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TheAssociatedPress NEWYORK WallStreethas a taste for adventure. Investors sent shares of GoPro Inc. up more than 30 percent in their stock mar- ket debut Thursday, follow- ing an initial public offer- ing that valued the sports camera maker at about $3 billion. The company makes wearable sports cameras that are used by skydivers, surfers and other extreme sports fans to film them- selves as they create first- person videos that capture the experience as they saw it. The cameras, which are light and waterproof, cost between $200 and $400. It also sells accessories such as cases, battery packs and mounts that help users at- tach their cameras to surf- boards, helmets or their wrists. Users can download a free app or computer soft- ware to edit, store and pub- lish their videos to their so- cial media accounts, includ- ing Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. GoPro had the best-sell- ing camcorder last year, ac- cording to government pa- perwork filed by the com- pany. Its revenue jumped to $985.7 million in 2013, nearly double what it was a year earlier. However, in the first three months of 2014, revenue fell 7.6 percent to $235.7 million from a year ago. With its IPO, GoPro and selling shareholders raised $427 million after selling 17.8 million shares at $24 each. The proceeds from the IPO could rise to $491 million if underwriters use their 30-day option to sell 2.67 million more shares. The San Mateo company plans to use its share of the money raised to pay down debt. GoPro shares rose $7.73, or 32 percent, to $31.73 in afternoon trading Thursday after rising as high as $33 earlier. The stock is listed on the Nasdaq stock ex- change under the symbol "GPRO." Two other companies also made their stock mar- ket debut Thursday: • ServiceMaster Global Holdings Inc., the par- ent company of Termi- nix, Merry Maid and other service franchises, raised $610.3 million after offering 35.9 million shares at $17 per share. That's below the $18 to $21 per share range it had expected. The com- pany, which offers home pest control, home clean- ing and warranties on home appliances, plans to use the money raised to pay back debt and other fees. Its shares, which are listed on the New York Stock Ex- change under the symbol "SERV," rose 74 cents, or 4.4 percent, to $17.75. Service- Master is based in Mem- phis, Tennessee. • TCP International Hold- ings Ltd., which makes en- ergy-efficient lamps, bulbs and fixtures sold at The Home Depot and Walmart stores, raised about $78.6 million after offering more than 7.14 million at $11 per share. That's below the range of $13 to $15 per share it expected. It plans to use the money raised to expand its manufactur- ing capacity and pay down dept. The Swiss company's shares, which are traded on the NYSE under the symbol "TCPI," fell 75 cents, or 6.8 percent, to $10.25. IPO GoPromakesstockdebut SETHWENIG—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS GoPro's CEO Nick Woodman holds a GoPro camera in his mouth as he celebrates his company's IPO at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York on Thursday. GoPro, the maker of wearable sports cameras, loved by mountain climbers, divers, surfers and other extreme sports fans, said late Wednesday it sold 17.8million shares at $24each in its initial public offering of stock. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS A streaming broadcast of Bob the Builder is seen on the New York PBS station, WNET 13. Just because Aereo's business model has been shot down by the Supreme Court, that doesn't mean customers' desire for a better TV experience has gone away. By Ryan Nakashima The Associated Press LOS ANGELES The Su- preme Court shot down Aereo's business model this week, but that doesn't mean customers' desire for a better TV experience is gone. Americans are still fed up with huge channel bun- dles, high prices, poor ser- vice and the lack of abil- ity to watch all their shows on all their devices. That's part of why Aereo was at- tractive: It offered a few dozen local broadcast channels and the Bloom- berg TV financial channel on multiple devices for just $8 a month. Industry watchers say the pay TV business must continue to evolve to win over unhappy customers, even if the nation's top court said grabbing sig- nals from the airwaves and distributing them online without content- owner permission isn't the way. "Even without Aereo, the reason people were cutting the cord, for cost reasons and so on, those don't go away," said Robin Flynn, an analyst with market research firm SNL Kagan. Fewercableusers Last year, the number of pay TV subscribers in the U.S. fell for the first time, dipping 0.1 percent to 94.6 million, according to Leichtman Research Group. SNL estimates that 5 percent of homes will sub- stitute pay TV with one or more Internet video ser- vices by the end of the year, rising to 10 percent five years from now. Many companies are of- fering quality TV content online for low cost to meet that rising demand. They include Netflix and Ama- zon. Hulu, which is owned by major broadcast net- works ABC, NBC and Fox, offers full episodes of pop- ular shows like "The Col- bert Report" the next day for free. While that's not live TV, which Aereo offered, for many it's a good-enough substitute. The decision against Aereo is a setback, but not a fatal one for people who want to break away from traditional TV, said Bill Niemeyer, senior analyst at TDG Research. "While the content on the major broadcast net- works is very important for some people, it's not im- portant for everyone," Nie- meyer said. "So it's a dent, but I don't think it's going to significantly change the trends." Free streams If anything, the rise and fall of Aereo has high- lighted an important fact — that high-quality TV sig- nals are available on the airwaves for free — some- thing that might have been forgotten if Aereo hadn't insisted that its technol- ogy simply replicates the antenna and wire that an average person could set up on their own. "What Aereo has really done in our perspective is to address the lack of un- derstanding that over-the- air is free," said Mark Buff, CEO of Mohu, a company that makes flat indoor antennas that attach to walls. Mohu has sold 1.5 mil- lion antennas since it be- gan in 2011 and they work in the kind of dense urban areas like New York where Aereo is believed to have had a small subscriber base. It is about to launch Mohu Channels, a device that blends Internet video services like Netflix with free-to-air TV in a single channel guide. "We certainly do see and believe that the cord-cut- ting movement is on the rise," he said. Alki David, the CEO of online streaming company FilmOn, said the Supreme Court's ruling actually creates an opportunity for startups because the court said that Aereo bears an "overwhelming likeness" to cable companies. According to David, that means online video com- panies can compel broad- casters to license their TV signals under the "retrans- mission consent" rules out- lined in the 1976 Copyright Act. That could help online video companies create small broadcast-channel only bundles for consum- ers rather than 100-plus channel packages from traditional pay TV opera- tors that cost more than what some consumers are willing to pay. "This might be the un- doing of the bundling sys- tem," David said. "The only compulsory license we're after are the four or five local channels in the city we're in. Of course it would be great. What else can it mean?" Pushback But it's not like the pay TV industry is standing still. Satellite TV company Dish Network Corp. said it's preparing to launch an online TV service with channels like ESPN, ABC, Disney Channel and oth- ers for about $20 to $30 a month before the end of the year. The target audi- ence is young urban pro- fessionals who don't want to watch more than 20 or 30 channels. Since last year, Com- cast Corp. has offered a slimmed down package combining Internet ser- vice, a little more than 10 local TV channels and HBO for $40 a month for 12 months. That's just $10 more than getting the In- ternet alone. Niemeyer says the in- cremental $10 charge for broadcast TV and HBO seems like a very Aereo- like offering, especially because the HBO GO app allows for online viewing, and having a pay TV sub- scription will allow cus- tomers to sign in to differ- ent online offerings by net- works. "It's something they wouldn't have done five years ago, but they're do- ing it," he said. "I think they're trying to think long-term about how to still be a big-dollar busi- ness. It means they have to change. They have to change on channel bun- dling, how they deliver ser- vices to people, using what pipes and how." A er Aereo, what's next for Internet viewing? Customers still seek alternatives to cable STREAMING TV Wearable cameras sell for $200-$400 individually By Jordan Weissmann Slate NEW YORK — A bit of news that should make just about everybody happy to- day: Ikea is announcing plans to raise the aver- age minimum wage in its U.S. stores by 17 percent, to $10.76 per hour. The com- pany will now set its pay based on MIT's Living Wage Calculator, which reports how much a worker must earn to comfortably cover essentials like food, hous- ing, child care and trans- portation, depending on where they live in the coun- try. Ikea is setting its pay floor at the living wage for a single adult without chil- dren. So, as the Huffington Post points out, that means employees at its Wood- bridge, Virginia, outpost will make at least $13.20 per hour, while hires in low-cost Merriam, Kansas, will earn at least $9.36 per hour. In the end, it amounts to a raise for about half the company's American retail workers. Notably, Ikea isn't rais- ing prices on its furniture to pay for the raise. Instead, the company's management says it believes the pay hike will help them compete for and keep talent, which is of course good for busi- ness. The Gap used a simi- lar justification when it an- nounced it would raise its own minimum to $10 by 2015. Which I think hints at something about what would likely happen if the U.S. raised the federal min- imum. Conservatives who argue that higher pay floors kill jobs tend to assume that businesses are already run- ning at pretty much peak efficiency, and so forcing them to spend more on la- bor will lead to less hir- ing. But left-leaning econo- mists see it differently. They tend to argue that increas- ing wages can lead to sav- ings for business by reduc- ing worker turnover, for instance, and forcing man- agers to make better use of their staff. Companies like Ikea and the Gap probably aren't raising pay for thousands of workers as a PR initiative or out of a sense of humanitar- ianism. They seem to have made a judgment that low wages simply aren't an ef- ficient way to do business. And, even if they haven't re- alized it yet, I'd guess many other companies are in the exact same boat. EMPLOYMENT Ikea to pay its workers living wage About half of retail store's employees will get a raise By David Klepper The Associated Press NEW YORK Big sodas can stay on the menu in the Big Apple after New York state's highest court refused Thursday to reinstate the city's first-of-its-kind size limit on sugary drinks. But city officials suggested they might be willing to revisit the supersize-soda ban. The Court of Appeals found that the city Board of Health overstepped its bounds by imposing a 16-ounce cap on sugary bev- erages sold in restaurants, delis, movie theaters, stadi- ums and street carts. The appointed board tread on the policy-making turf of the elected City Council, the court said. "By choosing among competing policy goals, without any legislative del- egation or guidance, the board engaged in lawmak- ing," the court wrote in a majority opinion. "... Its choices raise difficult, in- tricate and controversial issues of social policy." Indeed, debate over the soda size cap pitted health officials who called it an in- novative anti-obesity tool against critics who consid- ered it unfair to businesses and paternalistic toward consumers. Even a Court of Appeals judge, during ar- guments earlier this month, wondered aloud whether regulators would target tri- ple-decker burgers next. The American Beverage Association, which led the legal fight against the mea- sure, welcomed Thursday's ruling against a measure it said would have "lim- ited New Yorkers' freedom of choice." Curbing obesity should start "with educa- tion — not laws and regu- lation," spokesman Chris- topher Gindlesperger said. But city leaders signaled they might not give up the fight. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city was "actively re- viewing all of its options to protect the health and well- being of our communities"; officials wouldn't imme- diately specify what those might be. The city hasn't said whether it plans to try to ap- peal, but the case doesn't raise federal issues that would make it a likely choice for the Supreme Court. City Council Speaker Me- lissa Mark-Viverito said in a statement that the big- soda ban would get a hear- ing if it were brought up in the council. It's unclear how any such measure might fare in a vote, as she and nu- merous other council mem- bers oppose it. New Yorkers, meanwhile, greeted Thursday's ruling with mixed feelings. "I think it's up to the in- dividual" what size of soft drink to buy, said Constance Jong, a cashier in her 20s. But Hazel Plunkett, a 51-year-old fundraiser for a public health group, was disappointed that the regu- lation remains blocked. "I don't mind the contro- versy over it. It's got to get people's attention," she said. Soda has been under fire for years from health advo- cates, who say the bever- ages are uniquely harmful because people don't realize how much sugar they're guz- zling. A 21-ounce Coke, Mc- Donald's medium size, has 200 calories and 55 grams of sugar, for instance. Amid the publicity, U.S. soda sales have dropped for nearly a decade. But con- sumption of other sugary beverages, such as sports drinks and energy drinks, has grown. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg made the soda ban a signal piece of his assertive public-health agenda. "Due to today's unfortu- nate ruling, more people in New York City will die from obesity-related impacts," he saidinastatementThursday. A trial court struck down the measure days before it was to take effect last year. Some eateries had already swapped out cups and ad- justed menus to comply, and some proprietors decided to stick with the changes. But others were glad Thursday that they hadn't. "I thought it was ridic- ulous" — and unfair, said midtown Manhattan cafe manager Young Shin, 30. The measure would have applied to his workplace but not to bars and groceries under state regulation, in- cluding 7-Eleven, the home of the Big Gulp. SODA BAN Court reinstates freedom for Big Gulps Board of health may look at restricting cup size again, later THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FA display of various size cups and the corresponding number of sugar cubes each drink contains is seen at a news conference at New York's City Hall. The New York Court of Appeals ruled Thursday the city's health department overstepped its bounds when it restricted the size of sodas. | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 2014 2 D