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March 24, 2012, 11:53 am

James Murdoch Resigns From Another Corporate Board

By AMY CHOZICK

In a continuing effort to distance himself from News Corporation’s embattled British newspaper unit, James Murdoch has stepped down from the board of Times Newspapers Holdings.

The group, established by Rupert Murdoch, chief executive of News Corporation and James’s father, was created to safeguard the editorial independence of The Times of London and The Sunday Times after the media conglomerate bought the British newspapers in 1981, according to public filings with the British government.

James, the youngest son of Rupert Murdoch and once the heir apparent at the $50 billion media company, has over the last several months resigned from a string of corporate boards, both with ties to the British papers and unrelated.

Last week, the auction house Sotheby’s said in a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission that James Murdoch would not return to his board position. Earlier this year he gave up his position on the board of the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Murdoch will hold onto his role as chairman of the British broadcaster BSkyB, of which News Corporation holds a minority stake. The company dropped its $12 billion bid to take over BSkyB last summer when a phone hacking scandal thrust News Corporation under increased government scrutiny.

Read more…

March 23, 2012, 5:01 pm

Europe Moves to Phase 2 in Review of Universal Bid for EMI

By BEN SISARIO

The European Commission said Friday that it had moved into the second phase of its review of Universal’s $1.9 billion bid for the recorded-music division of EMI, a move that was expected but could still cause problems for the Universal Music Group.

Acting on the last day of its self-imposed deadline, the commission said it would begin an in-depth investigation of the deal and the effect that the consolidation could have on the music market. Universal, already the largest music company in the world, would control about 40 percent of the global market as a result of the deal, and in some European countries the proportion could be greater than 50 percent.

“The proposed acquisition could reduce competition in the recorded-music market to the detriment of European consumers,” Joaquín Almunia, the commission’s vice president in charge of competition policy said in a statement on Friday announcing the second phase of the review. “The Commission needs to make sure that consumers continue to have access to a wide variety of music in different physical and digital formats at competitive conditions.”

EMI, the smallest of the four major music conglomerates, was split in November in a complex deal brokered by Citigroup that would give the company’s record labels to Universal and its music publishing assets — its copyrights for songwriting — to a consortium led by Sony. The deals are also under review in the United States by the Federal Trade Commission, and have been opposed by independent music coalitions and advocacy groups like Public Knowledge and the Media Access Project.

Universal, a division of Vivendi, has expressed confidence that the deal would be approved. Read more…

March 23, 2012, 4:23 pm

Variety Is Being Put Up for Sale

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
At a newsstand in Hollywood in 2009, Variety carried a suddenly relevant headline.Damian Dovarganes/Associated PressAt a newsstand in Hollywood in 2009, Variety carried a suddenly relevant headline.

7:12 p.m. | Updated Variety, the trade publication that has chronicled the entertainment industry for more than a century but has struggled financially in recent years, will be put up for sale, its parent company, Reed Business Information, said Friday.

In a news article posted on Variety’s Web site, Reed Business said it was beginning the process of selling Variety. For many years Variety was widely considered the bible of show business, but in recent years it has declined in influence amid competition from the Internet, where entertainment news is often freely available.

Mark Kelsey, the chief executive of Reed Business, said: “Variety is an iconic title serving the film and entertainment industry for more than 100 years. With R.B.I.’s increasing focus on data services, and the sale of our other U.S. print magazines, it now makes sense for us to sell the business. Variety has an incredibly talented team who have successfully innovated and expanded the franchise in industry news and analysis. I have no doubt the business will continue to thrive under new ownership.”

Paid circulation for Variety in recent years has hovered around 27,000, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Variety’s Web site, which is mostly kept behind a pay wall, ranks far behind its free competitors. Variety.com had 632,000 unique visitors from North America in February, according to ComScore; the leader among entertainment industry trades, HollywoodReporter.com, had about 5 million.

In March 2010, Variety cut eight staff positions, including two of its most prominent critics. It was part of a series of cost-cutting measures instituted by Variety’s president, Neil Stiles, who took over in 2008.

“I have every confidence that under new ownership, Variety will continue to thrive, innovate and provide fantastic insight into the sector,” Mr. Stiles said in Variety’s announcement.

March 23, 2012, 1:26 pm

Lead Producer of ‘Smash’ Is Said to Step Down

By BILL CARTER
Theresa Rebeck, the creator of "Smash" on NBC.Patrick Randak/NBCTheresa Rebeck, the creator of “Smash” on NBC.

Executives at NBC are confirming reports that the playwright Theresa Rebeck, who is listed as the creator of the network’s Broadway-based drama “Smash,” has stepped down as the lead producer on the series.

In television that job is called a showrunner, and Ms. Rebeck, whose play “Seminar” is in the middle of a successful run on Broadway, has carried that title for every episode of “Smash” this season. A showrunner essentially leads the creative direction of a series, including overseeing the writing of episodes.

NBC announced on Thursday that, following a run of steady ratings, it was renewing “Smash” for a second season. That was seen an achievement of sorts because, despite one of the most extensive promotional campaigns ever conducted for a new show (including seven ads in the Super Bowl), many competitors predicted a quick doom for “Smash.”

The announcement made by the network on Thursday did list Ms. Rebeck as one of the show’s long list of executive producers. NBC executives said she would retain that title and may continue to write some of the scripts in the second season, but she would no longer be in charge of running the show.
Read more…

March 23, 2012, 1:01 pm

A Times Sq. Ad for Greek Tourism, Financed by a ‘Crowd’

By STUART ELLIOTT
The financing for this ad promoting Greek tourism, which will appear on a digital display in Times Square, was "crowdsourced" to Greeks around the world.The financing for this ad promoting Greek tourism, which will appear on a digital display in Times Square, was “crowdsourced” among Greeks around the world.

Greeks around the world, in an effort to help the beleaguered economy of Greece, have teamed up to buy digital advertising in Times Square that promotes Greek tourism.

The digital ads are scheduled to begin appearing on Friday on a sign at 1560 Broadway, between 46th and 47th Streets, and run for 30 days.

The effort, called Up Greek Tourism, grew from a belief among “myself and my friends that we needed to do something to help the situation” in Greece, said Yorgos Kleivokiotis, who described himself in an interview as a 34-year-old strategic consultant and a “Greek living abroad,” in Dubai.

Tourism is estimated to account for up to 18 percent of the Greek gross domestic product and 20 percent of employment.

“This is a grass-roots campaign,” he said. “Everyone is doing this voluntarily, in their free time.”

The ads are made possible by donations, totaling $20,352, from 333 people, Read more…

March 23, 2012, 12:53 pm

A Midnight Bonanza for ‘The Hunger Games’

By BROOKS BARNES
Emily Keith, 19, was first in line for a midnight screening of "The Hunger Games" in Grand Rapids, Mich., and was rewarded with a seat on a couch.Katie Greene/The Grand Rapids Press, via Associated PressEmily Keith, 19, was first in line for a midnight screening of “The Hunger Games” in Grand Rapids, Mich., and was rewarded with a seat on a couch.

And the money came rolling in: “The Hunger Games” took in about $19.7 million at 12:01 a.m. shows on Friday — the highest midnight screenings total ever for a nonsequel, not accounting for inflation, according to Paul Dergarabedian, a box office analyst for Hollywood.com.

“The Hunger Games,” Lionsgate’s PG-13 movie adaptation of Suzanne Collins’s best-selling novel, ranked seventh on Mr. Dergarabedian’s overall list of “top midnight and preview screenings,” with only movies from the Twilight and Harry Potter franchises performing better. (No. 1 on the list with $43.5 million in midnight sales is “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.”)

Notably, every film in the Top 10 went on to sell $700 million or more in tickets at the global box office.

March 23, 2012, 9:15 am

The Breakfast Meeting: G.M. Looks to Add a Little MTV, and Whitney Houston’s Death

By NOAM COHEN

The Breakfast Meeting

What’s making news in media.

It would once have been a slam-dunk assignment: getting young people excited to buy cars. Next, getting squirrels interested in acorns. But as a new generation of first-car buyers arrive on the scene, carmakers are seeing a significant lack of interest, Amy Chozick reports. General Motors has hired MTV Scratch, which consults on making brands more attractive to young people, to rethink the car buying and car driving experience, ranging from the test drive to the dashboard.

More than a month after Whitney Houston was found dead in a hotel room on the eve of the Grammy Awards, the Los Angeles County coroner has announced a cause of death: drowning. The coroner found that Ms. Houston, 48, drowned in a bathtub, Ian Lovett reports, aided, according to an autopsy, by a range of prescription and illegal drugs in her system — cocaine and marijuana; Xanax, which is usually prescribed for anxiety; Flexeril, a muscle relaxant; and Benadryl, an over-the-counter antihistamine.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg discussed the difficulties and distractions caused by social media in a speech he gave in Singapore on Wednesday, Michael Grynbaum reported. “Social media is going to make it even more difficult to make long-term investments,” the mayor (@mikebloomberg on Twitter) said, adding, “We are basically having a referendum on every single thing that we do every day.”

Cue the Vangelis music: “Chariots of Fire” will be re-released in Britain in July, two weeks before the start of the London Olympic Games, The Hollywood Reporter reported, to help get the country in the mood. The return of the uplifting 1981 movie, which told the story of two runners who competed for Britain in the 1924 Paris Olympics, is being promoted by the British Film Institute.

March 22, 2012, 7:35 pm

PBS Agrees to Revisit Documentary Schedule

By ELIZABETH JENSEN

Under intense public pressure from independent documentary filmmakers, including a Twitter campaign, PBS on Thursday agreed to find a new home next season for the award-winning film series “Independent Lens” and “POV.”

The audience for new episodes of “Independent Lens” dropped 39 percent this season, after the show was bumped from the Tuesday night schedule. (New episodes of “POV,” which was also moved, begin June 21.) PBS asked its stations to run the two series on Thursdays, a night traditionally reserved for local programming or non-PBS fare.

Instead, many stations moved them out of prime time and to a hodgepodge of nights.

In the past week, as the ratings decline became public, more than 300 filmmakers and others associated with independent filmmaking signed an open letter posted online by the Chicago-based documentary producer Kartemquin, protesting PBS’s decision to move the shows.

Late Thursday, a PBS spokeswoman said in a statement that, after conversations about the two programs, “we agreed to alternative scheduling options for ‘Independent Lens’ and ‘POV.’” The new time slot for next season is expected to be announced at PBS’s annual meeting, May 14 to 17 in Denver.

Sally Jo Fifer, the chief executive of ITVS, the producer of “Independent Lens,” said via a spokesman: “Public broadcasting is the outlet of choice for some of the best storytellers in the nation. We are so proud of our producers for taking seriously the role of public broadcasting in the 21st century. And we are proud of our partners at PBS for being open to hearing from this important constituency.”

March 22, 2012, 5:41 pm

A Sliver of a Silver Lining for the Movie Industry

By BROOKS BARNES

The Motion Picture Association of America, releasing its annual snapshot of global moviegoer trends on Thursday, looked on the bright side, as its job requires.

Global ticket sales for 2011 climbed 3 percent, to $32.6 billion, compared with a year earlier, driven by increases in China, Russia, Mexico and Brazil. As for North America, well, the association would like to focus on the fact that domestic box office revenues of $10.2 billion were 6 percent higher than five years earlier.

The picture darkens from there.

Year-on-year revenue in North America fell 4 percent overall on a 4.5 percent drop in admissions, to 1.28 billion, the lowest in at least a decade. Revenue from 3-D movies in North America fell 18 percent, partly because it suffered in comparison to 2011, which included unprecedented sales from “Avatar.” Ticket prices climbed 1 percent, to $7.93.

Hispanic moviegoers – Hollywood’s most loyal audience based on per capita attendance – went to the movies an average of 5 times last year, down from Read more…

March 22, 2012, 4:18 pm

‘Hunger Games’ Ticket Sales Are on Fire

By BROOKS BARNES

At midday Thursday, Fandango said it was selling 10 tickets per second for “The Hunger Games,” the latest indicator of off-the-charts interest from moviegoers for the PG-13 tale of Katniss Everdeen and her survival skills.

Fandango, the online ticket seller, added that it has sold out more than 2,500 show times for “The Hunger Games,” which opens Friday, and that it now ranks behind “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” and “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” as the site’s third-biggest advance ticket-seller ever.

Earlier in the day, John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, told reporters (gathered to discuss the movie industry’s annual snapshot of attendance trends) that theaters are frantically trying to play “The Hunger Games” on more screens when it opens. In some markets, theaters have added 3 a.m. screenings early Friday morning to meet demand, he said.

All of this hoopla makes Lionsgate, the studio behind “The Hunger Games,” a little nervous, partly due to concerns that consumers (particularly older ones) will stay home rather than risk mob scenes at their local multiplex. Read more…

March 22, 2012, 4:00 pm

Teenagers Today! When I Was Young, I Loved My ‘Dork-Mobile’

By AMY CHOZICK
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It was a royal blue, 1992 Honda Civic that I embellished with bumper stickers to proclaim my political views and music tastes, proclamations that these days we routinely make via Twitter. My sister called it “the dork-mobile.”

Our next-door neighbor, a cheerleader, for her 16th birthday was given a shiny new Ford Explorer (with tan leather interior) wrapped in a giant red bow. My parents made a deal with me. I’d work part time and they’d more than match whatever I earned as a hostess at a local Tex-Mex restaurant. (The burns and humiliation from making tortillas in a window in a Mexican dress were a small price to pay.)

I found “Sydney,” as I named the Civic, among the classified ads in The San Antonio Express-News, back when midsize towns had thriving newspapers and those newspapers had thriving classified ads sections. I can’t recall exactly what the ad said, but I remember it mentioned that the car was “lightly used,” with no power anything (who needed frills?) and in our price range at about $6,000.

Memories of my Civic came flooding back as I was reporting on Chevrolet’s partnership with MTV to sell cars to young consumers, who aren’t nearly as enthralled by owning wheels as my generation was.

In the South Texas suburbs where I grew up, a lot of teenagers drove trucks and S.U.V.’s designed to keep them safe on highways riddled with “18-wheelers” as we called them, big-rig trucks hauling who knows what from Mexico to the rest of the country.

My parents worried a little that the Civic was so compact, but they worried more about my adjusting the radio or talking to friends in the car while driving … quaint concerns compared to today’s digital distractions. Shortly after I got the car, my mom lent me her brick of a cellphone for “emergencies only.” It barely fit in the glove compartment.

My birthday is in September so I became among the first in my circle of friends to get a car. Read more…

March 22, 2012, 3:15 pm

NBC Renews ‘Smash,’ Its Much-Hyped Broadway-Based Drama

By BILL CARTER

Undoubtedly with some sense of relief and satisfaction, NBC announced Thursday it would bring back “Smash” for a second season.

The Broadway-based drama, on which the network lavished attention and promotion, has performed reasonably well in its 10 p.m. Monday slot — and far better than anything NBC has tried in that time period in many years. It is by far the top-rated drama now on NBC.

The show has been attracting about 7.7 million viewers to its Monday broadcasts, and adding several million more each week from playback of episodes recorded on DVRs.

This Monday, the show faced its biggest test when for the first time it went up against original episodes of two long-running 10 p.m. dramas, “Hawaii-Five-0” on CBS and “Castle” on ABC. “Smash” held its own, losing only a small segment of the audience it had been attracting earlier.

NBC introduced “Smash” with a promotional campaign that competitors considered among the most costly ever. But the show, which received mostly favorable reviews, has been able to defy some early doubts about whether it would appeal to viewers beyond fans of Broadway musicals.

‘Smash” also benefited from being placed behind NBC’s one breakout hit, “The Voice.” The main question going into a second season will be whether “Smash” can be moved elsewhere on NBC’s schedule so a new series can inherit the spot behind “The Voice.”

March 22, 2012, 12:45 pm

Digital Notes: Spotify Adds Apps, and Kim Dotcom Gets His Benz Back

By BEN SISARIO

Digital Notes

Daily updates on the business of digital music.

More Spotify Apps: Last year, Spotify introduced a dozen or so apps to make browsing for music easier on the service (and also to make it look more like iTunes). On Thursday, 12 more apps arrive, most from record labels and distributors promoting their music, including Sony Legacy; the Warner Music Group; Def Jam; and the indies Domino and Matador. Also among the new apps: the Complete Collection, which displays full album artwork and liner notes; TweetVine, which makes playlists from Twitter trends; and Classify, a guide to classical music from X5, a maker of digital compilations.

Kim Dotcom’s Allowance: A few days after ruling that the assets of the file-sharing service Megaupload and its founder, Kim Dotcom, had been improperly seized in a police raid, a judge in New Zealand has given Mr. Dotcom access to his Mercedes-Benz and about $49,000 a month in living expenses, according to reports from The New Zealand Herald and Bloomberg News. The money will come from Mr. Dotcom’s bank accounts and from interest on his holdings in government bonds. The judge also ordered that Bram van der Kolk, one of the six other Megaupload employees charged by the United States with conspiracy and copyright infringement, be given access to $7,400 a month.

  •  In a court filing in the United States, the Motion Picture Association of America, which called for the federal investigation of Megaupload, has asked a judge to have Carpathia Hosting, one of Megaupload’s server hosts, preserve data about millions of its users that the trade group could use in civil copyright suits, Wired noted.

More Distro for Vevo: Vevo, the music-video site owned by Universal, Sony and Abu Dhabi Media, has made a deal with Yahoo to syndicate its videos, the company announced Wednesday on Twitter. Yahoo joins a growing number of distribution partners for Vevo, including AOL, BET, Last.fm, Facebook and Viacom. The vast majority of Vevo’s views come through YouTube, but there has been speculation that the company might leave YouTube entirely once its deal ends in about a year, and make another partner, perhaps Facebook, its primary outlet.

March 22, 2012, 9:35 am

The Breakfast Meeting: A Serious Turn for Etch A Sketch and the Muppets

By NOAM COHEN

The Breakfast Meeting

What’s making news in media.

The comment on CNN by a senior adviser to Mitt Romney that the candidate would be like an Etch A Sketch, easily resetting his campaign for the general election, became an instant Internet meme. The distraction from the comment, made Wednesday morning, had serious consequences for Mr. Romney, Jeff Zeleny and Jim Rutenberg write: it shifted the focus from his argument that he had, in effect, won the nomination with his victory in Illinois on Tuesday. And it diluted the lift he received from the endorsement by Jeb Bush on Wednesday. By the end of the day there were interactive Web sites, mocking Twitter hashtags, a Web ad for Democrats, Sarah Wheaton writes; also, Mr. Romney’s opponents, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, brought Etch A Sketch toys to their campaign events.

Wall Street firms have largely avoided social media like Twitter for fear of running afoul of federal securities regulations, but they are slowly allowing some employees to experiment, William Alden writes on DealBook. At Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, among the most aggressive firms in terms of social media, only 600 of its 17,800 financial advisers are allowed to use Twitter; the firm relies on software that archives messages, offers prewritten content and allows compliance officers to review postings.

  • Goldman Sachs has begun scanning internal e-mails for the term “muppet,” Reuters reported, and other examples of employees’ referring to clients in unflattering ways. The review comes after a scathing Op-Ed article in The Times by an executive director who resigned Goldman Sachs; in the article he said he said he saw five Goldman managing directors refer to clients as “muppets,” sometimes in e-mails.

A report by the consulting firm SNL Kagan projected that Oprah Winfrey’s cable network, OWN, could lose $142.9 million in 2012, The Los Angeles Times reported. Read more…

March 21, 2012, 11:28 pm

McClatchy Chief to Lead The A.P.

By BRIAN STELTER

The Associated Press, tapping a longtime newspaper executive for one of the pre-eminent jobs in journalism, said late Wednesday that Gary Pruitt would be its next chief executive, succeeding Tom Curley, who is retiring.

Mr. Pruitt, 54, is now the chairman and chief executive of the McClatchy Company, the owner of 30 daily newspapers in the United States. He will start at The A.P. in July.

McClatchy, the third largest owner of newspapers in the United States, followed up by announcing that Pat Talamantes would become its chief executive, and that Kevin McClatchy, a fifth-generation family member, would become chairman. Mr. Talamantes will start in mid-May.

The A.P. is a not-for-profit news cooperative that supplies articles, photos and videos to news organizations around the world. Mr. Curley, 63, its chief executive since 2003, announced in January that he intended to retire once his replacement was identified. A search committee was formed shortly thereafter to find outside candidates for the job.

Mr. Curley said in an internal memorandum that he would stay until August. “You are in good hands,” he wrote.

Mr. Pruitt knows The A.P. well, having been on its board for nine years. Mostly, though, he knows it as a client. He has held various positions at McClatchy for nearly three decades and said in a telephone interview on Wednesday night that he had fully expected he might retire there someday — until the A.P. opportunity came up.

The A.P., he said confidently, will remain “the essential news source” for the news outlets that subscribe to it and for the news consumers that directly and indirectly rely on it.

“A.P. is successfully transitioning as a digital force, and I think that will continue,” he said. “It will be diversifying its revenue streams — geographically, with more international revenue, and also with more product offerings.”

In a news release, The A.P. highlighted Mr. Pruitt’s experience in online newsgathering and production. It said that 20 percent of McClatchy’s revenue come from digital advertising.

William Singleton, the outgoing chairman of The A.P., said in a statement: “Gary has deep experience in the changing world of the news industry, an acute business sense and an overriding understanding of and commitment to A.P.’s news mission.”

Mary Junck, the incoming chairman, added in her own statement: “Gary’s experience spans a wide range of media, from print to digital, but he also has been closely involved in successful media advertising efforts and technology partnerships that play such a crucial role in the news industry today.”

According to The A.P., on a daily basis, more than half of the world’s population is exposed to the content the organization produces.

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