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You Say Tomato, I Say Tomotto... You Say DRM, I Say We'll See
February 16, 2007
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"It's amazing we have generated as much money as we have, given how cumbersome it is to buy music. Imagine what we could do if it was fun and easy for consumers."
-- Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. at the 3GSM World Congress this week in Barcelona, Spain, talking about the difficulty consumers have in purchasing music for cell phones and the mobile market..Mr. Bronfman should not have limited his above comment to just the mobile market segment of the business. In fact, if the industry gets its proverbial bits (and bytes) together, buying more music online would indeed be "fun and easy for consumers" everywhere, and not just for cell phones.
Of course the man the industry loves to hate, Steve Jobs, did make BUYING music fun and easy for consumers. I think there's a sign on the golden arches at Apple that says "Over 1 billion sold!" (Or maybe not. It's late, I'm hungry, and I'm thinking of hamburgers and fries.) In any case, iTunes did exactly what Mr. Bronfman now would like to do to facilitate more sales in another market segment.
As I mentioned in the newsletter last week, Steve Jobs launched (what the music industry considers) his latest missile by writing an open letter on the Apple website saying he would make iTunes compatible with all mp3 players (not just iPods) when record companies begin to sell songs online without copyright protection software and DRM (digital rights management). (Read the news article below, 'Parsing Steve Jobs' Alternative Views Of The Future,' to get more insight into the issue.)
After pro- and anti-DRM volleys were fired back and forth in the media, this week comes the news that despite what other labels might think or do, EMI is moving toward the anti-digital rights management side of the fence.
There's great speculation about why EMI might be considering this. The company announced lowered expectations for its recorded music division. Instead of the expected 6% to 10% fiscal-year decline, the company said it's more likely to be in the neighborhood of 15%. (Following the announcement, the label's shares plunged 20%.)
Whether or not EMI will announce this radical move is something we'll have to wait to see, but such a move would no doubt send waves across cyberspace. If it increased EMI digital sales, then what might others do?
I'm of the opinion that DRM is already another lost battle for the industry. I said in the first issue of this newsletter four years ago, "Any software programmer will tell you the hard core (ugly) truth is this: Anything that can be encoded digitally can be decoded and replicated with a little work. It's time the labels recognize this fact, accept it, and now spend time brainstorming on how new revenue streams can be created within the framework of all the technology at hand." And DRM is simply another digital doing that is easily undone.
And then there's the news this week that despite the all the RIAA lawsuits (surprise, surprise), illegitimate peer-to-peer file-sharing websites (LimeWire, BitTorrent, Azureus, Gnutella, to name just a few) are still being used by millions of users. And these are just the websites the industry can track. Add in all the offline intranets and online darknets, and the picture gets a whole lot clearer.
Again, it's not that I condone illegal file-sharing/downloading. It's just that after speaking to too many tech people, I know that all these battles the industry is fighting are lost causes.
Back in January 2004, Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) and seven other senators criticized the RIAA's practice of suing alleged file-sharers. Calling the legal moves of the RIAA heavy-handed and against the intent of both copyright laws and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Sununu said, "The fundamental problem with the approach of the RIAA is that it was based on legislation that created special property rights. Suddenly, you had a private entity that's able to issue subpoenas, which is unprecedented. That's not what the DMCA was intended to do. We can't be writing legislation that gives holders of certain types of intellectual property special rights....We can't carve out special legislation to give special powers to certain types of content."
Consumer Electronics Association Pres./CEO Gary Shapiro said in 2005, "It is ironic that the recording industry continues to cry wolf when so many opportunities exist for the industry to leverage technology for future growth. For example, CEA forecasts sales of MP3 players to grow by more than 45% this year. Online music sales continue to increase. Now that Grokster has been resolved in their favor, it is time for the music industry to finally get serious about building digital business models. Content creators should focus their considerable resources and marketing prowess on finding and expanding new business models rather than constricting consumers' rights and strangling new technologies."
Time to move on, folks, and get it done.
Triple A Radio...Great Radio Making Waves
A TALK WITH TRIPLE A RADIO.COM'S MIKE LYONS
Mike Lyons, a co-founder and columnist for Triple A Radio.com, started his career in Orlando back in 1971 by publishing the city's first underground newspaper and promoting the first rock show at the Citrus Bowl (Cactus, Bloodrock, Potliquor and Dr. John for $3). He was MD/announcer for WORJ, WDIZ and WHTQ in Orlando and PD for Abrams' WXTB (98 Rock) in Tampa, and he spent the last eight years of his radio career as mornings/APD at WZTA/Miami. From 1995-2000 he was VP of AAA Promotions at Lee Arnold Marketing. Lyons prefers to call himself a "post millennial pop culture theorist" instead of a "former record promotion weasel."
One of the greatest things about being a promotion man back in the "glory days" of Top 40 and AOR was actually getting to promote great MUSIC people who carried so much passion for what they put on the radio. I first met Mike when I was Capitol Records Promotion Manager for Florida in the early 1970s and he was at WORJ-FM, and it's been a privilege to retain his friendship since that time.
I thought it would make great sense to talk to Mike about the evolution of Triple A radio and why it works so well wherever it's available.
Q: You came out of the golden era of AOR radio, when great AOR stations (like WORJ-FM in Orlando, where you once worked) captured their markets with significant ratings, and created great radio that helped the music industry to develop and break artists. Can you talk a little about why AOR dissipated when there were so many great album stations across the country?
A: Well, the first AOR (album-oriented radio) stations began as "What the hell?" uses of previously unused FM signals back in the late 60s and early 70s. Back then, broadcasters focused on the AM dial. FM was used for background music services or simply laid dormant because the FM tuner wasn't ubiquitous yet.
I remember back in the early 70s in Orlando at WORJ, we routinely installed FM-adapter tuners at local auto dealerships. We also had a terrific staff. Lee Arnold was program director, I was the music director right out of high school, and our on-air staff included Bill McGathy, Neal Mirsky, Paul Yeskel and Tom Webb, among others.
By 1975 dual frequency tuners were finally available widely in the marketplace. In 1975, Lee Abrams started his "Superstars" consultancy with Kent Burkhart in Atlanta. That was when AOR had become so successful that the radio business began to commodify it. Abrams stations were researched and had smaller playlists than the typical free-form AOR. Five hundred songs from the major artists eventually beat the thousands of songs on a typical free-form, and this proliferation of almost sonically identical AOR stations spread across the country.
Then MTV arrived on the scene, and I'll never forget it. The convention of Abrams PDs came to Orlando at the same time I was MD and doing mornings at WDIZ, so I was the first station to change to a complete list of songs from MTV. Thus, AOR went from playing the Who, Stones, Floyd and the dominant "corporate rock" of the moment (I call it "Journey-Styxwagon") to a playlist of British one-hit novelty records. There was never any DEMAND for more from ABC or Kajagoogoo, but that's what AOR played during the MTV acceptance explosion of 1983 and 1984. But who was gonna play the Stones, the Who and Floyd?
That was when consultant Fred Jacobs came up with the "Classic Rock" format in 1984. Before you knew it, every city had an AOR and a Classic Rock station. AOR quickly moved through the MTV pretenders and thrived on U2, Police and, in particular, West Coast spandex guitar bands (Motley, Poison, Winger, Slaughter) until 1992, when grunge arrived. Grunge had a much narrower point of view about rock 'n' roll. Lyrics were basically "life sucks and I want to die," and the music involved a complete retreat from virtuosity. NO SOLOS.
Unlike the indulgent preening of the guitar bands, grunge refrained from solos by either guitarists or keyboards. AOR stations chose then from three available formats: Classic rock, Alternative and "Active Rock." The Active Rock would pretty much play the same music list as the Alternatives, but also play Metallica plus a combination of up to a dozen Zeppelin, Floyd and Hendrix tunes. Programmers pretty much weren't even trying anymore. They stopped trying completely when radio was deregulated in 1996 and the arrival of the "enormocorps." When you own over 1,200 stations, you tend to follow a strict business model. And that's what Clear Channel, CBS, Cumulus, Entercom, Citadel and Cumulus did. Your AOR station played the same 400-song researched list, said the same things (pushed listeners to either the station website or the auto-dealer on Saturday), and, since the industry was already into its second generation of consultant-driven talent, nobody could ad lib, question or entertain anyway.
Now the rockers are in bad shape since they've lost their next customers to the web. Twelve to 24 men could not care less about any hometown Rock station today. It's sad.
Q: Since many people don't have a Triple A station in their market, why not describe what the Triple A (AAA) radio format is?
A: The Triple A format is better understood when it's referred to as "adult rock." Looking back at those three AOR formats I mentioned, who is out there to play new songs and classic songs from Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Joni Mitchell, Don Henley, Eric Clapton, Stones and The Beatles, plus the great songwriter performers who emerged in the last 15 years like Sarah McLachlan, Beck, Norah Jones, Death Cab For Cutie and Lucinda Williams?
The term Triple A stands for "adult alternative album rock," AAA. The format plays songs ABOUT something as opposed to the typical attitude-driven alternative act. The format is lyric-driven and softer than your regular Rock station but has plenty of tempo. That evolution has been integral to its success in the last several years.
Q: Was Triple A one person's idea, or did it evolve from other formats? Where was it first on the air?
A: It evolved out of the original AOR format. AAA is generally seen to have arrived at the same time as Alternative, in 1992. No stations were left to play softer classic rock songs like the Stones "Wild Horses" or Blind Faith's "Can't Find My Way Home," AND there was no station playing the emerging new artists like Sarah McLachlan's "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy," Seal's "Prayer for the Dying," or Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do."
Great new releases like Neil Young's "Harvest Moon" just had no airplay in so many cities across the country. There were a few stations still playing the singer/songwriters, and they included veteran AOR stations WXRT in Chicago, KFOG in San Francisco, KBCO in Denver and KMTT in Seattle. Soon, other owners and programmers quantified this amazing amount of unplayed artists and songs targeted toward the 25-54 adult demographic and joined the crowd. There also was a large group of major-market noncommercial stations that were covering the same sound -- WXPN in Philadelphia, KCRW in Los Angeles and WFUV in New York City among them at the beginning. Now there are over 200 AAA stations in the U.S.A.
Q: How and when did you become involved with Triple A?
A: When I was at Classic Rock WZTA/Miami in 1994, Bud Paxton bought us and he made us play a dreadfully arbitrary "AAA" list from Bolton Research. Inexplicable songs such as "When The Heart Rules the Mind" by GTR and "Pamela" by Toto were on the list in an incompetent attempt to cop the sound of then-AAA station WMMO in Orlando. It didn't even last six months before we flipped to an audience-vaporizing 300-song Jeff Pollack alternative list. By then, I had already been to Seattle and San Francisco to sample KMTT and KFOG and was enthralled by the AAA format, so when my old friend Lee Arnold invited me to join him in Milwaukee doing independent promotion in the AAA format, I jumped at it.
Q: Why do you think more radio companies haven't viewed the success of Triple A as meaningful at a time when radio faces stiff competition from satellite radio, Internet radio, iPods, etc.? Don't people listen to Triple A for longer periods of time? And isn't listener loyalty high at Triple A stations?
A: Yes, of course. Throughout my radio career the radio business had always pursued the "active" listeners who were most likely to react to and appreciate good radio and then spread the word to others, while "passive" listeners would respond as a station's appeal approached critical mass. Today, music radio pursues the "passive" listener because they think it saves money and eliminates risk. That's leading to the elimination of ANY growth.
AAA is a format that targets the "active" listener with a passionate presentation of new music, plus the recurrents that the rest of contemporary music radio has inexplicably stopped playing. Plus, the AAA format presents "lifestyle" elements that pertain to their target audience. Boomers with great income and gratitude for "their" radio station (AAA) being available. AAA does great business. Period!
On the commercial side, Miller-Kaplan annually says AAA has a power ratio larger than ANY other radio format except for News and Hot AC. Even in a market as small as Austin (#42), KGSR billed over $5.5 million last year. In Chicago, WXRT billed $23 million! At the same time, the noncommercial FM AAA stations have seen an explosion in their fundraising. The pledge drives are shorter and more effective as the audience continues to explode at the noncommercial level. The audience for all noncommercial radio has more than doubled since 1990! It primarily targets 25-54 women, who make 75% of all consumer purchase decisions. Any broadcaster who can't see the advantages AAA offers simply isn't looking.
Q: At one time, great music radio stations captured the identity of their individual markets so well. You could turn on a station, and it truly reflected the pulse of the market it was in. When did radio start losing that individuality and why?
A: They were losing it before 1996, but after deregulation it was no longer a part of the programming objective -- too risky to pull it off well, and the talent was already sinking after two generations of consultant-driven radio. There's lots of talk about it at NAB meetings and sales presentations, but less and less actual local material makes it over the air. For the last 15 years, talent just reads the cards after 9am. That liability doesn't exist at AAA. They LIVE for covering local news events. The rest simulcast television if a hurricane or earthquake hits. And some Clear Channels don't even do that if it means you have to have a "live" jock there. C'mon. They'd have to PAY him!
Q: I know you have been following the music industry from both the radio and records side and the paradigm shifts for a long time. In your opinion, what are the most profound changes to have occurred in recent years?
A: The arrival of the web and the arrival of wireless. And both are really just getting started.
Q: The radio industry at large, like the major labels, was slow to embrace the Internet, many even hesitating to put up home pages, not to mention music samples. Do you see opportunities for stations to maximize audience and build listener loyalty via the Internet?
A: Oh yes. There were a few studies out in the last month confirming that stations have benefited from their websites, and it makes great sense if you provide value. AAA's often stream and replace advertising audio with format appropriate music during the breaks. Album covers and bio links, news, contests. One thing I'd recommend is that if they can, stations should make their streaming available more easily for dial-up listeners. Not everybody is getting the same broadband availability at once across the country.
Q: What are your thoughts about the state of the music business today?
A: Both radio and records started collapsing in 2000. Growth stopped, and the business models failed. You didn't need to be a Wharton graduate to see that radio couldn't grow if it continued to act like it was the only place to hear a particular song while it stopped communicating with people. The major labels couldn't expect to increase their business because they had more endcaps and rack space in L.A., Birmingham, Madrid and Jakarta. It was a new world, baby, and neither started to change until the horses were out of the barn and almost over the horizon. Like Tom Freidman puts it, "The world has flattened."
Q: At one time, you and I both had the privilege and pleasure of working in the business when great new music could get on the radio almost instantly at a local station if the PD and MD thought it would create real on-air excitement. Does that type of thing happen anymore at music radio? If so, where?
A: At AAA, and with a few other PDs still around from our past. Try giving the new Norah Jones to Dave Benson at KFOG or Bruce Warren at WXPN or Scott Arbaugh at KBCO a few weeks ahead of time, and furniture will still be broken on the way to the control room. Same with Jimmy Steal at KPWR if it's a new Timbaland, or Doug Podell at WRIF if it's a new Audioslave. But you could only fill one room with people like us at any R&R convention!
Q: One of the things I've written about frequently in my newsletter (and you've talked about as well in yours and on TripleAradio.com) is the loss of artist development from labels. In my opinion, the lack of great artists who release albums with 10 or more great tracks is one of the most significant factors in the sales decline of the CD. Disposable music is "Chinese food for the ears," and it doesn't satisfy the audience's hunger very long. It seems that Triple A radio is focused strongly on singer/songwriters and real artists more than just trendy music -- something that should be good for the audience, the station (in building loyalty) and the labels. Your thoughts?
A: It's instant karma. You get what you give. And when you don't develop and support talent, you live and die by what you have on your label right then and now. Most contemporary music is dominated by producers right now. Every idiom. I write a column for Triplearadio.com called "The Forest," and the first words I ever wrote in 2000 were from Saga programming VP Steve Goldstein. He said, "Most forms of entertainment media -- movies, TV networks, cable channels, records, games and the web -- are all investing MORE money on products. Radio is spending LESS."
And I love that Steve and Saga have finally jumped into the AAA field in the last two years. Since that statement was made, the recording industry has dropped in spending, cutting back drastically in staff and investment in an attempt to create an attractive profit margin. The one thing that both radio and records have in common is not just the outdated business model, it is the impatience in their behavior. Desperate men make desperate actions, but I know Tom Peters and other business wisdom voices constantly tell the market, "You can't save a business by cutting expenses alone. You can only save a company by making a better product"
Q: Do you think Triple A stations have a better chance of not losing audience to satellite radio?
A: Absolutely! By providing a better product for its customers, AAA listeners don't have to spend $12 a month!
Q: Thanks for your time, Mike!
Parsing Steve Jobs' Alternative Views Of The Future
In an open letter last week, Apple CEO Steve Jobs encouraged the Big Four record companies to allow their music to be sold free of digital rights management. Interesting news from an always interesting man. Jobs wrote that Apple has been asked to open its FairPlay DRM system. That would mean music purchased from the iTunes Store could be played on non-Apple digital devices, while protected music bought from other online music stores could work on iPods.
Jobs deflected criticism of Apple by pointing out that the company does not own or control any music itself. Instead, it must license the rights to distribute music primarily from the four companies that control the distribution of more than 70 percent of the world's music: Universal, Sony BMG, Warner and EMI.
When Apple approached these companies to license and distribute their music online, Jobs said they required Apple to protect their content from being illegally copied. The solution arrived at was to create a DRM system, which envelopes each song purchased from the iTunes Store in special and secret software, so that it cannot be played on unauthorized devices.
Jobs then presented three alternative visions for the future of digital music...
Read more about it by clicking here.
Don Henley Lauded As MusiCares Person Of The Year
It didn't take singer Michael McDonald long to get to the heart of the matter. Paying homage to Don Henley with a rendition of 1989's The Heart of the Matter, McDonald said, "He's been a great activist, and he's one of the best songwriters I know."
Both qualities were celebrated by friends and peers last Friday night in the Los Angeles Convention Center, where Henley was lauded as the MusiCares Person of the Year, awarded to iconic musicians for philanthropic efforts. The event is an annual gathering that kicks off Grammy weekend. Past honorees Natalie Cole and Brian Wilson were among 2,300 who gathered for the benefit auction, dinner and concert.
When Henley finally took the stage, he termed the evening "a very strange out-of-body experience. I feel like I'm at my own memorial service. It would be nice to have a funeral like this."
Read more about it by clicking here.
Bronfman Slams Mobile Entertainment Experience
The cell phone industry must improve the mobile music experience for consumers or risk losing out to new competitors like Apple, Warner Music Group's CEO warned Wednesday at the 3GSM World Congress.
Edgar Bronfman Jr. said in a keynote speech here that although there are already millions of music phones available throughout the world, only about 8.8 percent of people with the devices actually buy their music over the air. The reason, he said, is because such purchases are expensive, complicated and slow.
"We need to make it easy, affordable and quick to get music on mobile phones," he said. "Until we achieve this goal, we will be leaving billions of dollars on the table."
Read more about it by clicking here.
YouTube Reportedly In Classic TV Deal
A deal with Digital Music Group will bring more than 4,000 hours of video content such as classic television shows to the video-sharing site.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Mobile Music Service Aims To Compete With Apple Overseas
An alliance of all major music publishers and 23 mobile operators said on Monday they would launch a cellular music service, stealing the thunder of Apple's iPhone. Initiated by British mobile music firm Omnifone, the music service will be launched by the second quarter, offering unlimited track downloads at 2.99 euros ($3.88) a week including data traffic charges.
"We expect to definitely get to the millions of (subscribers) by the end of this calendar year," said Omnifone founder Rob Lewis about the new service, called MusicStation.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Reporters' Roundtable Podcast: Imagining a world without DRM
From a reporter's point of view, the great thing about covering Apple CEO Steve Jobs over the years is that the guy's always good for a headline. And he's at it again--this time over the hot-button topic of digital rights management protection for digital music.
Join CNET News.com's Charles Cooper, Greg Sandoval and Tom Krazit, as well as former News.com reporter John Borland, as they go behind the headlines on this week's edition of the News.com Reporters' Roundtable.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Universal Signs Video Deal With U.K. Telecom Firm
Music videos from the Scissor Sisters, Snow Patrol, U2 and Keane are among the lineup being included on British telecommunications company BT Group's new broadband television service via a deal with Universal Music.
"The move is another step for music companies in monetizing their content across a variety of different platforms to offset weakness in physical CD sales, and we see these types of deals as becoming increasingly important for music companies," said UBS analyst Ian Whittaker in a research note.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Time For Hollywood To Expand Web Investment
The latest financial disclosures from News Corp. and Walt Disney Co. showed steady growth in the traditional media firms' budding digital departments. The bulk of their new media revenues, however, came from either a rare original enterprise (MySpace in News Corp.'s case) or the monetizing of traditional media content delivered in digital form. Here's the catch: with the exception of clips from YouTube and MySpace, we're consuming the same content on a different medium. Big media needs some new ideas. Instead, it's myopically focused on fighting piracy, which may be a losing battle.
Read more about it by clicking here.
Is Radio Still Radio if There's Video?
Ted Stryker, a D.J. at KROQ in Los Angeles, considers it a perk of the job to wear shorts and T-shirts to work. But last Sunday as he dressed for the Grammy Awards, he pulled out his best blazer and a flashy belt buckle, knowing three video cameras would stream live coverage of his show to the Web sites of 147 CBS radio stations.
"What's great about radio is no one knows what you're wearing," Mr. Stryker said by telephone as he made his way through the throng at the Grammys. "I wanted to make myself a little bit more presentable."
The nation's commercial radio stations have seen the future, and it is in, of all things, video. As a result, the stereotype of a silken-voiced jockey like Mr. Stryker, slumped and disheveled in the studio chair, may never be the same.
Read more about it by clicking here.
More Than Artists Wired At The Grammys
Now that 300 crew members have taken down 150 tons of gear from the rafters of the Staples Center and switched off 13,000 amps of power, the site of Sunday's Grammy Awards can return to its main role as the home of basketball's Lakers, Kings and Clippers.
The performances from what has been dubbed music's biggest night may have held center stage, but when operating with the support of backstage digital technology, they were orchestrated with the same split-second synchronicity as the hip-shaking collaboration between Shakira and Wyclef Jean.
Read more about it by clicking here.
DVD-Audio and SACD Missed Their Market, But Is It Too Late For High-Resolution Music?
FROM AVREV.COMThe story of the failure of SACD and DVD-Audio is a long and disappointing tale that has far-reaching negative impact for the music and audio-video industry alike. In 1993 the domestic record sales, powered almost exclusively by Compact Disc, were near 33 billion dollars yearly. Today, nearly a decade and a half later domestic record sales have dropped to about $9 billion per year with an additional $3 billion per year for downloads and another $3 billion for ring tones. Unquestionably, the music business has lost a lot of its luster in a very short period of time and is dragging the audiophile market segment down the drain with them.
While new markets like downloads and ring tones have created over $6 billion per year in new music sales, the overall domestic record sales have suffered a tremendous attrition with the main cause of this attrition being the lack of back catalog sales on CD. Napster in the late 1990's, taught people how to steal music yet iTunes taught them how to buy music from the Internet the right way only a few years later. Where the real problem lives is the idea that a CD for $18.99 at a record retailer somehow can compete in terms of value with a video game or a DVD. Both DVD and video games are more expensive than a CD yet people of all incomes line up to buy movies and games with enthusiasm that the music industry hasn't seen for twenty years.
Read more about it by clicking here.
THIS WEEK'S 'WHO CARES?' NEWS ITEMS
ITEM #1: Paula Abdul has a new reality show coming to Bravo, but it already has problems. Pilgrim Films and Television filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit Feb. 1 in Los Angeles accusing the "American Idol" judge and a business partner of making a deal with Bravo for the planned series "Hey Paula!" while cutting out the production company that claims to have dreamed up and developed the concept. The complaint seeks unspecified damages and an injunction against further "misappropriation, exploitation and use of "Hey Paula." Maybe if we're lucky, the lawsuit will mean the show doesn't get on at all.
ITEM #2: Al Franken officially declared his candidacy for a Minnesota Senate seat, challenging Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in the 2008 race. So, after being the poster boy for the Air America network and never getting any respectable ratings anywhere, Mr. Franken now wants to be a politician. And as for his experience? Ooops.
CONGRATS
CONGRATS #1 TO: To Carrie Underwood on her Best New Artist Grammy. Carrie's debut album is heading towards 6 million, and her latest single looks like another smash.
CONGRATS #2 TO: To Beyoncé, who appears on the coveted cover of Sports Illustrated's 2007 swimsuit issue clad in a pink and yellow bikini.
CONGRATS #3 TO: To Toni Braxton, who was released from her contract with Blackground Records as part of a settlement in her lawsuit against former manager Barry Hankerson.
CONGRATS #4 TO: To The Killers and Arctic Monkeys, who collected a leading two honors apiece at the 2007 Brit Awards. The Las Vegas-based Killers took home Best International Group and International Album for "Sam's Town," while the Monkeys were named Best British Band and scored Best Album for "Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not."
IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T REHAB, TRY AND TRY AGAIN
Robbie Williams entered a rehab facility in the United States to seek treatment for a dependency to prescription drugs, his rep said. The British singer previously entered a treatment facility in London in October 2006 to seek help for depression and in 1997 for drug and alcohol addiction.
FAITH & TIM GET UNWANTED VISITORS
Burglars broke into Faith Hill and Tim McGraw's Hollywood Hills home last weekend and made off with an unknown amount of cash, police said.
ATTENTION ALL BLACKBERRY ADDICTS
This past Monday Research In Motion introduced its BlackBerry 8800, designed to offer up multimedia consumer features to the corporate user. The BlackBerry 8800 includes a media player and a microSD expandable memory slot for music and videos. RIM says the BlackBerry 8800 also features its slimmest corporate design yet, with a QWERTY keyboard and a trackball screen navigation system. Global Positioning System software and Bluetooth 2.0, for use with wireless headsets, also are built into the device.
STERN PROPOSES
Howard Stern announced on his Sirius Satellite Radio show that he popped the question to longtime girlfriend Beth Ostrosky Tuesday night. No word on the couple's wedding plans.
DIVORCE COURT
"American Idol" season-five finalist Bucky Covington has separated from his wife of seven years, Crystal.
BONNAROO LINEUP
The Police, the White Stripes, Tool, Wilco, Widespread Panic and Franz Ferdinand are among the bands on the lineup for the 2007 Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, June 14-17.
STUDIO 60 SHUT DOWN
NBC is pulling "Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip" off the air a week earlier than scheduled and replacing it with "The Black Donnellys" as of February 26. The network claimed the series will return at some point, but this is not a good sign.
SANTANA TACOS?
Carlos Santana will open a mini-chain of Mexican restaurants in California named "Maria Maria" in honor of his Grammy-winning hit. The first eatery is scheduled to open in Walnut Creek in April, followed by Mill Valley in May and Santa Rosa in June.
2006 Industry Conferences
Date Name Location Digital Music Forum East February 26-28 New York 2007 ASCAP "I Create Music" Expo April 18-21 Los Angeles
Quotes of the week
"We haven't pulled everything together, but we'll get this together eventually. The fact is we're not going to invent the next thing to replace this until we run out of oil. I don't trust some of these alternative forms of fuel. Ethanol, fuel on the cob, hydrogen cars? Yes, sure I want to be in a mall parking lot with a thousand mini-Hindenburgs."
-- Dennis Miller, on his reaction to global warming and the use of alternative fuels."We have a lot of friends in common, and Justin's a sweetheart, and it's always good to see him, but there's a lot of speculation and I try not to read that stuff. I think when two people are single and are seen together, it's immediately like a crazy feeding frenzy."
-- Scarlett Johansson to E! News' Giuliana DePandi, on rumors that she is dating Justin Timberlake."I've never been drunk. I have never done recreational drugs. Just look at my 20-year career. Tell me someone who is into partying or doing drugs that could have done that."
-- Paula Abdul to Us Weekly. Never, ever been drunk, Paula? Never? Then please explain to us all your too frequent odd on-screen behavior."But then, I still think they need to eat a cheeseburger."
-- Norah Jones telling the March issue of British Glamour that she was asked to lose weight for her upcoming film "My Blueberry Nights" and that she has more sympathy for "really skinny actresses" as a result."How many times can people say, 'So, when are you going to have kids?' Can I slap you now?"
-- Sandra Bullock in the March issue of InStyle magazine"It's a story for the books. It's a story that will be written about and talked about. I imagine a major motion picture about it."
-- The brilliant mind of Larry King, on the roller-coaster tabloid train-wreck life and untimely death of Anna Nicole Smith."I just want to come clean, I actually voted on myself."
-- Notorious sore loser Kanye West, confessing to rapper friend Common on the Grammys stage about how he voted for last year's awards show."You know what? I was happy. I think everybody else was happy. We're tired of you crying about not winning."
-- Common
The B-Side - 'Blips'
MAYBE IT WAS 'SHOW & TELL' DAY, AND YET ANOTHER REASON WHY MORE PEOPLE ARE HOME SCHOOLING: LEWISTON, NY -- Police said a substitute teacher accused of snorting cocaine in front of her fourth-grade pupils will face charges that could send her to jail for up to three years. Lewiston-Porter School District substitute Joan M. Donatelli, 59, has been charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
Pupils said they saw her use the cap of a pen to scoop the contents of a small plastic bag and place it to her nose on Feb. 1. Donatelli is a retired first-grade teacher with the district.
The Blogs
Check out a great (that I contribute commentary to) blog by Jerry Del Colliano, the Director Executive Programs, Clinical Professor Music Industry & Recording Arts, at the Thornton School of Music,University of Southern California, by clicking here: http://www.insidemusicmedia.blogspot.com.
Box Office
Check The Daily & Weekly Box Office (and more film info) at: www.boxofficemojo.com.
TinyURL
Check out www.tinyurl.com where you can make a smaller URL that will work for any webpage you wish to link to or reference. (As you can see, I'm using it in my news stories above!)
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