NATIONAL

MTV Networks, RealNetworks enter joint music venture

Viacom Inc.'s MTV Networks and digital media company RealNetworks announced Tuesday a digital music joint venture that will compete with Apple's dominant trinity of the iTunes store, iPod player and iPhone.

MTV will merge its Urge music service into the Rhapsody offering from RealNetworks Inc., forming a company called Rhapsody America.

The new service will be accessible on computers and music players and integrated with Verizon Wireless' VCast multimedia service for cell phones. MTV will provide music playlists and other programming. The companies did not say how much the service will cost.

Rhapsody charges subscribers $12.99 a month for unlimited listening and sells individual tracks for 99 cents, with a discount for subscribers.

PROFIT GROWTH Target Corp. said its fiscal second-quarter profit rose 12.6 percent and backed its outlook for the remainder of the year, noting that back-to-school sales recently have been "at or better than" its expectations.

For the quarter ended Aug. 4, earnings were $686 million, or 80 cents a share, up from $609 million, or 70 cents, last year.

Revenue rose 9.5 percent to $14.62 billion from $13.35 billion a year ago.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected Target to earn 80 cents a share on revenue of $14.67 billion.

SOFTWARE REMOVED Wal-Mart stores Inc. has begun selling some of its online music catalog without anticopying software, stepping up its competition with Apple Inc.'s iTunes store.

Wal-Mart will sell songs without the software through its walmart.com Web site for 94 cents a track or $9.22 an album.

DEAN'S TOLL Insured losses related to Hurricane Dean were estimated at less than $1.5 billion on Tuesday after the storm skirted Mexico's most popular tourist destinations on the Yucatan Peninsula, according to early estimates.

Data provider Risk Management Solutions projected insured losses will range from $750 million to $1.5 billion, due mostly to the storm's destruction in Jamaica.

IPHONE OVERSEAS Apple Inc. signed agreements with three mobile-phone operators that will have exclusive rights to sell its new iPhone in Europe, the Financial Times reported, without giving the source of the information.

T-Mobile of Germany, Orange in France and O2 in the United Kingdom will give Apple 10 percent of sales from phone calls and data transfers made over the devices, the Times said. The agreements would give Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs his first overseas foothold for the iPhone, which went on sale in the U.S. on June 29.

RETAIL SALES UP Sales at U.S. retailers climbed 2.7 percent last week from a year earlier as state sales tax holidays and favorable weather drove back-to-school and summer-clearance shopping.

Sales at stores open at least a year rose 0.2 percent in the seven days through Aug. 18 from the previous week, the first weekly gain since July 28, the International Council of Shopping Centers and UBS Securities LLC said Tuesday.

LOCAL

Court to hear appeal of damage judgment against EchoStar

A federal appeals court will hear oral arguments Oct. 4 in EchoStar's appeal of a 2006 judgment against the company in a lawsuit filed by TiVo.

The TiVo suit alleged EchoStar infringed on TiVo's patented technology for pausing live TV programs and for recording one show while watching another.

A judge ordered EchoStar to pay $89.6 million in damages and to disable about 4 million TV boxes that use the technology. EchoStar filed an appeal in Washington, D.C., where the oral arguments will be heard.

FIRST DATA SALE Greenwood Village-based First Data said it has all the domestic and international regulatory approvals it needs to sell itself to buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. CEO Ric Duques said the companies expect to close the transaction by the end of September. First Data stock is up 6.5 percent in the past five days, closing Tuesday at $32.72, up 89 cents .

ENTREPRENEUR Senate majority legislative analyst Makisha Boothe has been named Colorado's 2007 Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Boothe owns Ya Ya Spa LLC, a full-service day spa in Denver.

THIS JUST IN...

• Starz Entertainment LLC, based in Douglas County, appointed Michelle Parker as vice president of business and legal affairs, programming.

• Bank of the West awarded $45,000 to the Mayor's Youth Mentoring Collaborative, Denver Street School and Horizons Student Enrichment Program, all of which focus on assisting at-risk youth.

• The Downtown Denver Partnership has added Cassie Milestone as urban planning manager.

• Nuszer Kopatz Urban Design Associates, a Denver- based land-planning, landscape and architecture firm, promoted Greg Lockridge to senior associate in the firm's newly formed architecture studio. The architecture studio also added Stacey Brady and Lisa Frahm as project managers, and Matthew Mullane, Rori Knudtson, Carissa Holstad and Zachary Bloomer as architectural interns. Andrew Harrah was promoted to associate in the firm's landscape architecture studio, and IT department head Justin Clark was promoted to associate.

• Denver-based Water For People, a nonprofit organization that supports the development of safe drinking water resources and improved sanitation facilities in developing countries, appointed Colleen Stiles as chief executive officer.

• Theresa M. Anselmo, an oral health program manager at the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, was elected as the 2007-2008 chairwoman of Oral Health Awareness Colorado!, a statewide coalition that addresses the burden of oral diseases.

• Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP named S. Kato Crews and Eric V. Hall as partners in the firm, effective Jan. 1.

• Denver-based Linhart Public Relations added Ashley Campbell as an account associate.

• The Denver Ritz-Carlton named Molly Borgerson as director of human resources.

• The Sterling-Rice Group, a Boulder-based marketing services firm, hired Wendi Kreps as managing director.

• Fort Collins-based Information Technology Experts Inc. added Sheri Giles as a business technology consultant.

• Holland & Hart LLP was awarded two Bronze Telly Awards for its "Business Class" advertising campaign, and an additional Telly for the first segment in the "Business Class" campaign.

Rocky staff and wire reports.

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