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| As Olympics loom, NBC leads in the race for prized viewers Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 06:26 PM PST  Comcast Corp's NBC network, for years a ratings laggard, is ahead in a key contest among broadcasters even before it attracts millions of viewers this month to its marquee event, the Winter Olympics. "The Blacklist," which stars James Spader as a master criminal who helps the FBI, and the second-year drama "Chicago Fire" have pushed NBC into the lead among viewers 18 to 49, the group most prized by advertisers. NBC will begin its Olympics telecast on February 6 from Sochi, Russia, boosting ratings and giving the network its biggest opportunity this season to promote its regular primetime lineup. The network's overall ratings increased by 11 percent this season from a year earlier, to 9.2 million primetime viewers on average, according to the Nielsen ratings agency. Full Story | Top |
| Larger than life Oprah celebrating 60th birthday quietly at home Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 06:24 PM PST  By Eric Kelsey LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Fifty came with a televised bash, celebrity friends and a black-tie dinner, but Oprah Winfrey will have a low-key 60th birthday at home in California on Wednesday. Full Story | Top |
| Former Academy of Motion Pictures president Tom Sherak dies Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 06:15 PM PST  Tom Sherak, the former president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, died on Tuesday after a long struggle with prostate cancer, his family said in a statement. Sherak served as president of the Academy, which organizes Hollywood's annual Oscars ceremony, from 2009 to 2012. Sherak was an executive with 20th Century Fox for 17 years, and until 2000 was chairman of the studio's domestic film group, overseeing the distribution of such high-profile films as "Titanic," "Alien" and "Die Hard." Sherak left Fox in 2000 to become a partner with former Disney film chairman Joe Roth in Revolution Studios, a startup film studio. He also had executive producing credits on 2001's "The One" and 2005 movie musical "Rent." In September 2013, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Sherak as the senior adviser and director of his newly formed Entertainment Industry and Production Office to help keep film production in Los Angeles after the city had been suffering declines due to incentives offered by foreign countries and other states. Full Story | Top |
| Metal band Motley Crue to call it quits after farewell tour Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 05:50 PM PST  Metal rock band Motley Crue, which became emblematic of the hard-partying hair metal acts popular on 1980s MTV, will call it quits after their scheduled farewell tour concludes next year, the band said on Tuesday. Best known for hit songs "Dr. Feelgood" and "Girls, Girls, Girls," Motley Crue made the decision legally binding by signing a cessation of touring agreement at a news conference in their hometown of Los Angeles. "Tommy said it best recently when he said a farewell tour is when a band does a farewell tour and then gets back together and does another farewell tour and breaks up and gets back together," bassist Nikki Sixx said, referring to the band's drummer Tommy Lee. "We decided to call this a final tour and sign a contract telling you this is real because we want to be proud of Motley Crue and we want our fans to be proud of Motley Crue for decades to come," he said. Full Story | Top |
| Primetime Emmy awards organizers move live show to Monday Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 04:39 PM PST The Primetime Emmy awards, television's night of honoring its own, will be held this year on Monday, August 25, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and U.S. network NBC said on Tuesday, in a surprising move from the awards show's usual Sunday slot in late September. The three-hour 66th Primetime Emmys will be aired live from coast to coast beginning at 8 p.m. EDT on NBC, which is owned by Comcast Corp. The organizers have yet to announce a host or producers of this year's show. The Primetime Emmys are U.S. television's top awards. The change was made so that the awards show would not conflict with the network's "Sunday Night Football" show, an NBC spokesman said. Full Story | Top |
| 'Boss Hog' of 'Duck Dynasty' TV show to attend big Obama speech Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 04:22 PM PST  "Duck Dynasty" reality television star Willie "Boss Hog" Robertson is on the invitation list to attend President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech Tuesday night, compliments of a congressman from his home state of Louisiana. Newly elected Representative Vance McAllister, a Republican, said on Twitter that Robertson would be in the U.S. House of Representatives chamber, where Obama was to lay out his policy agenda for the year. "I'm happy to announce that my friend, constituent & small business owner @williebosshog will be attending tonight's #SOTU as my guest," McAllister tweeted - including the younger Robertson's Twitter handle and the "#SOTU" hashtag, or search term, for the State of the Union address. Robertson's wife Korie, who also appears on the show, was given a guest ticket to the speech by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who tweeted a photo of himself with the couple. Full Story | Top |
| Award-winning actor Kevin Spacey to be honored by NY museum Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 01:22 PM PST  By Marina Lopes NEW YORK (Reuters) - Award-winning actor, director and producer Kevin Spacey will be honored for his contributions to films, television and theater by New York's Museum of the Moving Image at its annual salute in April. Spacey, 54, who won the best actor Oscar in 2000 for "American Beauty" and a best supporting actor award four years earlier for "The Usual Suspects," will join the ranks of past honorees including Tom Cruise, Robert DeNiro and Julia Roberts, the museum said on Tuesday. "We've always wanted to honor him since he delivered these tremendous screen performances for which he won Academy Awards," said Carl Goodman, the executive director of the museum, said in an interview. For his stage work, he picked up a best supporting actor Tony award in 1991 for the Broadway production of Neil Simon's play "Lost in Yonkers." Spacey has been the artistic director of the Old Vic Theater Company in London since 2003. Full Story | Top |
| Novel on schizophrenic wins Costa Book Award Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 12:36 PM PST  Debut author and mental health nurse Nathan Filer's novel "The Shock of the Fall", about a schizophrenic young man dealing with guilt, was named as the winner of the Costa Book Award for 2013 on Tuesday. Filer beat novelist and bookmakers' favorite Kate Atkinson, for "Life After Life", biographer Lucy Hughes-Hallett for "The Pike", poet Michael Symmons Roberts for "Drysalter" and author and political cartoonist, Chris Riddell, for "Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse", to win the honor and prize money of 30,000 pounds at the awards ceremony in London. "This book stood out in a very good list," Rose Tremain, chair of the judges panel, said in a statement. "The voice in which the author has chosen to tell his story is perfectly aligned with the subject matter and very well sustained to the end." The Costa Book Awards, named after a coffee shop chain, is the only major British book prize open solely to authors resident in the United Kingdom and Ireland and recognizes books across five categories - First Novel, Novel, Biography, Poetry and Children's Book - published in the last year. Full Story | Top |
| Munich art hoarder's lawyer awaits proof of trove's looted status Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 12:17 PM PST  The lawyer of a German recluse who hoarded a trove of Nazi-looted art said on Tuesday he was still waiting for German authorities to provide "clear evidence" that the paintings had been stolen. Hannes Hartung said his client was prepared for a "fair and open dialogue" with claimants searching for looted works, but that it was up to the authorities to demonstrate that the paintings they confiscated in 2012 did not belong to him. Germany has faced heavy criticism for its handling of the discovery of 1,407 works in the flat of Cornelius Gurlitt, an elderly recluse whose father took orders from Hitler to buy and sell so-called 'degenerate art' to fund Nazi activities. When authorities raided his apartment in 2012, they found a collection of Modernist and Renaissance masterpieces valued by media reports at an estimated 1 billion euros ($1.37 billion). Full Story | Top |
| American folk singer and activist Pete Seeger dies at 94 Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 11:29 AM PST  Pete Seeger, who helped create the modern American folk music movement, co-wrote enduring songs like "If I Had a Hammer" and became a leading voice for social justice, died on Monday at the age of 94. He was hailed in social and traditional media as a "hero," "America's conscience" and "a man of the people." Seeger died of natural causes at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, his record company, Appleseed Recordings, said. Seeger was well known for his liberal politics. He protested U.S. wars from Vietnam to Iraq, participated in the civil rights movement, supported organized labor and helped found an environmental group that played a key role in cleaning up the polluted Hudson River. Full Story | Top |
| Justin Bieber's arraignment set in drunken driving case Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 10:46 AM PST  (Reuters) - Teen pop star Justin Bieber will be arraigned next month in Miami, following his arrest last week on a charge of drunken driving when he was caught drag racing in a rented Lamborghini, according to court records published on Tuesday. Bieber, 19, will be arraigned on February 14 on the driving under the influence charge, as well as charges of driving on an expired license and resisting arrest without violence. If convicted of the charges in Miami, Bieber could face jail time of up to six months, although experts say he will likely get off with a lighter sentence for his first offense. He was spotted by police in the early morning on January 23 in a yellow Lamborghini alongside another driver, aspiring R&B singer Khalil Sharieff, in a rented red Ferrari drag racing on a four-lane road in a residential area a few blocks from Miami Beach's South Beach tourist and night life district. Full Story | Top |
| German movies in focus at Berlin global film fest Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 09:56 AM PST By Sarah Marsh BERLIN (Reuters) - German movies including a drama about the love triangle of Sturm und Drang poet Friedrich Schiller will dominate the main lineup at Berlin's international film festival this year, director Dieter Kosslick said on Tuesday. But world cinema talent will not be absent at the 64th "Berlinale", which kicks off with the world premiere of U.S. director Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel", a comedy about a canny hotel concierge in the 1920s starring Ralph Fiennes and Adrien Brody. Full Story | Top |
| British PM Cameron's ex-media chief knew of phone-hacking, court hears Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 08:35 AM PST  By Michael Holden and Kate Holton LONDON (Reuters) - The former media chief to British Prime Minister David Cameron listened to a hacked voicemail revealing an affair between two leading actors and declared it "brilliant" when he was editor of the News of the World, a London court heard on Tuesday. Dan Evans, a former reporter and self-confessed prolific phone hacker on the Rupert Murdoch tabloid, said Andy Coulson was one of 10 senior figures on the now-defunct paper who knew how he intercepted voicemails to generate front page stories. Coulson, editor of the mass-selling tabloid until 2007 and then Cameron's head of communications up to early 2011, has denied any knowledge of phone-hacking and says he could not be expected to know the source of every story in his paper. He said that on one occasion in October 2005 he had played a hacked recording of a voicemail to his then editor Coulson and other senior figures on the paper which had been left by the actress Sienna Miller for James Bond actor Daniel Craig. Full Story | Top |
| BBC faces damning criticism over failed $170 million digital project Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 08:25 AM PST  By Belinda Goldsmith LONDON (Reuters) - The BBC came under fire on Tuesday for botching a 100 million pound ($170 million) digital project in the latest of a series of reports to criticize top management for their running of Britain's publicly funded broadcaster. Public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) said BBC executives led by then Director General Mark Thompson, now New York Times Company chief executive, failed to realize in time that the Digital Media Initiative was in trouble. The NAO found the BBC executive board led by Thompson was too optimistic about its ability to handle the project and did not have "sufficient grip" over an 18-month period, while the BBC Trust, chaired by Chris Patten, did not challenge it enough. Thompson, who quit the BBC in 2012 after eight years to join the New York Times, is due to return before parliament's public accounts committee on February 3 along with other past and present BBC executives to answer questions about the failed project. Full Story | Top |
| 'Gravity' Oscar buzz showcases UK visual effects industry Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 05:12 AM PST  By Julia Fioretti LONDON (Reuters) - Some viewers love Alfonso Cuaron's space thriller "Gravity" and others think it pales in comparison with classics like Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", but pretty much anyone who has seen it agrees the visual effects are stunning. While the film was financed and produced in the United States, the studio that created the visual effects - which have been nominated for an Academy Award - is British, adding to the accolades UK firms have accumulated in the field. "It's not a movie where we're putting visual effects into a film," said Tim Webber, who was visual effects supervisor for "Gravity". "It's a movie that is created using visual effects from the ground up." British talent was propelled into the industry limelight by the "Harry Potter" series, which involved UK companies Cinesite, Double Negative and Framestore, where Webber is director of visual effects. Full Story | Top |
| Palestine's tragic Oscar hopeful tests identity, ideas Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 05:06 AM PST  And while it depicts lovers literally walled-off by Israel's West Bank barrier, and a hero brutalized by Israeli secret police, the $2 million drama was filmed mostly in Nazareth, northern Israel, without hindrance. I think they (Israeli authorities) were smart to do that, because every journalist will ask me, 'How was your shoot?' and I have no stories to tell," writer-director Hany Abu-Assad said in a telephone interview. Such a conciliatory spirit is absent from "Omar", however - as elusive as actual Palestinian statehood in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which world powers hope will emerge from peace talks with Israel. Betrayal, and the mistaken perception of betrayal, follow, with bleak and bloody consequences - a plot which Abu-Assad says was inspired by Shakespeare's tragedy "Othello". Full Story | Top |
| Comcast in talks to license technology to Cox -sources Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 04:04 AM PST Comcast Corp, the No. 1 U.S. cable operator, is in advanced discussions about licensing its "X1" video operating system to Cox Communications, the third-largest cable operator, according to people familiar with the matter. Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts said on January 7 that the company is looking to license its latest cloud-based technology to other cable operators. Comcast has been in talks to provide Cox with a "white label" version of the product without using Comcast's Xfinity product name, two sources said. Full Story | Top |
| Florida city suspends police officers for escorting Bieber Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 02:53 AM PST  By Zachary Fagenson and Ben Gruber MIAMI (Reuters) - Three Florida police officers have been suspended for giving Justin Bieber an unauthorized escort from a Miami area airport on Monday night, a couple of days before his arrest for drunk driving after he was caught drag racing on Miami Beach. "Their presence at the airport was unauthorized," said Opa-locka Assistant City Manager David Chiverton on Friday. "All escorts must be approved ... whether it was Bieber or anyone else, for that matter," he said. He said the officers were suspended without pay pending the results of an investigation that is also looking into where the officers escorted Bieber, including reports that he went to a nearby strip club, the King of Diamonds. Full Story | Top |
| McCartney, Starr sing Beatles classics to mark U.S. TV debut 50 years on Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 02:29 AM PST  By Tim Reid LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr led a star-studded rendition of the classic Beatles song Hey Jude in Los Angeles on Monday night as they commemorated 50 years since the record-breaking British band first appeared on U.S. television. In a rare joint appearance singing Beatles numbers, McCartney and Starr were flanked on stage by artists including Stevie Wonder, R&B singer Alicia Keys and country singer Keith Urban to celebrate the night in 1964 when The Beatles were watched by 73 million Americans on the Ed Sullivan Show. Full Story | Top |
| China says New York Times reporter broke visa rules, will leave Tuesday, Jan 28, 2014 02:07 AM PST  China's Foreign Ministry said on Monday that a China-based reporter for the New York Times broke rules on residence visas and would be leaving the country before the end of the week, in a case which could sour Beijing's relations with Washington. The issue of media freedom for foreign reporters in China has attracted high-level concern in the United States, especially over worries that the government is denying visas for organizations that carry negative stories about China. Last month, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden expressed concern, while on a visit to Beijing, over China's efforts to restrict the activities of foreign news organizations. Neither the New York Times Co nor Bloomberg News has been given new journalist visas for more than a year after they published stories about the wealth of family members of former Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and current President Xi Jinping, respectively. Full Story | Top |
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