BRIEFCASE DISNEY TO LAUNCH VIDEO-ON-DEMAND.

Byline: - Staff and Wire Services

LAS VEGAS - The Walt Disney Co. will begin testing its long-awaited video-on-demand service, dubbed Movie Beam, later this year, chairman and chief executive Michael Eisner said Monday.

Eisner, speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, said the service will allow consumers to view up to 100 films when they wish.

Unlike current video-on-demand services, which send movie files over the Internet, Disney's system will use the same broadcast spectrum the company uses to send its ABC Television network to homes.

The system will be tested in Salt Lake City and two other markets this fall, the company said.

Disney is the last company to enter the video-on-demand marketplace. It announced a joint venture with 20th Century Fox in 2001, but that dissolved after Fox pulled out.

Five other movie studios have been operating a video-on-demand venture called Movielink since last year.

Short-term T-bill rates up Monday

WASHINGTON - Interest rates on short-term Treasury securities rose in Monday's auction.

The Treasury Department sold $15 billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 1.135 percent, up from 1.100 percent last week. An additional $16 billion was sold in six-month bills at a rate of 1.135 percent, up from 1.090 percent.

Both the three-month and six-month rates were the highest since March 24, when each type of bill sold for 1.150 percent.

The new discount rates understate the actual return to investors - 1.158 percent for three-month bills with a $10,000 bill selling for $9,971.30 and 1.161 percent for a six-month bill selling for $9,942.60.

In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said Monday that the average yield for one-year constant maturity Treasury bills, the most popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, fell to 1.19 percent last week from 1.27 percent the previous week.

Dip in oil prices, glut worry OPEC 

OPEC's president called Monday for a special meeting later this month to discuss the recent slide in oil prices, which have fallen almost 20 percent since just before the war with Iraq began.

Speaking to reporters in Paris after meeting with French government officials, OPEC leader Abdullah al-Attiyah, who is Qatar's oil minister, said the market is full of oil.

Since the beginning of the year, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has gradually increased output above its official quotas to provide extra oil for global markets in the wake of a national strike in Venezuela and in anticipation of war in Iraq. Oil prices remained stubbornly high for most of the winter, despite OPEC's efforts, until the recent decline, caused largely by the expectation that a swift victory by U.S.-led forces would quickly revive Iraqi oil exports.

Delta aids travel with big fare sale

ATLANTA - Delta Air Lines launched a fare sale on Monday designed to stimulate summer travel as the industry grapples with war-depressed traffic and continuing financial losses.

The tickets - some as low as $44 one-way - require a week's advance purchase, with the lower fares unavailable for most holiday periods. The fares are valid for travel Monday through Thursday and on Saturday, April 14 through Oct. 1. Tickets must be purchased by April 16.

Delta, facing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses because of terrorism and the war on Iraq, said the fares are valid for travel until October in more than 250 markets.

The nation's biggest carrier, American Airlines, matched the fare sale in competitive markets, company spokesman Todd Burke. United, the No. 2 airline, doesn't plan to match the Delta fares, spokesman Chris Braithwaithe said.