Delivery — It&#8217;s Congress</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/04/12/the-post-offices-biggest-problem-isnt-saturday-delivery-its-congress/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/04/12/the-post-offices-biggest-problem-isnt-saturday-delivery-its-congress/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:45:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy & Policy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Financial Regulation]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=77587</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It may seem like the United States Postal Service is unwilling to adapt to a world of declining mail volume and increased digital communication. But the real obstacle in the way of true reform aren&#8217;t the folks running the postal service itself. It&#8217;s their bosses in the U.S. Congress. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe is like a man waiting for a package that never arrives. Donahoe, who has led the U.S.P.S. since 2010, has over the past few years made numerous proposals to get the money-losing postal service back in the black. He’s suggested closing post offices, modernizing post offices, “village” post offices, increased postal rates, decreased services, a reduced workforce, and a number of digital approaches involving tracking packages, QR codes, and mobile solutions. (MORE: How &#8216;Made in the U.S.A.&#8217; is Making a Comeback) But there’s only so much the Post Office can do on its own to reduce the billions it loses every year. (Last year it lost $16 billion.) Congress holds all the cards, and that became increasingly clear this week. If the U.S.P.S. is ever going to break even, Congress will need to pass some comprehensive reform legislation. In February, Donahoe announced that the postal service would eliminate Saturday delivery, essentially challenging Congress to specifically require 6-day delivery. But last month, Congress passed a continuing resolution prohibiting 5-day delivery. Afterwards, a Government Accountability Office report stated that current law required the post office to deliver six days a week, and the U.S.P.S. board of governors decided Wednesday to “delay implementation of its new delivery schedule until legislation is passed that provides the Postal Service with the authority to implement a financially appropriate and responsible delivery schedule.” (MORE: Inside the World of Emotional Support Animals) This isn’t the first time Congress has stymied the Post Office’s plans to reform, either through action or inaction, and it likely won&#8217;t be the last. Below are three other ways Congress has halted postal reform. Congressional inaction: Pre-retiree health care. The costliest problem for the U.S.P.S. is the Congressional mandate that it pre-fund healthcare for future<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=77587&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Economy</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/economy-policy/economy/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/134973479.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">A U.S. post office delivery man on Dec. 5, 2011 in San Francisco, Calif.</media:title>
		</media:content>

		<media:content url="http://1.gravatar.com/avatar/d88247e41871fc555c4a2747167091d2?s=96&#38;d=http%3A%2F%2F1.gravatar.com%2Favatar%2Fad516503a11cd5ca435acc9bb6523536%3Fs%3D96&#38;r=G" medium="image">
			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>How the U.S. Travel Industry Is Adapting to a Growing Wave of Chinese Tourists</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/04/09/how-the-u-s-travel-industry-is-adapting-to-a-growing-wave-of-chinese-tourists/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/04/09/how-the-u-s-travel-industry-is-adapting-to-a-growing-wave-of-chinese-tourists/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:41:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tourism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=77128</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tourists from China now spend more on international travel than tourists from any other country. The U.S. travel industry is slowly learning how to attract them. According to a report released last week by the U.N. World Tourism Organization, Chinese travelers spent $102 billion on international tourism in 2012, 40% more than they spent in 2011. More than 80 million Chinese traveled internationally in 2011, outspending German tourists — the longtime leader in overseas travel spending — for the first time. Those numbers have steadily climbed since 2000, when 10 million Chinese traveled abroad. (MORE: Google Fiber Heading to Austin as Cities Race to Boost Web Speeds) This remarkable growth — largely due to relaxed government restrictions on foreign travel and the rise of a Chinese middle class with disposable income — has forced the U.S. travel industry, from hotels to restaurants to shopping centers, to adapt to this influx of Chinese tourists. The hotel industry has perhaps been the most attentive. According to USA Today, Marriott has stationed 20 sales representatives in China and teaches employees in the U.S. to speak basic Mandarin phrases like hello and thank you. The Marriott Marquis in New York City has even replaced room numbers on the 44th floor with names because the number four is considered bad luck in many Asian cultures. Hilton sends its reps to China regularly to meet with corporate travel planners and, according to the report, started a Chinese-guest program, staffed with native Chinese speakers. The company features Chinese meals and displays oranges and tangerines (often considered good luck) in 63 of its hotels. Meanwhile, Starwood, which owns Sheraton, Westin and W hotels, has revised its amenities and services as well, according to USA Today: “In-room tea kettles, slippers, translated restaurant menus and welcome brochures, on-site translation services and comfort food such as congee (rice porridge) and noodles&#8221; can now be found at many of Starwood&#8217;s properties. States around the country have also been experimenting with ways to draw more Chinese tourists. According to BBC News, the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=77128&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://business.time.com/2013/04/09/how-the-u-s-travel-industry-is-adapting-to-a-growing-wave-of-chinese-tourists/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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	<primary_category>Tourism</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/tourism/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Behind the Hit Bible Miniseries: The Man Who Helps Hollywood Get Religion</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/04/01/behind-the-hit-bible-miniseries-the-man-who-helps-hollywood-get-religion/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/04/01/behind-the-hit-bible-miniseries-the-man-who-helps-hollywood-get-religion/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Apr 2013 09:45:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Future of TV]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hollywood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology & Media]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=75933</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Bible, the five-part, 10-hour miniseries on History, which aired its final episode Sunday, has become the biggest cable television hit of the year. It brought in almost 13 million viewers the first night and consistently garnered 10 million viewers each episode. It even regularly beat AMC’s top-rated Sunday-night series The Walking Dead. A key to the show&#8217;s success is a man who went to Hollywood with hopes of making it as a sitcom writer. Instead, he became the spiritual bridge between the entertainment industry and the tens of millions of evangelicals in the U.S. Historically, Hollywood hasn’t paid much attention to the Christian community. Movie and TV studios are more likely to rile up prominent evangelicals in the U.S. than cozy up to them. But today, the industry seems to be tapping into the faith-based market more than ever before. And it&#8217;s not just shows with overt religious messages, although there are plenty: The American Bible Challenge on the Game Show Network, for example, has been the biggest hit in the channel’s 17-year history. The reality show Preachers&#8217; Daughters currently airs on Lifetime. A series called The Vatican is in the works for Showtime. An epic Darren Aronofsky movie, Noah, to star Russell Crowe, is scheduled for release in 2014. And in an effort to tap into The Bible’s success before it&#8217;s even off the air, a six-hour, $20 million miniseries called Jesus of Nazareth is already in production. The man at the center of much of this is Jonathan Bock, the founder and president of Grace Hill Media, a public-relations and marketing firm that acts as a middleman between Hollywood and the country&#8217;s faithful. “I sit on a funny fence,” says Bock, who advises movie execs on religious content, helps market those films and reaches out to the Christian community through churches, religious organizations and media outlets. “I help these two worlds that don’t often intersect understand each other and help them realize that they can be of great benefit to one another.” Bock didn’t start out thinking he’d be<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=75933&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Hollywood</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/technology-media/hollywood/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/970_bible_0401.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Why Apparel Companies Compete To Outfit College Hoops Teams</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/03/29/why-apparel-companies-compete-to-outfit-college-hoops-teams/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/03/29/why-apparel-companies-compete-to-outfit-college-hoops-teams/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Mar 2013 13:00:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business of Sports]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=76065</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The overall No. 1 seed Louisville Cardinals have been donning polarizing uniforms in the NCAA men&#8217;s basketball tournament this year. Young fans seem to love the new unis. The older ones, not so much. But Louisville and its athletics department didn’t have a say in the design, only the color scheme, say Louisville officials — because in the relationship between college athletics and apparel companies, the Nikes and Adidases of the world hold the cards. In the old days, basketball and other college sports teams would simply purchase uniforms from vendors. But big-time college sports is different. Instead of a team paying an apparel provider, apparel providers give money, uniforms, equipment, and all manner of perks to college basketball teams. What they get in return, of course, are merchandising rights. The first week of this year&#8217;s NCAA tournament – broadcast on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV – garnered its highest television ratings in 15 years, and the 14-year contract between CBS and Turner to televise every game in its entirety is $10.8 billion. Big time college basketball, in other words, represents an almost unparalleled opportunity for these companies to get their products in front of a large group of enthusiastic customers. “The degree of competitiveness for these sports apparel companies to get their brand name out there is at an all-time high,” says Patrick Rishe, a sports economist at Webster University. “They realize a lot of people are watching.” (MORE: Why Banks Love Debit Cards Again) As a result, the dominant brands in the apparel industry — Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Under Armour — have flipped the vendor-customer relationship over the last few decades. And thanks to the economic downturn over the last few years, apparel companies have gained even more sway, especially with public universities that have had state funding cut since the recession. “Athletic programs are, more than ever, under tight budget crunches, and the people running these athletic programs are more keen to maximize revenues whenever and wherever they can,” says Rishe. Contracts between colleges and apparel companies are rarely disclosed, so it&#8217;s<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=76065&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Business of Sports</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/business-of-sports/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>How Do You Revive Twinkies? A Q&amp;A With the New Owners: The Metropoulos Brothers</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/03/21/how-do-you-revive-twinkies-a-qa-with-the-new-owners-the-metropoulous-brothers/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/03/21/how-do-you-revive-twinkies-a-qa-with-the-new-owners-the-metropoulous-brothers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Mar 2013 11:00:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food and Beverage Industry]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=74881</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A few months ago, Twinkies appeared to be on the brink of extinction. The snack cake was disappearing from store shelves across the U.S. because of consumer fears that the cakes would be no more. Hostess Brands — which at that time included Wonder Bread, Ding Dongs, Ho Hos, Zingers, and a couple dozen other snacks and foods — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2012 and began shutting its doors by November. But last week, private equity firms Apollo Group Management and Metropoulos &#38; Co. snatched up the &#8220;snack cake&#8221; portion of Hostess for $410 million, and on March 19 a Manhattan bankruptcy judge officially approved the sale. Metropoulos &#38; Co. has purchased several instantly recognizable all-American brands, including Bumble Bee Tuna, Chef Boyardee, and Pabst Blue Ribbon, but Twinkies might be their most iconic holding yet. C. Dean Metropoulos, the 66-year-old founder of the firm, will serve as CEO. But it&#8217;s up to his two sons — Daren, 29, and Evan, 32 — to breathe life into the business again. (MORE: How Much Is Twinkies Worth?) TIME spoke to Daren and Evan last week about why they bought the Hostess brands, their plans for new lines of Twinkies (think low-cal snack cakes), and whether they&#8217;re going to tinker with the decades-old Twinkie recipe. So, why buy Twinkies? Evan Metropoulos: It’s an iconic brand and it’s something that millions of Americans love and enjoy. It&#8217;s very much worth saving. But the Hostess brands have been struggling for years. Do you think those brands still have value? Daren Metropoulos: Throughout the turmoil that the company has had the last few years, the consumer base has not declined. There continues to be strong demand for these products in the marketplace, and we feel we can capitalize on that with some fresh new marketing ideas and some more consistent sales efforts. EM: Our father is very, very talented as a turnaround specialist, and he has taught us that these brands are resilient and very hard to take down. They have a hard<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=74881&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Food and Beverage Industry</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/food-and-beverage-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/twnk1.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Twinkies</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>March Madness Will Cost Businesses $134 Million. Why Aren&#8217;t Employers Concerned?</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/03/19/march-madness-will-cost-businesses-134-million-why-arent-employers-concerned/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/03/19/march-madness-will-cost-businesses-134-million-why-arent-employers-concerned/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 19 Mar 2013 09:45:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Business of Sports]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Careers & Workplace]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Work/Life Balance]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=74869</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The NCAA men’s basketball tournament will cost U.S. companies an estimated $134 million in “lost wages” this week. But do employers care? Not really. A survey released last week by job outplacement firm Challenger, Gray &#38; Christmas found that the men’s college basketball tournament – which lasts three weeks – will cost $134 million in just the first two days (Thursday and Friday) of the tournament. An estimated 3 million U.S. employees will spend one to three hours at work watching the games, and two-thirds of all workers will follow the tournament at some point during work hours. (MORE: How Sesame Street Counted All the Way to 1 Billion YouTube Views) A few decades ago, the idea that employees would be able to spend hours watching a sporting event during normal working hours would’ve been unthinkable. But our work and personal lives have become completely tangled, and today most bosses are not only fine with employees who watch a few games or set up an office pool, they almost encourage it. According to a separate survey by staffing firm OfficeTeam, when office managers and executives were asked whether the NCAA basketball tournament had a negative effect on employee productivity, 75% said there was no impact, and 16% said there was either a very positive or somewhat positive impact. And one-fifth of employers said those activities elicited a positive impact on employee morale. That’s despite the fact the tournament likely takes more than $100 million out of productivity in just two days. “That’s a big number,” says John Challenger of Challenger, Gray &#38; Christmas, referring to how much the tournament is expected to cost businesses. “And yet, I think companies that allow their employees freedom and autonomy recognize that the workplace brings people’s personal lives in. It’s the way the modern workplace works.” The acceptance of March Madness into the workplace is of course just one example of how the workplace has changed. Today, employees check Facebook, share YouTube videos, or instant message with friends throughout the work day. But more<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=74869&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Work/Life Balance</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/careers-workplace/worklife-balance/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>One Year Later, The Makers of ‘Pink Slime’ Are Hanging On, and Fighting Back</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/03/06/one-year-later-the-makers-of-pink-slime-are-hanging-on-and-fighting-back/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/03/06/one-year-later-the-makers-of-pink-slime-are-hanging-on-and-fighting-back/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:32:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food and Beverage Industry]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=73389</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Five weeks before the Internet went mad over the presence of “pink slime” in ground beef across the U.S., the product’s creator was being inducted into the Nebraska Business Hall of Fame. It was Feb. 2, 2012, and Eldon Roth – a man without a college degree – was being celebrated for his life’s work: inventing a method of extracting lean beef from the scraps that would otherwise have been discarded during the butchering process. He was hailed as an innovator in his field, not only for utilizing previously wasted beef, but also for an almost fanatical concern with food safety. The Dakota Dunes, South Dakota-based company he founded, Beef Products, Inc., had developed a reputation for going beyond federal sanitation guidelines in order to prevent bacteria and other microbes from infiltrating its product, according to food scientists who routinely visited the plant. But mostly it was known for producing a leaner and less expensive beef product by combining conventional ground beef with Roth’s unique innovation: lean finely textured beef, or LFTB. At the Feb. 2 hall of fame induction, Roth thanked Nebraskans for supporting his company since its founding in 1981, and philosophically reflected on his more than three decades in the industry. “Some of the things that you do in life,” Roth said, “at the time, you have no idea what they’re gonna mean.” (MORE: Revenue Up, Piracy Down: Has the Music Industry Finally Turned the Corner?) In a matter of weeks, Roth and BPI would be the focus of an 11-segment ABC News investigation that slammed the processor for putting &#8220;pink slime&#8221; in the American food supply and for misleading consumers about its beef products. Soon after, BPI was forced to shut three of its four plants and lay off more than 700 employees after fast food chains, supermarkets, and public schools stopped serving beef that included LFTB. The company went from producing 5 million pounds of LFTB per week to less than 2 million. The company Roth built over 30 years was hobbled in less than 30 days.<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=73389&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Food and Beverage Industry</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/food-and-beverage-industry/</primary_category_link><featured_image>http://timebusinessblog.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/biz-pink-slime-0305.jpg?w=240</featured_image>
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			<media:title type="html">Lean finely textured beef, is displayed at the Beef Products Inc.&#039;s plant in South Sioux City, Neb.</media:title>
		</media:content>

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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Legal or Not, Will Americans Ever Buy Horse Meat?</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/03/01/legal-or-not-will-americans-ever-buy-horse-meat/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/03/01/legal-or-not-will-americans-ever-buy-horse-meat/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:36:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Companies & Industries]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food and Beverage Industry]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://business.time.com/?p=73165</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Every week, it seems, another restaurant, supermarket chain, or Swedish furniture maker announces that instead of feeding its customers beef, they &#8212; whoops! &#8212; accidentally served horse meat. Most Americans, of course, react with revulsion at the very thought. But that&#8217;s not stopping advocates from trying to open the first horse meat processing facility to operate in the U.S. in years. For weeks, horse meat has been making unwanted appearances in the European food system. It&#8217;s been detected in Ikea meatballs. It&#8217;s been found in frozen lasagna in Italy. It&#8217;s shown up in frozen beef patties at British supermarkets. Even though the problem hasn&#8217;t been detected in the U.S., the widening scandal has caused outrage and revulsion among Americans, who haven&#8217;t practiced hippophagy &#8212; the practice of eating horse flesh &#8212; on a regular basis for decades. U.S. horse meat consumption briefly peaked during World War II, when more conventional meats like beef were rationed, says Andy Smith, a culinary historian at the New School. But within a few decades, Americans had almost entirely forsworn the practice. Why? The animal rights movement played a role. More significantly, though, we had anthropomorphized horses, just as we had our other household pets: Horses weren&#8217;t livestock; they were our friends. (MORE: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us) Even so, we were still sending horses to domestic slaughterhouses until the middle of the last decade. But after sustained pressure from animal rights advocates &#8212; Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, says that meat processing plants often jammed horses into cattle trucks and failed to limit aggression between the animals &#8211; Congress shut down the industry in 2005 by de-funding inspections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. No inspections, no legal slaughterhouses. By 2007, domestic horse meat was essentially non-existent. The legislative pendulum seems to have swung back again, however, apparently influenced by people like Dave Duquette, the president of a non-profit organization called United Horsemen. He argues that since U.S. slaughterhouses were shut down in 2005, neglect and abuse of horses has skyrocketed. Owners don&#8217;t know<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=73165&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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	<primary_category>Food and Beverage Industry</primary_category><primary_category_link>http://business.time.com/category/companies-industries/food-and-beverage-industry/</primary_category_link>
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			<media:title type="html">jsanburn</media:title>
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		<title>Millennials Are Paying Off Debt — but That&#8217;s Not Necessarily Good News</title>
		<link>http://business.time.com/2013/02/26/millennials-are-paying-off-debt-but-thats-not-necessarily-good-news/</link>
		<comments>http://business.time.com/2013/02/26/millennials-are-paying-off-debt-but-thats-not-necessarily-good-news/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 26 Feb 2013 13:00:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Josh Sanburn</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Budgeting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Decision Making]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy & Policy]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Real Estate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Real Estate & Homes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Real Estate Markets]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Saving & Spending]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[A new study suggests that millennials are getting serious about paring down their debt. But a closer look at the numbers shows some troubling signs. Last week, Pew Research released a new study showing adults younger than 35 reducing their debt levels faster than older generations. Millennials cut their overall levels of debt by 29% from 2007 to 2010 (from $21,912 to $15,473) while Americans 35 and older only cut theirs by 8% ($32,543 to $30,070). In fact, according to Pew, the share of younger households with debt of any kind fell to 78%, the lowest level since the federal government started collecting that data in 1983. (MORE: Will High Marijuana Taxes Encourage Black Markets?) All that sounds great — until you realize that the biggest contributor to this dynamic is that millennials aren&#8217;t taking out mortgages, which generally make up the biggest piece of household debt. From 2007 to 2011, the percentage of young households who own their own homes fell from 40% to 34%. “Young adults don’t have the mortgage, but they also don’t have the house,” says Pew senior research associate Richard Fry, who authored the report. “Young adults probably have less debt, but they also have less assets. This is troubling.” A number of factors seem to be driving lower levels of home ownership. One is that millennials’ incomes are down and they can’t afford to take on a mortgage. Another may be that they want to buy a home but banks have tightened lending standards and made it difficult for them to do so. Student-loan burdens also appear to be playing a crowding-out role: In 2007, 34% of young households had outstanding student debt in 2007; by 2010, the rate had risen to 40%. (Note that those numbers are the exact inverse of the mortgage figures.) Another reason debt levels have fallen for millennials is a decrease in car ownership. It&#8217;s unclear if this is more of a cultural or economic shift, but millennials appear less inclined than previous generations to own a car, drive or even get a driver’s<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=business.time.com&#038;blog=31173800&#038;post=72872&#038;subd=timebusinessblog&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
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