Briefcase

Netflix signs deal with the CW for streaming

SAN FRANCISCO – Netflix’s Internet video library is adding TV shows from the CW network in an effort to appeal to younger subscribers and help offset the upcoming loss of another contract that supplied customers with other popular entertainment options.

Under a four-year licensing deal announced Thursday, Netflix will have the right to show the previous seasons of TV series that CW airs through the network’s 2014-’15 programming window. Netflix will retain the streaming rights to some of the series until 2019.

The previous seasons of several current CW shows, including “The Vampire Diaries” and “Gossip Girl,” will be available in Netflix’s Internet video library Saturday. Other CW series will debut in January. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.

Netflix Inc is scrambling to overcome a series of setbacks that have hammered the company’s stock price and driven away hordes of subscribers during the past three months. Last month, Starz Entertainment broke off talks to renew a key Internet streaming deal.

Netflix says old TV shows account for about 60 percent of the video watched on the streaming service. The company would like to add even more TV programming, but Time Warner so far has staunchly refused to license HBO productions such as “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” and “Deadwood” because it views Netflix as a threat to its pay-TV channel.

Associated Press

GAP axing U.S. stores as popularity wanes

NEW YORK – Gap Inc. plans to close stores in the U.S. while expanding in China.

The struggling retailer, which runs the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic chains, detailed plans on Thursday to close 189 locations, or 21 percent of its namesake Gap stores in the U.S., by the end of 2013. At the same time, the largest U.S. clothing chain said it plans to triple the number of Gap stores in China from about 15 by the end of the year to roughly 45 by the end of next year.

The moves are related to the company’s previously stated goal of reducing its overall square footage in the U.S. by 10 percent from 2007 to the end of 2013, while roughly doubling revenue from outside of the U.S. to 30 percent by the end of the same year.

Like many U.S. companies, Gap has been looking overseas for growth as Americans continue to cut back on spending during the down economy. But even before the U.S. economy took a turn for the worse, Gap lost its fashion edge. Its sales in the U.S. have eroded considerably since it drove America’s love of khakis and all things business casual in the 1990s because of growing competition from specialty retailers like Abercrombie & Fitch and cheap chic merchants like H&M.

Associated Press

Agency downgrades three European banks

LONDON – Concerns that governments are less likely to come to the rescue of financial institutions prompted Fitch credit ratings agency to downgrade its outlook for Britain’s Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC, Lloyds Banking Group and Swiss lender UBS AG on Thursday.

Fitch also said it is reviewing the ratings of a host of European lenders, citing ongoing exposure to sovereign-debt in peripheral Europe and sluggish economic growth prospects. The costs of additional bank regulation and political pressure to reduce state support for banks continue to pose challenges to lenders, Fitch said.

Fitch is the second major credit rating agency in less than a week to slash its ratings of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds. Last week, Moody’s cut its ratings on the two U.K. banks for the same reason.

Associated Press