K-tel Rocks With Playboy.com
Shares of K-tel (KTEL), which rocketed in May only to flounder later, rose almost 106 percent Tuesday morning, up 7 1/4 to 14 1/8, after the music retailer said it will team up with Playboy.com to sell music online.
K-tel and Playboy Online will develop the Playboy/K-tel Music Store within Playboy's free Web site, Playboy.com, the companies said in a press release. K-tel CEO Philip Kives said in a statement that K-tel sought out Playboy because of the company's powerful brand and 60 million page views a month.
The online store will feature more than 250,000 music titles, including K-tel's music compilations, such as collections of disco hits from the '70s. Visitors will be able to create personalized CD compilations using K-tel's music master library. The companies also plan to team up on cross-promotions and exclusive marketing schemes.Kives says the site will seek to compete with online music sellers Amazon.com (AMZN), plus CDNow (CDNW) and N2K (NTKI), which may soon merge.
For Wall Street, K-tel's mercurial rise is a familiar tune.
On May 5, K-tel shares hit a 52-week high of 39 15/32 shortly after saying it would enter the online music business. It then sank to the single-digit range in August.
Written By Steve Gelsi