Results tagged “revenue”

Perhaps nostalgic for the license plates of yore as well as being desperate for revenue, NY State rolled out a new license plate redesign that will be required for pretty much all vehicles, new and old, starting next year. The "Empire Gold" license plate, in gold with dark blue lettering, will replace the current white plate with the Niagara falls and city skyline elements and the cost will be another $25 for registration renewals and new registrations. Plus, if you want to your current letter and number license combination, that'll be another $20!

Starting this coming Saturday, bottled water drinks will be subject to a nickel deposit—and the NY State government will be able to collect millions from the unclaimed deposits. Governor Paterson said, "The expansion of this legislation not only provides our State with much-needed revenue, but will also help us to keep our neighborhoods and parks clean."

Broadway is suffering, people! This summer attendance was down 9.3%, compared with the same period a year ago. Even with more expensive tickets, box office grosses were down 2.9%, to just under $290.9 million. So producer Ken Davenport isn't just being a drama queen when he tells Crain's, "We have far fewer butts in seats, and that concerns me. This summer wasn't good, and we're on target for a drop at the end of this season." Davenport produced four shows on Broadway last season but this fall he's only doing one—David Mamet's Oleanna, a two-hander starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles. Other producers are hoping celebs like Daniel Craig, Jude Law, and, ugh, Catherine Zeta-Jones can bring the butts back.

The other week, Cablevision revealed that it would shift Newsday.com from a free website to one that charges for its content, given the declining fortunes of newspaper industry. Now the NY Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger says he is considering "incremental" charges at the NYTimes.com website. At an event at SUNY Stony Brook, Sulzberger discussed the print industry, “The immediate future looks, at a minimum, grim. Traditional revenue streams are anemic and getting worse." The NY Times has had various approaches for web revenue: Charging non-subscribers, charging international visitors, charging for editorials and opinion pieces... An analyst tells Crain's, “The Times has taken this position of ‘we’re free, we’re the biggest news site on the Web' If they make a mistake and confuse people again, the Times will have pulled defeat from the jaws of potential victory.”

With the MTA's finances in desperate, dire shape, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has "proposed a compromise on Wednesday that endorses putting tolls on the bridges over the East River and the Harlem River," the NY Times reports. The idea to toll the currently free bridges came up last November, but opposition from drivers has been fierce. Silver offered a compromise to charge $2 tolls to drivers—which is what subway and bus riders pay—and said, Obviously there are some who don’t like the toll. And I put that in the juxtaposition of, ‘Look, this is the only game in town.’” But Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) told the TImes, “Tolling the bridges is just not acceptable to me. Once you cross the Rubicon on tolling bridges the future conversation is merely, ‘How much is the periodic increase going to be?’"

Earlier this week, the MTA said that the proposed 8% subway and bus fare hike for next year might actually be higher. Why? Because the fare hike was discussed before the more recent economic downturn, credit problems, etc. (the MTA said, "Usually it doesn't change that much because our projections are pretty good. This year, because of the crisis, the changes are more significant."). It might be time to seriously consider alternative revenue streams like putting cats at the entrances of subway stations. In Japan, Tama the calico cat, mascot of the Wakayama Electric Railway, has helped put $10 million into the local economy!

Given that the MTA project billion-dollar budget gaps in future years and that the cash cow of congestion pricing never made it to the altar, there may be a good idea of increasing revenue by way of Japan. The Associated Press has a story about a "money-losing Japanese train company" whose new lease on business life is thanks to a calico cat named Tama:

All the 9-year-old female cat does is sit by the entrance of Kishi Station in western Japan, wearing a black uniform cap and posing for photos for the tourists who are now flocking in droves from across the nation.

Continue reading "MTA Revenue Idea: Cats "In Charge""

Glory Days, the new musical written by a pair of twenty-somethings from Virginia, closed after its official opening night last night, joining such Broadway flops as Moose Murders and Teaneck Tanzi in the illustrious "Open/Close Club." The negative reviews proved too much for producers, who chose to pull the plug and eat their $2.5 million investment. In writing his delicate pan, Ben Brantley noted that the producers “have done this little, hopeful show no favors by dragging it into a spotlight that invites close and unforgiving inspection.”

The New York State Legislature finally passed a budget two weeks ago, which it balanced by taking on extra debt without the approval of voters to fund a 6% increase in spending as revenues continue to shrink. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli says New York is heading for trouble, especially since revenue projections are so uncertain and vulnerable to further economic downturn.