That will happen in the middle of 2014, says Barclays analyst Kannan Venkateshwar, when circulation growth at the paper will start offsetting the decline in the Times’ ad sales. Here’s what that looks like in chart form:

True, one reason that circ growth will lap ad losses is that the losses will be slowing after much steeper declines. Still, the best-case scenario for most old-line media businesses is that digital sales increase faster than physical sales drop, and that’s essentially what Venkateshwar says is happening here. A year after the Times introduced its pay wall, it now has 450,000 digital subscribers — a number that impresses lots of industry skeptics.

Earlier this spring, when the Times said it was making it harder to read the paper online without paying for it, by dropping its free article limit from 20 per month to 10 per month, I wondered if the Times had made the move out of necessity — because it needed to boost its digital sales — or optimism — because it was confident it could boost its sales with a taller pay wall.

But after some thought, and bouncing the idea off a few industry folks, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s both. The Times would sure like to accelerate Venkateshwar’s timeline, and that’s probably not going to happen by fixing its ad problem. Meanwhile, the paper seems relatively confident that raising the pay wall equals marketing the pay wall. And the nice thing about the system the paper has built is that if it doesn’t work, it can fiddle with the controls some more.

That’s the word from Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes, the latest Apple observer to express optimism for the company amid the rough patch its shares have been experiencing lately. Hard to imagine that such expressions of optimism are even necessary, considering that Apple’s shares have surged nearly 60 percent to a high of $644 this year. But evidently some investors are too risk-averse and easily frightened to actually own the stock.

Anyway …

Reitzes says that now is not the time to bail on Apple’s stock. And, like Goldman Sachs’s Bill Shope before him, he argues that concerns over softer-than-expected Mac sales, iPhone subsidies and too-lofty expectations for iPad and iPhone sales are misguided. He also notes that, historically, Apple shares have risen significantly in the six months prior to a new iPhone’s debut. Which bodes well for investors, given where we are in the calendar year.

“Our research indicates that Apple’s shares appreciate 31 percent in the 6 months ahead of every major new iPhone ship date,” says Reitzes. “We believe this phenomenon occurs given datapoints from the supply chain start to indicate a significant acceleration in iPhone sales after each launch. … Since we believe that [the] iPhone 5 cycle will be particularly special — and start in the September timeframe — it is not time to give up on Apple’s stock right now.”

In other words, Apple’s market cap is likely to see further gains. And the second-quarter earnings the company will report on April 24 may well be the jumping-off point.

That’s the scenario Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente sketches out in a new note. He figures that Apple could certainly come up with a cool piece of hardware — he imagines one that looks like a “large-scale iPad” — that would tie together the Internet with Apple’s existing suite of iOS apps and services.

But DiClemente doesn’t think Cook will be able to break open the traditional cable TV bundle. Which means that if you watch TV on Apple TV, it’s going to look a lot like the TV you’re already watching now. And it will cost the same to get that stuff to your set.

DiClemente is a media analyst, not a hardware guy, and his report focuses primarily on the reasons it will be so hard for Apple — or anyone — to truly disrupt the TV programming/distribution business. But here’s some of his speculation about the box, which is similar to other industry guesses:

• He doesn’t think it’s coming in 2012.
• He thinks it will use Apple’s Siri voice control as a “groundbreaking interface.”
• He imagines it could sell for $1,500.
• He thinks it could be “so much more than a TV — including gaming, video communication, content delivery, apps, computing and all the capabilities of the current Apple TV.”

All good, so far. But again, the problem will be when it comes to the TV programming part.

DiClemente argues, convincingly, that TV programmers don’t have any incentive to stop selling the bundles they’re already selling for big dollars (in seven- and 10-year deals).

The “affiliate fees” that cable providers pay for the bundles are now up to $30 billion a year, or about $30 per subscriber per month. And programmers aren’t going to do anything that weakens that revenue stream.

So whether Apple ends up working with the cable providers like Comcast and strikes deals that use Apple TVs in lieu of a cable box, or whether Apple works with the cable programmers like Viacom and uses Apple TVs for a cable-free “over the top” service, the result would be the same: Consumers would have to pay a big monthly fee for a big package of TV channels, most of which they wouldn’t use.

But Yahoo isn’t the only aging Web giant with a big basket of patents it thinks it can turn into money. AOL also has a portfolio of 700 to 800 “really important” patents, CEO Tim Armstrong told Wall Street this morning.

“You should assume we understand that portfolio, and assume we have a strategy on it,” he told the audience at a Barclays investor conference.

Like what? No details there. But he did draw a parallel with the Nortel patents that will sell for $4.5 billion to a coalition that inclues Apple and Microsoft — “foundational patents for the Internet” that haven’t been on the market before. They’re like “beachfront property in East Hampton,” Armstrong said. “I don’t know — I don’t go to the Hamptons.”

Armstrong said he made a point of wresting the patents from Time Warner when AOL spun off a few years ago, and that the company started taking a close look at them back in September. No mention of the proxy fight recently launched by Starboard Value, which says that AOL’s patents “could produce in excess of $1 billion of licensing income if appropriately harvested and monetized.”

The Barclays analyst now thinks Amazon moved five million units in the last few months of 2011. That’s down from his earlier estimate of 5.5 million, which was up from an even earlier estimate of 4.5 million.

Of course, Amazon could clear all this up by simply telling investors how many devices it sells. But if you held your breath waiting for that to happen, you would need really, really strong lungs.

If you like tracking analyst prognostications, you should also note that DiClemente has lowered his 2012 Kindle Fire and e-reader estimates, in part because he now thinks Amazon may not release new models until the second half of the year.

The Barclays analyst has bumped up his sales estimates for the low-end tablet: He now thinks Jeff Bezos sold 5.5 million units last quarter, up from his earlier guess of 4.5 million.

DiClemente figures Amazon will now sell 18.4 million Kindle Fires this year, which would give it nearly half of the non-iPad tablet market.

It’s always important to remember that, unlike Apple, which sells media and apps via iTunes to help support its devices sales, Amazon is approaching this from the opposite direction: It wants people to buy its devices so they’ll be more likely to buy other stuff.

DiClemente takes a stab at this one, too: He figures that by 2014, the Kindle Fire and its descendants will be generating an additional $3.9 billion a year from incremental e-commerce spending, driven by customers who pick up the company’s Prime shipping program along with their tablet.

And he thinks that, during that same year, revenue from tablet content will eclipse tablet revenue, period: He figures devices will generate $3.9 billion, and content will be worth some $5.2 billion.

Back to present tense: Has anyone seen a Kindle Fire in the wild? I haven’t, and my thoroughly unscientific spot check of my pals and peers hasn’t turned one up, either. Of course, I also recall when seeing a Kindle e-reader on the subway — many months after the e-reader’s launch — was enough to warrant a blog post.

It’s a safe bet.

Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes says that while the debut of the Fire will obviously have some effect on the U.S. tablet market, it won’t have much impact on the iPad market.

“We believe the $199 Kindle Fire from Amazon has ‘paused’ some level of tablet demand in the U.S. given its disruptive price point and that customers are even starting to realize that the iPad is likely to be upgraded in the C1Q (as usual),” Reitzes says. “Our research … points toward C4Q11 production in the lower double digit millions range after a mid-teens iPad build in C3Q11.”

Importantly, Reitzes says even that tweaked build rate still backs his iPad unit sale estimate of 13.9 million for the December quarter. So, in his eyes, Apple will deliver on those “all-time” record iPad shipments.

And as for the Fire?

Well, it’s still quite new. And the tablet market will certainly change again with the expected debut of the iPad 3 next year.

“The jury is still out on the Amazon Fire,” Reitzes writes. “We believe the iPad still stands out as the industry standard in terms of software integration. Some of the early reviews for the Fire are less than flattering. We believe that iPad is set for a new product cycle in FY12, which will reaccelerate the category.”

Why?

The challenges facing RIM as it transitions to its new QNX operating system are vast, and the company’s ability to successfully navigate them is questionable. And then there are the continued product delays that keep the company lagging behind its competitors. Indeed, according to Kvaal, the new QNX-based smartphones RIM promised to deliver in the first quarter of 2012 probably won’t reach the market until the middle of the year.

“We believe QNX smartphones are delayed beyond management’s last public statements of a 1Q12 release,” says Kvaal. “RIM’s preference to hold the launch until fully ready is the correct decision in our view, though it does imply that management is anticipating delays in the launch. The company has recently shied away from any reaffirmation of the timeline and have had several public forums to do so. … Putting this aside, our math on carrier certification timelines which require at least six months in the US suggests a late 1Q12 launch at best. … However, we believe technical challenges are high as we have seen with the delay of Playbook 2.0, and we therefore consider a mid-year launch more likely and our checks across the distribution channel support this view.”

Bad news for a company that’s fast losing its competitive edge. The longer RIM waits to roll out its new QNX devices, the more time it gives its competition to whittle down its market share.

That number is in line with some of DiClemente’s peers, but it’s still notable for two reasons:

• If it’s true, it means the video site’s revenue has now synced up with the price Google paid for it five years ago.
• Much more important, by DiClemente’s estimate, it means YouTube commands a staggering 80 percent of Web video revenues — he figures the whole market is worth $2 billion.

It’s possible that DiClemente’s numbers are a bit off. Hulu has said it will do more than $500 million in 2011, with the majority of that coming from advertising. So if both of those numbers are accurate it would mean that there was essentially no other video ad spending anywhere in the world in 2011, which seems like a bit of a stretch.

[UPDATE: Barclays analyst Perry Gold clarifies that the $1.6 billion YouTube estimate is a global number, but the $2 billion figure is its estimate for the U.S. market video market. Gold suggests that the global video market may be $2.5 billion to $3 billion, which would make the math a little easier to digest. But the other wildcard here, as some readers have noted, is that YouTube's revenues come from both video ads and display advertising, which means we're not comparing apples to apples.]

Still, point taken: YouTube is finally a big business that makes serious money. Perhaps it’s even profitable!

And if that’s the case, why is it pressing ahead with this Hollywood/“channels” strategy?

The big idea behind that one, after all, is to create stuff that advertisers will be happy to pay a premium for. But if YouTube is already generating $1.6 billion a year for non-premium stuff, why bother?

One possible answer: The channel strategy is a big focus for YouTube, but it doesn’t mean the site is abandoning what’s already working.

And while people who type stuff like to mention the $100 million YouTube is investing in the project (guilty!), bear in mind that the number is almost meaningless to Google. In fact, Google has already spent close to double that in the first nine months of this year — $173 million — on “content acquisition costs … primarily related to content displayed on YouTube,” and I’m reasonably sure that number doesn’t include the channel deals, most of which were only recently finalized.

So while the channels plan may augur Google’s intention to “take on TV” and “disrupt cable” and other storm-the-barricades metaphors, right now it’s just a toe-touch for YouTube head Salar Kamangar and his team. Turns out that what they’re already doing could be working just fine.

So why the big spike? There are plenty of theories, but one in particular seems to be gaining traction. Apple has big plans for iCloud and the massive data center infrastructure that supports its various services. Specifically, the company wants to grow it. And, according to Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes, it no longer wants to outsource iCloud’s plumbing. Says Reitzes, “Right now, we believe Apple gets some help for partners in delivering iCloud and iTunes Match — but we believe the company would like to do it all itself.”

Understandable, especially if the partners to whom Reitzes refers are Microsoft and Amazon, whose Azure and AWS platforms are believed to be quietly doing some heavy lifting behind the scenes.

If that is indeed the case, it seems reasonable to assume the arrangement is temporary — and that, perhaps, the purpose of the nonretail capex is to bring it to an end. Beyond that, of course, are Apple’s aspirations for iCloud, which almost certainly entail extending it to movies and TV shows.

“We envision iCloud’s capabilities further expanding with … potential moves into entertainment,” says Reitzes. “We believe the backup capabilities will expand as well — and create more services revenue streams. In our opinion, iCloud is one of Apple’s most important services since the launch of the iTunes store in 2003, given its role as a convenience factor for customers — fostering loyalty within the Apple ecosystem and driving the ‘halo effect’ that helps sell more devices.”

“We believe all six devices will be competitive in the marketplace from both hardware and pricing standpoints,” the research outfit’s Nokia team wrote. “We have been positively surprised by the large number of wireless operators involved in the Lumia’s launch (an average of 5 per country where the device will be launched in Western Europe this quarter).”

So, good news for Nokia, and a good start.

Or not.

Because over at Bernstein, they’re taking a very different view. There, analysts are saying there’s really nothing to differentiate the Lumia from the competition. Worse, at the high end of the line it’s overpriced and at the mid and low ends it’s got a “cheap build.”

“This new product portfolio appears worryingly uncompetitive,” says Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu, adding that because of its $580 price point the Lumia 800, Nokia’s hero device, will be hobbled at launch. “This phone is condemned to be either anecdotic [sic] or go through massive price cuts in the next 6 months.”

If that’s to be the fate of its marquee handset, Nokia has another tough year ahead of it battling it out with the iPhone and Google’s Android army.

“This product portfolio has only a limited chance of regaining ground against two operating systems that take 85 percent of the high smartphone market, particularly as the price points appear uncompetitive at present,” Ferragu concludes. “I now believe the company is unlikely to see a meaningful change in trends as it launches these products. Initial shipments may have only a limited impact on shipments and gross margins, but we would be surprised to see a lasting positive effect.”

So two divergent views. New dawn or dawn of the dead. For Nokia’s sake, let’s hope it’s the former.

2011 isn’t 2008, yet. So Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente doesn’t think the ad business is going to get hammered — he just thinks it’s going to grow less. The exception here is very old print media, like magazines, newspapers and direct mail, in part because of pressure from daily-deal guys like Groupon and Living Social.

Note that Time Warner has already said it has seen weakness at Time Inc. during Q3, and I’ve heard the same from other publishers, as well.

And as with the last go-round, DiClemente (and others) argue that Web advertising will fare best if we really do go into a double dip.

It’s the same argument, too: Ad dollars still haven’t completely followed consumers into the Web, so there’s plenty of growth left, especially when it comes to video, etc. And Web advertising is more efficient than offline, so in a cash crunch, advertisers will have more incentive to use it, etc.

Which may all be true (I hope it is, given where you’re reading this). But also note that both AOL and Yahoo have made noises about softness in display ads this summer. Then again, both of those companies have plenty of their own problems.

Consider Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes’s calendar 2011 tablet forecast. Originally it called for 47 million tablets. Now it calls for 62.7 million. Of those, Reitzes expects 38.9 million to be iPads, significantly more than the 31.5 million he’d originally predicted. The remaining 23.7 million will be “non-Apple tablets,” up from his first prediction of 15.6 million.

The rationale for these increases? For the iPad it’s simple: Improved product availability in the U.S. and abroad and strong demand in the consumer and corporate spaces. As Apple COO Tim Cook said on the company’s last earnings call, “We sold every iPad we made.”

And for those non-Apple tablets? Says Reitzes, “While indications are that sell-through volumes have been soft for competitive products to the iPad, our ‘other’ tablet estimates are still driven higher by the sheer number of other vendors shipping devices into the channel — with some of the largest estimated volumes coming from Samsung, RIM, Motorola, HP, Acer, Asus and Amazon.”

In other words, those companies are shipping a ton of tablets to their retail partners, despite a lack of demand. And no good can come of that. Push too much product into the channel when there’s little demand for it and you end up with an oversupply and the sort of nasty inventory problems that dragged Palm into the mud. And those problems will only grow worse with the debut of Apple’s next iPad, which Reitzes suggests could occur late this year.

“Note that based on increased evidence in the supply chain, it may be possible for a new special edition iPad to ship as early as this fall, featuring an enhanced display, upgraded cameras and faster wireless capabilities — which could make our estimates conservative,” he writes, adding, “Apple does not necessarily need this product to maintain and even extend its lead.”

Indeed. Remember, consumers don’t seem to want tablets … they want iPads.

“We haven’t pushed it real hard in business, and it’s being grabbed out of our hands,” Steve Jobs said last year. “And I talk to people everyday in all kinds of businesses that are using iPads, all the way from boards of directors that are shipping iPads around instead of board books, down to nurses and doctors in hospitals and other large and small businesses.”

If Apple’s not pushing the iPad into the enterprise market, how is it getting there? Carried in by the rank and file–just as smartphones were. Employees are buying iPads, and other mobile devices as well, and enterprise is increasingly supporting them on the back end and sometimes even subsidizing them, or their use.

In other words, the consumer market has evolved into a de facto evangelist for Apple in enterprise, a lucky development for the company, which is uniquely positioned to benefit from it.

“This trend should mean that the key to corporate success over the long term is being strong in consumer devices that you use everyday,” says Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes. “As a result, the purchase pattern is shifting toward laptops, tablets and smart phones being bought by consumers (all key areas of Apple’s strength), while direct sales of corporate products have shorter and smaller upgrade cycles. We call this trend the “Consumerization of IT,” which benefits companies with strong consumer appeal and customer service reputations….We believe Apple has a large lead in terms of driving this trend, while it presents challenges for traditional PC vendors, in our opinion. We believe the iPad’s success in the enterprise will help Apple make further inroads into the corporate market with other products eventually.”

Interesting, this vision of the iPad as Apple’s Trojan Horse for enterprise, particularly since it appears to be a natural evolution of the consumer market. And if it accelerates corporate adoption of the device as well as other Apple hardware over the long term–well then, it truly is magical and revolutionary.

Certainly the hardware and OS seem formidable enough to at least differentiate the device in an increasingly crowded market. And if HP’s integration story proves to be as good in practice as it sounded on stage in San Francisco yesterday (printers, phones, PCs and tablets all connected via webOS), the TouchPad could mount a decent challenge to the iPad–even if it doesn’t arrive at market until after the debut of the iPad 2.

Though he feels the summer ship date is just too late, Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes was impressed by the TouchPad’s hardware and OS. “[The TouchPad] appears to have very good software and syncing capabilities (HP Synergy feature) and some promising features,” he said in a client note today. “Also we point out that HP is clearly still investing not just in tablets but its smartphone business, which provides a good link between products for the future. Along with a nice OS, we believe that HP’s channel strength, link to its printing franchise, and overall brand strength could enable it to be one of the few relevant tablet players far behind Apple over the long-term.”

J.P. Morgan’s Mark Moskowitz had good things to say as well. “Our initial take on the TouchPad: better than expected,” he said. “Beyond Apple’s iPad, we previously had not been impressed with the other tablet entrants. HP’s TouchPad moderately changes this view.”

Interstingly, Moskowitz doesn’t seem quite as concerned about the device’s launch date. His feeling is that with the TouchPad, HP isn’t taking on Apple as much as it is the conga line of vendors chasing it. “For HP,” he said, “we believe the initial mission is to capture meaningful share among the non-iPad tablets, i.e., Android and Windows-based devices.”

Which is an interesting way of looking at the company’s strategy. Perhaps HP isn’t trying to out iPad the iPad–it’s trying to out iPad the iPad’s imitators, a far less daunting task.

No big deal, Google said–just a little re-org.

And at first blush, Wall Street seemed to take the company at its word. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, whatever. A sampling of analyst reactions:

• J.P. Morgan’s Imran Khan: “We think it is important to note that although the titles have changed, the core team remains the same. We think this new team structure makes a lot of sense and could result in faster decision making.”
• Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney: “We view this change as un-dramatic, as Eric Schmidt will still be working closely with Page and Brin…we believe Larry Page has been groomed for the role of CEO, and we don’t expect any dramatic changes to Google’s core strategies.
• Barclays’ Douglas Anmuth: “We don’t actually view it as that material of a change. We still think Google will be run in a similar manner as it is today, and mostly by the same people.”

Investors also seemed to yawn, or at least they seemed to last night: Google stock moved up a little bit after the market closed, but that was it.

Today, though, the story is harder to discern from the GOOG chart, which is one of the reasons you should always be wary when someone tells you with confidence why a stock is moving one way or another.

Watch the huge spike at this morning’s open, and then the steady decline. This was taken shortly before noon, New York time:

Again, don’t make too much of a stock’s movement on any given day. But you do have to wonder if any of this reflects a reassessment of the move.

It is definitely true that Larry Page was deeply involved in every major decision Google grappled with, and it’s undeniable that the company relies on a second tier of executives, like CFO Patrick Pichette and sales boss Nikesh Arora, to make the trains run on time. So, easy enough to argue that there’s no real change.

Still, now we’re seeing reports reminding us that the weird power-sharing arrangement between Schmidt, Page and co-founder Sergey Brin was, in fact, a weird arrangement. And that it didn’t always work smoothly. And that the three men may not have been on the same page about a variety of things. Which means that the company may in fact behave differently under Page’s guidance.

Which again, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But it could be a new thing–and Wall Street never quite knows what to make of that.

That’s the amount Netflix has committed to paying Hollywood studios for the rights to stream their movies and TV shows. And it’s up from $229 million three months ago, the company disclosed in an SEC filing yesterday.

Most of that leap comes from a five-year deal that Netflix previously announced with the Epix pay channel, which is thought to be in the $900 million to $1 billion range. But that number could jump again within the next year, when Netflix’s deal with the Starz pay channel expires.

The Starz deal gives Netflix access to Sony and Disney titles, so it’s crucial that Reed Hastings hangs on to it. And that will make a new Starz deal about as expensive as the Epix deal, says Barclays analyst Douglas Anmuth: He figures Netflix will have a total streaming commitment of $2 billion by the end of 2011.

The magic of the Netflix Web model, though, is that as people consume more on the Web, they cut back on discs –”You’re
replacing the postal cost with content cost,” in Hastings’s words.

For more details on Netlix’s streaming plans and costs, I highly recommend nerding out with this transcript from its Q3 earnings call (PDF). It’s a fascinating peek into a company on the leading edge of the digital transition.

This being Apple we’re talking about, that evolution is likely already well under way and perhaps–perhaps–being engineered at the company’s massive new North Carolina data center. With its 500,000 square feet of data center space (currently, sources tell me that Apple is considering doubling that) the facility has been built for something. And what better use to put it to than the cloud services that might completely eliminate the need for high-capacity hard drives and give the Air storage to match its performance characteristics.

Were Apple to create the cloud-based version of iTunes that’s long been rumored–one from which users’ entire iTunes libraries could be streamed–and were it to bolster MobileMe’s iDisk and Gallery services with more-robust storage, even the 64GB Air might seem an attractive option to the high-end user. And Apple’s new N.C. data center, which is nearly five times the size of the one it operates in Newark, Calif., may well make both those things possible.

“We believe it makes sense to have a cloud service linking Apple devices to personal photos, videos, games, music and other entertainment–eliminating the limitations and expenses of excess storage,” writes Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes. “We believe such a service would only enhance the loyalty toward Apple and the benefits of using devices in its vertically integrated model.”

Saving to disk is slowly becoming a fixture of the past and, as Apple’s recently rejiggered Apple TV business model demonstrates, streaming is the future. Which makes perfect sense, when you think of the MacBook Air as the future of the notebook.

Don’t underestimate FaceTime, Reitzes said in a note to clients today that suggests we’re at the beginnings of a FaceTime networking effect that will goose sales across many of Apple’s product lines, particularly if Apple (AAPL) adds support for the video conferencing feature to iPads and Macs, which seems likely.

“We envision a world eventually where all major Apple devices incorporate FaceTime, including Macs, iPhones, iPod Touches and iPads,” Reitzes writes. “While Android and competitive devices either have or are working toward incorporating a similar feature, we believe this particular feature benefits from Apple’s vertically integrated model…. We believe the ‘FaceTime networking effect’ could provide a halo effect on Macs and iPads once the feature becomes available. Note that FaceTime is an ‘open standard’ so if Apple is successful in making this feature ubiquitous, more non-Apple devices could be made compatible in the future.”

Running with that thesis a bit further, Reitzes figures Apple will have sold some 63 million FaceTime devices by the end of fiscal 2011–40 million FaceTime-compatible iPhones, 15 million FaceTime-compatible iPods, and 8 million FaceTime-compatible iPads. And he says that number will more than double the following year.

“[In fiscal 2012 we see] an installed base of over 150 million FaceTime enabled devices, which could prove conservative if FaceTime is put in all iPads and all Macs,” Reitzes concludes. “Given Apple’s high share among college students, it would seem like it could basically get to a point where an entire campus could communicate using FaceTime in some way on a device if desired. While we believe the Android platform can do a good job with this type of feature, it seems that Apple has the complete package to make FaceTime grow into a multiplier for its device sales through vertical integration.”

[Image credit: FacePlant]

The latest to hazard a guess: Barclays’ Douglas Anmuth, who estimates that Amazon (AMZN) will sell about five million Kindles this year. Driving those sales, the device’s latest redesign and its more appealing $139/$189 price point.

“We expect Amazon will sell more than 5 million Kindles this year, going toward 11.5 million in 2012,” Anmuth says. “We believe a bifurcated market has clearly developed between more expensive, multi-function tablets and cheaper, dedicated eReaders. We expect the Kindle to maintain and even grow share of the eReader market, while Amazon’s Apps strategy enables the Kindle store to be the leading eBooks seller across a wide range of devices. We project total Kindle related revenue to reach $1.7 billion this year and grow to $4.3 billion in 2012.”

An interesting bit of crystal ball reading, particularly in light of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s prediction this past summer: “I predict we will surpass paperback sales sometime in the next nine to 12 months. Sometime after that, we’ll surpass the combination of paperback and hardcover. It stuns me.”

It’s also possible that there was some great stuff there that I missed; my efforts to liveblog today’s call were marred by technical snafus and operator (i.e., me) error.

Still. some nuggets:

• Murdoch reaffirmed his company’s interest in overhauling MySpace, even though its Google (GOOG)  deal is about to expire, and even though the unit it is still losing money as ad revenue and search dollars dwindle. “We will see it out for some time yet”, he says.
• Mobile, though, is another story. News Corp. took a $217 million charge on its outdoor and mobile businesses, and Carey confirmed an open secret — the company is trying to sell its Jamba unit.
• Murdoch continues to love the iPad. He thinks the Apple  (AAPL) device will be joined by others and that worldwide we’ll see “hundreds and hundreds of millions” of these things in use. Like other content-makers, he thinks it’s “gamechanger” for his business.
• Murdoch didn’t have a lot to say about his efforts to command users to pay for his stuff online. Asked specifically about Hulu and other video options (News Corp. is a co-investor in the site), he was mum. But Carey made noises about making sure News Corp. didn’t give away valuable content online. So draw your own conclusions there.
• He says a boycott of Glenn Beck’s Fox News show has had zero impact on the show’s revenue: “They don’t boycott watching it. We’re getting incredible numbers”.
• And the big news. Fox is “very close” to announcing new judges for “American Idol.” And next year’s show will be an upgrade, Murdoch said. “It will be better. The music will certainly be better.”

——————

EARLIER:

How did News Corp. do in its most recent quarter? Good question! The company is reporting earnings of 33 cents a share, and the street was looking for 20 cents.

Good, right? But that 33 cents number includes a bunch of one time gains, which are only partly offset by one-time charges. And if the company has explained exactly how much impaact those charges had on profits, I’ve yet to see it. UPDATE: The adjusted number is 30 cents — but that also includes 12 cents of “non-cash tax benefits related to recognition of certain prior year tax credits”. So make of that what you will.

That said, we can say with authority that the company recorded revenue of $8.1 billion, which is in line with the consensus. I’ll obviously update the EPS number when I can.

Barclays media analyst Anthony DiClemente provided us with nice overview of revenue and operating earnings expectations, so if you’re so inclined, you can see how News Corp. (which owns this Web site) matched up on a unit-by-unit basis.

As always, the real fun begins when Rupert Murdoch gets on the speakerphone for the earnings call, because Murdoch more or less says what’s on his mind, which means he tends to generate actual news. And even when he’s on script, the output can be interesting. Last quarter, for instance, he announced that News Corp. would be announcing a new digital news subscription service within a few weeks. Haven’t heard about it (on the record) since, but I’m sure someone will ask today.

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But the deal could also give Les Moonves and company the ability to strike less conventional distribution deals, too. Now that Comcast is out of the way, CBS could move forward with a Hulu deal, and perhaps the likes of an Apple TV product as well.

Make no mistake: The real focus of today’s deal is the money Comcast will fork over for the right to distribute CBS’ broadcast programming to its cable subscribers’ TV sets. Comcast and other cable guys have resisted paying the so-called retransmission fee for TV that’s available free over the airwaves. But one by one, they’re conceding and paying up, which means their customers will, too.

Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente guesses Comcast’s CBS fee will start at 50 cents a month per subscriber and move well past $1 by the end of the deal, though I’ve heard grunts and murmurs from Black Rock that those numbers are low. Perhaps we’ll hear more during tomorrow’s earnings call.

And while the release announcing the deal notes that Comcast (CMCSA) gets online rights as part of the pact, the near-term impact for Web viewers will be very limited.

Specifically, if you’re a Comcast cable subscriber who pays for Showtime and/or The Movie Channel, you’ll soon be able to watch programming from those channels online, too. Good news for “Weeds” and “Dexter” fans, but that’s about it.

That said, down the road, CBS may start moving to a model where it pulls more of its broadcast TV shows like “CSI” off of the free Web and makes them available only to “authenticated” customers–Comcast subscribers and anyone else whose pipe provider has a deal with the broadcaster.

And that, in turn, gives the network the go-ahead to move forward with Hulu, Apple and every other player who also wants to sell online access to TV programming.

CBS had previously chatted with other outlets like Apple and Hulu–in part because it was interested, and in part because it was good for Comcast to know that it was interested. But now it has a framework for those deals: Comcast is paying us this much money for this much access to our shows. You’ll need to pay that amount or more.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise to see Moonves acknowledge his interest today in joining Hulu’s paid subscription service, which would mean patching things up with former online rivals News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, Disney’s (DIS) ABC and GE’s (GE) NBC.

And I wouldn’t be shocked to see him murmur positive things about supplying online programming to Apple (AAPL), or Google (GOOG) for that matter, during tomorrow’s call. Stay tuned.