The drama series which made headlines about its transition from internet to TV, “Quarterlife,” succeeded in being a flop in its NBC debut Tuesday night, having the worst ratings in at least 20 years, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The show designed to address audience between 18 and 49 didn’t succeed to rise to the expectations of NBC.

According to a source at NBC, the series might be canceled before the next episode.

An NBC spokeswoman said that the series will remain in the schedule and that it was moved to Sundays.

“Quarterlife” was created for the internet by producers of “My So-Called Life” and “thirtysomething,” Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick. It’s been around for three months with episodes of seven to nine minutes being transmitted on its own website and My-Space TV.

The broadcast from Tuesday only draw an average of 3.1 million viewers and a rate of 1.3 among the audience from 18-49, being the lowest in NBC history since 1987 when Nielsen began measuring TV viewing by age.

To see the difference take for example the usual Tuesday 10 p.m. show “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” which led with over 12 million viewers and a 4.5 rating.  

The show is about six friends in their 20s who are struggling with their lives having at its center Dylan (Bitsie Tulloch), a character who has a video blog and messes everyone’s lives with her “need” of being honest.

Other characters are Danny (David Walton) and Jed (Scott Michael Foster) who are aspiring filmmakers and best friends. Their love interst will be Debra (Michelle Lombardo). The group is completed by Lisa (Maite Schwartz), a bartender and an insecure actress and Andy (Kevin Christy), a computer wizard.

NBC made a fuss about the show which was announced during the writers’ strike and promoted it.

NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman said on Wednesday that the series didn’t live up to expectations, but was “so worth the try.”

He said: “The Web site traffic went up a huge amount, and we continue to try new things and new models. It’s very inexpensive but we hoped for higher ratings,” Reuters reports.

The dollar weakened past $1.51 per euro for the first time on mounting speculation a slumping economy will force Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to cut interest rates through mid-year. The dollar dropped a fifth straight day as European Central Bank policy maker Axel Weber said investors expecting rate cuts in the region are underestimating inflation. The dollar’s slide gained momentum yesterday after an unexpected increase in German business confidence prompted traders to trim bets the ECB will lower rates. The currency fell to an all-time low against the Swiss franc and to a 23-year low versus the New Zealand dollar.

“The dollar is undermined by lower U.S. yields,” said Daniel Katzive, a senior currency strategist at Credit Suisse Group in New York. “I don’t think there’s much scope for that to change; the dollar will remain weak.”

The currency touched $1.5105 per euro, the weakest since the common currency’s debut in 1999, before trading at $1.5097 at 10:02 a.m. in New York, from $1.4974 yesterday. It fell to 106.05 yen from 107.28 yen, coming within about 1 percent of a 2 1/2-year low reached in January, and dropped as low as 1.0635 francs, from 1.0756. The euro fell to 160.02 yen from 160.67.

The U.S. currency has slid 4 percent against the euro in the past three weeks as the housing slump deepened and consumer confidence tumbled, leading traders to abandon bets the dollar and the economy would rebound as the Fed cut rates. The dollar will rebound to $1.45 per euro by mid-year, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 41 analysts.

Bernanke Speaks

Bernanke said today the Fed “will act in a timely manner” to insure against “downside risks” to the economy. His remarks came in semi-annual testimony to the House Financial Services Committee in Washington. Futures on the Chicago Board of Trade show most traders expect the Fed to cut rates to at least 2 percent by mid-year, from 3 percent now. The bank has slashed rates from 5.25 percent in September.

“We’re in a new regime for the dollar,” said Bilal Hafeez, London-based global head of currency strategy at Deutsche Bank AG, the world’s biggest foreign-exchange trader. “The proximate cause has been European data, which has indicated that Europe hasn’t suffered on the growth side as the U.S. has.”

The euro may rise to $1.55 by March 31, Hafeez predicted.

The New Zealand dollar rose to 82.13 U.S. cents from 81.71 cents on speculation the interest-rate differential will widen in favor of assets outside of the U.S. The Australian dollar climbed to 94.12 U.S. cents, from 93.38, reaching the strongest since 1984. New Zealand’s key interest rate is 5.25 percentage points higher than the Fed’s 3 percent rate. Australia’s is 4 percentage points more.

Synthetic Euro

A Fed trade-weighted index of the dollar against major currencies has fallen about 11 percent in the past year. The U.S. Dollar Index traded on ICE Futures in York, which tracks the currency against six major counterparts, dropped to 74.23 today, the lowest since the gauge started in 1973.

The currency also dropped to an all-time low of $1.5105 against the synthetic euro, a theoretical value that estimates the European currency’s price as far back as January 1989, when Bloomberg’s data on the series begin.

The dollar extended losses after a government report showed orders for U.S. durable goods fell last month. Orders dropped 5.3 percent, following an increase of 4.4 percent the previous month, the Commerce Department said. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey was for a decline of 4 percent.

The U.S. currency has dropped 12 percent versus the euro in the past year. It has weakened against all but one of the 16 most-active currencies as subprime-mortgage losses, the worst housing market in 25 years and soaring credit costs spurred the Fed to cut rates five times since Sept. 18.

Contrast With ECB

By contrast, the ECB has held its main lending rate at a six-year high of 4 percent since June to counter inflation pressures from surging food and oil prices. Traders increased wagers on rate cuts after ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet on Feb. 7 dropped a threat to raise borrowing costs and said uncertainty about economic growth is “unusually high.”

“The consensus expectation for interest rates on the market at the moment clearly underestimates, in my opinion, the inflation risks,” Weber said today, according to the text of a speech in Bonn. “In 2009, inflation will not slow as markedly as supposed in the December projections, which were based on lower oil prices.”

The euro at $1.45 isn’t the “hurdle” the ECB thought it was, council member Nout Wellink said today in an interview in New York. Europe’s economy is in “rather good shape,” he said.

The slump in the dollar helped push oil prices to a record above $102 today and increased the cost of buying wheat, sugar, copper, cotton, cocoa and precious metals.

`Vicious Cycle’

“We’re talking about a vicious cycle if you look at price increases in commodities,” said Stephen Jen, Morgan Stanley’s global currency economist in London. “The dollar weakens first, then food and oil prices rise, which complicates policy-making. At this point, the dollar is hurting itself.”

All of the 10 most-active currencies in Asia outside Japan gained against the U.S. currency today. Thailand’s baht advanced to the highest since August 1997 as the central bank kept its benchmark rate unchanged at 3.25 percent for a fifth straight meeting. The currency rose 0.1 percent to 30.09 per dollar.

The currency will continue to trade below $1.50 for the next few weeks, Robert Sinche, head of global currency strategy at Bank of America N.A. in New York, wrote in a research note dated today.

“It’s crunch time for the dollar,” said Yuji Saito, head of foreign-exchange sales in Tokyo at Societe Generale SA, a unit of France’s second-largest bank by market value. “Bernanke may know that monetary policy alone cannot support the slowing U.S. economy.”

Rebound Forecast

New home sales dropped 2.8 percent to an annual pace of 588,000 last month, the lowest pace since 1995, the Commerce Department said.

The dollar will rebound to $1.48 per euro by the end of March, according to the median forecast in Bloomberg’s survey. Merrill Lynch & Co., the third-biggest U.S. securities firm, is the most bearish, predicting it will fall to $1.57 per euro by the end of March.

Futures on the Chicago Board of Trade show traders see a 100 percent chance the U.S. central bank will reduce the 3 percent target rate for overnight lending between banks by at least 50 basis points at their March 18 meeting, and an 8 percent likelihood of a cut to 2.25 percent. For the April 30 meeting, 83 percent expect a cut to 2.25 percent, while 58 percent see a reduction to 2 percent at the June 25 meeting.

The euro also gained as a government report showed import prices in Germany, an early indicator of inflation pressure in the region’s biggest economy, rose the most in 16 months in January.

The single currency got a boost yesterday after the Munich- based Ifo institute said its business climate index rose to 104.1 from 103.4 in January, exceeding the 102.9 median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey and leading traders to pare bets the ECB will lower rates.

Adds fourth-quarter numbers, latest share price
NEW YORK, Feb. 27, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) — Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM) filed its Form 10-K for fiscal 2007 on Wednesday, reporting a loss of $2.05 billion, or $2.63 a share, for the full year. In fiscal 2006, the company earned $4.06 billion, or $3.65 a share.

The stock closed Tuesday at $26.97. Shares were changing hands in premarket action at $25.30, down 6.2%.

The company said its results were adversely affected by weakness in the housing market and the disruption in the mortgage and credit markets in the second half of the year. These developments precipitated a number of items, Fannie Mae said, including an increase of $2.8 billion in its provision for credit losses, an increase of $5.1 billion in market-based valuation losses and a decrease of $2.2 billion in net interest income for the year.

It said its loss for the second half of the year totaled $5 billion, reflecting ’significant increases in serious delinquency rates and foreclosures, home price declines, widening credit spreads, shifts in interest rates and illiquidity in the capital markets.’
Revenue fell in the 12 months ended Dec. 31 to $10.99 billion from $11.79 billion last year. The pre-tax impact on earnings of market-based valuation adjustments was a loss of $7.27 billion for 2007.

The company’s single-family serious delinquency rate rose of 0.98% as of Dec. 31 from 0.65% the year prior.

Fannie Mae added that the disruption in the housing, mortgage and credit markets is continuing in 2008.

‘We expect housing market weakness to continue in 2008, leading to increased delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures on mortgage loans, and slower growth in U.S. residential mortgage debt outstanding,’ the company said.

It anticipates the fair value of its net assets will decline in 2008 from $35.8 billion as of Dec. 31.

For the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, Fannie Mae reported a loss of $3.56 billion, or $3.80 a share.

Nearly half of all teenagers bought no compact discs in 2007, accelerating the music industry’s painful transition from CDs to digital downloads, according to a report released today.

One big beneficiary: Apple Inc. Its iTunes music store, which sells only digital downloads, jumped ahead of Best Buy Co. to become the No. 2 U.S. music seller. Apple trailed only Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which mostly sells CDs.

The music industry has grappled with how to replace its rapidly disappearing CD sales with digital downloads. The report by research firm NPD Group offered a window into how quickly the change was happening and who was leading it.

The amount of music legally bought from online music stores was up — 29 million people bought music online last year, a 21% jump from 24 million in 2006. But that boost didn’t offset the drop in CD sales and the effects of people illegally downloading music. Last year, about 1 million consumers stopped buying CDs, according to NPD.

Going to a store and buying a CD is no longer a rite of passage for many teenagers. But illegally downloading a song might be. Last year, 48% of teenagers did not buy a single CD, compared with 38% in 2006. And illegally downloading music continued to grow among teenagers, the report said.

The average Internet user acquired 6% more music last year via legal downloads, CDs and illegal file-sharing, the report said. But they spent 10% less on music — $40 per user, compared with $44 a year before.

The report underlined a generational split. The increase in legal online sales was driven by people age 36 to 50, the report said, giving the music industry an opportunity to target these customers by tapping into its older catalogs.

iTunes Says Its Customers Top 50 Million.

February 26, 2008—Apple® today announced that iTunes® (www.itunes.com) is now the number two music retailer in the US, behind only Wal-Mart, based on the latest data from the NPD Group*. Apple also announced that there are now over 50 million iTunes Store customers. iTunes has sold over four billion songs, with an incredible 20 million songs sold on Christmas Day 2007 alone, and offers the world’s largest music catalog of over six million songs from all of the major and thousands of independent labels.

“We’d like to thank the over 50 million music lovers who have helped the iTunes Store reach this incredible milestone,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes. “We continue to add great new features like iTunes Movie Rentals to give our customers even more reason to love iTunes.”

Last month, Apple launched iTunes Movie Rentals featuring movies from all of the major movie studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), Lionsgate and New Line Cinema. Users can rent movies and watch them on their PCs or Macs, all current generation iPods**, iPhone™ and on a widescreen TV with Apple TV®. iTunes Movie Rentals will offer over 1,000 titles by the end of this month, including over 100 titles in stunning high definition video with 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound which users can rent directly from their widescreen TV using Apple TV.

iTunes 7.6 is available as a free download at www.itunes.com. iTunes Movie Rentals are available in the US only and are $2.99 (US) for library titles and $3.99 (US) for new releases, and high definition versions are priced just one dollar more with library titles at $3.99 (US) and new releases at $4.99 (US). Movie rentals from the iTunes Store for Mac® or Windows require iTunes 7.6. iTunes Movie Rentals require a valid credit card with a billing address in the country of purchase.

*Based on data from market research firm the NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey that captures consumer reported past week unit purchases and counts one CD representing 12 tracks, excluding wireless transactions. The iTunes Music Store became the second-largest music retailer in the US after Wal-Mart, based on the amount of music sold during 2007.

**Movie rentals work on iPod® classic, iPod nano with video and iPod touch.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.