Four Seattle-area radio stations will offer high-definition multicasts starting Jan. 30. HD radio broadcasting allows for more than one program to be broadcast on a frequency. Using that feature, Clear Channel will roll out four music services on its local FM stations. KFNK will offer an “indie rock” channel, classic rocker KJR-FM will add an all-’80s music channel, KBNQ will offer a classic country and KUBE will broadcast hip-hop on its second channel. Special receivers are needed to hear the new channels.
Alcan signs on as Boeing 787 supplier
The Boeing Co. has locked up an aluminum supplier for the 787 program. Canadian producer Alcan announced Thursday that it had entered into a contract to supply aluminum for Boeing’s new plane. The dollar value and length of the contract weren’t disclosed. While most of the major structures of Boeing’s new plane will be made of composites, about 20 percent of it will be aluminum.
Home Depot plan targets the pros
The Home Depot Inc.’s bold five-year plan announced Thursday to shift more of its overall sales away from its retail core to its division serving professional contractors got a lukewarm response from investors. The company said it would slow the pace of new store openings but still maintain strong earnings growth.
Writer says Scrushy paid for good press
A writer who turned out a stream of sympathetic newspaper stories about former HealthSouth Corp. CEO Richard Scrushy during his fraud trial says Scrushy secretly paid her $11,000 through a public relations firm and typically read her articles before publication. Documents obtained by the Associated Press show that the PR firm wrote thousands of dollars in checks to Audry Lewis, whose freelance articles appeared in The Birmingham Times, a small but influential newspaper. The documents show that money from the PR firm went to a pastor, who says he was paid to bring fellow black preachers into the courtroom in a bid to sway the mostly black jury in Scrushy’s favor. Scrushy, acquitted in June of involvement in a $2.7 billion accounting fraud at the health clinics, strongly denied payments to Lewis or to pastor Herman Henderson.
Washington Mutual earnings rise 12%
Washington Mutual Inc. reports that its fourth-quarter earnings rose 12 percent despite a steep drop in its home loan business. For the three months ended Dec. 31, net income at the nation’s largest savings and loan was $865 million, or 85 cents a share, up from $668 million, or 76 cents a share in the last quarter of 2004.
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