St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 23

-x -s --I -i ST. LOUIS PDST-DISPATCH FRIDAYL June 23, 2000 Dow Jones industrials Argent St. Louis 971.13 Nasdaq composite 10376.12 121.62 3936J4 Standard 4 Poor's 500 30-year bond yield S.961 Jt Gold per ounce 1452.18 265.650 mkg wdmd mil face off on wsA igniter Pentagon won't change its policy for Joint Strike Fighter History's biggest weapon contract The Associated Press Ruling may doom open access for cable here wmfMM WENDI FITZGERALD POST-DISPATCH DJ Debbie Connor takes requests at WKKX (Kicks 106.5) on Thursday. Emtnis Broadcasting traded the station to Bonneville International Corp. The deal means Connor and her co-workers will have to move from their Union Station location.

Owners swap 7 local radio stations a ate rock station KSHE-FM 94.7 and aggressive-alternative music station WXTM-FM 104.1 along with newly acquired alternative station KPNT-FM 105.7, classic rock station KXOX-FM 97.1 and classic hits station KIHT-FM 96.3. The Federal Communications Commissions limits the number of FM stations a single company can own to five. Emmis traded WKKX-FM 106.S and former Sinclair holdings WIL-FM 92.3, a country station; WRTH-AM 1430, an adult standards station and VWRV-FM 101.1, an adult alternative station, to Bonneville In vr-. Consumers may get only one broadband supplier By Jerri Stroud Of the Post-Dispatch A judge's ruling Thursday on a cable Internet case in Portland, could doom a St. Louis ordinance that orders cable companies to let other Internet serv-ice providers use their high-speed lines, say the two largest cable operators in the St.

Louis area. But backers of "open access" laws like the one in Portland said the ruling could prompt the Federal Communications Commission to step into the debate. The Ninth Circuit U.S. Appeals Court in San Francisco rejected Portland's effort to force to open its cable network to com-peting Internet service providers, saying Internet access is a telecommunications service subject to federal regulation. The ruling overturned a lower court decision in Portland's favor.

The ruling is the second in a month to bar local authorities from regulating cable Internet offerings. In May, a district judge in Richmond, rejected efforts to regulate cable offerings in Henrico County, Va. The Portland decision "verifies our position that the City of St. Louis didn't have the authority to (regulate cable Internet access) in the first place," said Deborah Seidel, a spokeswoman for cable system in St. Louis and other municipalities.

"We win game, set and match on this issue," said Jer-ald L. Kent, president of Charter Communications, the nation's fourth-largest cable company and the dominant cable company in St. Louis County and parts of the Metro East area. See Cable, C2 WASHINGTON The Pentagon announced Thursday that it will stick to its winner-take-all approach in awarding the largest weapon contract in history $200 billion to build a next-generation fighter plane to either Boeing Co. or Lockheed Martin Corp.

The Pentagon had been studying the possibility of altering its approach so that both the winner and loser would have a hand in producing the aircraft, known as the Joint Strike Fighter. Some analysts believe the loser essentially may be finished as a fighter aircraft manufacturer because there is no other new fighter on the drawing board. Under the Pentagon's approach, the winner of the design competition will build all the planes. The winner-take-all approach "seems to make the most sense to us," Jacques Gansler, the Pentagon's technology chief, said at a news conference. If Boeing wins the contract, the plane would be made at the company's plant in St.

Louis and mean thousands of jobs for the area. So members of Congress from Missouri were concerned by Thursday's news. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Lexington, said he planned to contact Pentagon officials to find out whether the decision is definite. "It doesn't appear to be in stone," Skelton said, pointing to Defense Secretary William Cohen's request for a Rand Corp.

study of the Pentagon's options. Skelton, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, called Gansler Thursday evening- but wasn't able to reach him. "I'd like to talk to Jacques Gansler myself to see where they're going," Skelton said. "I'm going to ask him to clarify what I'm reading." See Fighters, C2 Unity Health, St. Anthony bury hatchet on their breakup Officials seek smooth transition next week Three-way deal gives Emmis an LA station By Diane Toroian Of the Post-Dispatch Even keen radio listeners may not have heard the changes that rocked the dial Thursday.

In a three-way deal, seven local stations changed hands. Owners and analysts predict most stations will keep their Radio daze VV A lii mm current format. "Nothing about this deal indicates the listener should expect major programming changes," said JT Anderton an analyst for Duncan's American Radio in Cincinnati. "All of the current stations are performing well as they are." Emmis Broadcasting of Indianapolis announced Thursday that it has settled its lawsuit with Sinclair Broadcast Group to acquire its six local stations for $220 million. In a separate deal, Emmis swapped four of its St.

Louis properties for a Los Angeles station. Emmis will continue to oper ble the company took in banking on that operating system in the 1980s. "It's another one of those big bet-the-company type deals and it's the right bet." Despite Thursday's announcement, Microsoft is only the latest entrant into the market for Web-based services. Oracle Corp. has invested heavily in providing similar services to corporations, while Sun Microsystems Inc.

will unveil a Web-based office software suite by the end of the summer. Some analysts have said the kind of integration needed to make Microsoft.NET a reality could run afoul of the company's antitrust battle. Microsoft is appealing a court-ordered breakup after a federal judge found it had broken antitrust laws. See Microsoft, C7 TRADED: These Emmis and former Sinclair stations traded to Bonneville International Corp. for KZLA-FM in Los Angeles: WKKX (106.5 FM), WIL, WRTH and WVRV SOLD: Sinclair Broadcast Group stations sold to Emmis Broadcasting, after a suit over the sale was settled: KPNT (105.7 FM), KXOX (97.1 FM), KIHT (96.3 FM), WIL (92.3 FM), WRTH (1430 AM) and WVRV (101.1 FM) ternational Corp.

for KZLA-FM in Los Angeles. Bonneville, of Salt Lake City, is owned by the Mormon Church and is the nation's 12th largest ra- Beck "Consolodation shows a commitment to St Louis." dio group. Its stations frequently conduct community service projects. See Radio, C7 Microsoft chairman Bill Gates speaks about Microsoft.NET in Redmond, on Thursday. He said the initiative Is a "bet-the-company" -effort to transform Microsoft's products Into personal services.

The Associated Press I 1 1 Ml II II I I Microsoft's Bill Gates shows off new effort to expand software integration to the Web '2 kt eg mli ray of devices, including personal computers, handheld organizers and cell phones. The devices will communicate behind the scenes, coordinating between themselves and constantly updating each other, Gates said. "We have the opportunity to take this vision of a digital world and apply the magic of software to make this a reality," Gates said. Previews of these new services which will include online versions of Microsoft's popular Office software and features of its Windows operating system will begin in 2001, but full services will not be widely available until at least 2002, Gates said. "This is more like Windows," Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in an interview, comparing the effort to the gam Company's big gamble may run afoul of the Justice Department's antitrust case.

By Michael J. Martinez AP Business Writer REDMOND, Wash. Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates unveiled an ambitious effort Thursday to transform Microsoft's software products into Internet-based personal services, a move top officials described as one of the biggest gambles the company has ever taken. The initiative, called will allow individuals to access data from a wide ar Other News The Nasdaq and the 500 suffer their biggest losses in a month.

C3 Money News More data they're so to traditional newspapers Stock Exchange. total By William C. Lhotka And Judith VandeWater Of the Post-Dispatch Unity Health System and St. Anthony's Medical Center resolved their differences Thursday over the cash terms of their impending dissolution next week. Both sides declined to make public the terms of the final settlement and withdrew dueling lawsuits filed last week.

Previously, Unity had offered to pay St. Anthony's $44 million in their break-up. St. Anthony's had sought more than $93 million. Unity and St.

Anthony's officials said they are now concerned with ensuring a smooth transition of patient care without disruption of services. When St. Anthony's and its affiliate, Alexian Brothers Hospital, withdraw from Unity next Friday, they will create the region's fifth and smallest health system. St. Anthony's is withdrawing with assets that include buildings and services on its campus in south St.

Louis County and on the Alexian Brothers campus in south St. Louis. It will purchase some services, such as billing, on a temporary basis from Unity. See Unity, C2 Coming Slnday Among stories this weekend in The Wall Street Journal Sunday, The Weekly Guide to Managing Your Money: Fed watch: We ask Wall Street pros if the Federal Reserve is finished raising interest rates and what you should do next. Wooing women investors.

Is it time for financial stocks to take off? Why empty nesters are working harder than ever. Also: What you need to know about cheap airfares earnings "pre-announce-ments" and investing in bonds. Wilvt's Up Today Subcommittees of the negotiating teams for Schnuck Markets Inc. and Local 665 of the United Food and Commercial Workers will meet again today to work on details of a potential contract. Talks with the entire negotiating team could resume next week.

Talks between Schnucks and its largest union broke off Wednesday after a five-hour session with a federal mediator. The union has been working under a day-today extension since the previous contract expired June 11. Local 655 represents 6,886 employees at 60 Schnucks in Missouri. They include cashiers, baggers, stock clerks and others. to Use coming on exchange-traded funds Exchange-traded funds are Increasingly popular because easy to buy and sell.

Unfortunately, comparing them mutual funds isn't easy. Prices are easy to get, in or online; most of them trade on the American But fund-like information, such as year-to-date return, is hard to find. They aren't listed in the fund-performance tables of newspapers and magazines or in the mutual-fund database on Morningstar.com. But more information is on the way. Wiesenberger, a provider of data to financial advisers, says its software will include exchange-traded funds by the end of September.

Morningstar and Lipper, the leading fund-data firms, say they are working on the issue. "They are here to stay, so we are going to give them the attention they are due," John Rekenthaler, Morningstar's research director, told the Wall Street Journal..