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Talk of the day: Paying card bill on time merits a bonus reward

Amid the growing proliferation of credit card rewards programs, Discover Financial Services has come up with a new card, the Motiva, that rewards consumers who carry a balance and make their monthly payments on time.

By Times wires
Published March 14, 2007

Amid the growing proliferation of credit card rewards programs, Discover Financial Services has come up with a new card, the Motiva, that rewards consumers who carry a balance and make their monthly payments on time. The card also carries Discover's regular cash-back bonus awards. The cards carry no annual fee, and consumers who make six consecutive on-time payments will receive their next month's interest back as a bonus. They can accumulate the cash, apply it to their card balances or use it for rewards purchases, the company said.

Movie DVD debuts coming quicker

DVDs featuring new movies are coming out faster than ever. The average time between the premiere of a movie at the multiplex and its appearance on DVD shrank an additional 10 days last year, further unnerving theater owners who believe that the tightening window threatens their business. "The pace of the shrinkage is of concern to us," said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners. "Ten days in one year is a lot." The average delay between theater and DVD releases narrowed to three months and 25 days in the last quarter of 2006. A factor in the shrinkage is that movies now generally have much shorter box-office runs than they once did. That's because studio films usually open on thousands of screens to generate big opening weekend receipts, then are quickly replaced with newer releases the moment they taper off. With flops, theaters pull the plug even sooner.

Harry gets French stamp of approval

French mail service La Poste is celebrating Harry Potter and friends with a set of stamps and stationery. Starting this weekend, the bespectacled schoolboy wizard appears on stamps for domestic priority mail. Ron Weasley appears on stamps for slow domestic mail, and Hermione Granger appears on stamps for international mail. France isn't the first country to put Harry Potter on a stamp. Australia, the Isle of Man and Taiwan, for example, have already issued stamps honoring the hero of J.K. Rowling's books, from which four hit movies have been adapted.

Add 'music label' to Starbucks' cup

Starbucks Corp.'s push into entertainment moved further from the coffeehouse shelves as the company launched a record label based on its existing Hear Music brand. The world's largest specialty coffee retailer said it would partner with Concord Music Group, which controls several other labels and helped Starbucks sell the Grammy-winning Genius Loves Company, an album of Ray Charles duets. Now, rather than basically lending the Starbucks brand to an album, the Los Angeles-based Hear Music label will sign its own artists and sell records through Starbucks stores and other retailers.

[Last modified March 14, 2007, 16:56:26]