Last week, multibillion-dollar media megashark Vice announced that it has "teamed up with concert giant Live Nation" to create a new music site, launching next year. You may be interested to learn that an editor at Vice's other music site absolutely hates Live Nation, his company's new business partner.
• Rupert Murdoch and John Malone are "interested" in a deal with NBC Universal, but have yet to pick up the phone and do anything about it. [THR]
• Condé Nast cut sales staff at W and Vanity Fair today and proved that no one is safe by dismissing the wife of a Newhouse family member. Some good news: magazines are reporting that automotive advertising is way up, so maybe the auto industry will end up saving print media! Crazier things have happened.
• The Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger is running into trouble in DC. [WSJ]
• The Fox News-White House brouhaha continues, not surprisingly. [THR]
• Fox Reality, which is going off the air next year, will be replaced by a new channel called Nat Geo Wild. Think less Cesar Millan, more Jeff Corwin. [NYT]
• Were you dismayed that yesterday's little balloon incident generated so much cable news coverage? Wait till you see what's in store next week! [CJR]
• Ben Silverman didn't have much success during his two-year stint at NBC, but that didn't stop him from scoring a super-sweet deal with Barry Diller's IAC. His new venture will reportedly give him $100 million to play with. [NYP]
• Viacom, the media conglomerate controlled by batty billionaire Sumner Redstone, reported that profits plunged 32% in the second quarter. [NYT]
• Struggling McGraw-Hill reports quarterly profits dropped 22.7%. [PC]
• The Daily News and sportswriter Adam Rubin are refuting the claims of Mets management that Rubin tried to get himself a job on the team. [E&P]
• Amanda Hearst has landed a job at Hearst's Marie Claire. It's a miracle! [P6]
• Daily News owner Mort Zuckerman is cutting employee benefits. [NYP]
• Former Self editor and Bernie Madoff victim Alexandra Penney has landed a book deal with Voice, an imprint of Disney's Hyperion Books. [NYT]
• A few photos of Michelle Obama from the new issue of Vogue. [HP]
• How SI's Selena Roberts landed the Alex Rodriguez steroid story. [NYO]
• Former NYDN editor Michael Cooke is leaving Chicago for Toronto. [CT]
• John Grisham is close to signing a big e-book deal with Random House. [WSJ]
• The Justice Department plans to investigate the proposed (and controversial) merger of Ticketmaster and Live Nation. [AP]
• HarperCollins announced layoffs and a major reorg today. [NYO, Gawker]
• No one wants to take the editor job at OK! [Page Six]
• Ron Burkle's magazine distribution company is suing a bunch of publishing companies for trying to drive it out of business. We should be so lucky. [NYP]
• Michael Kinsley explains why micropayments won't save newspapers. [NYT]
• Time's Walter Isaacson, however, argued the opposite position last night when he appeared on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. [NYO, TDS]
• Hachette is dropping out of the Magazine Publishers of America. [AdAge]
• Live Nation and Ticketmaster have announced plans to merge. [NYT]
• CBS scored big ratings on Sunday thanks to the Grammys. [AdAge]
• A day in the life of Fox News anchor Shepard Smith. [Esquire]
• More magazine closures may be on the way at Condé Nast. [NYO]
• Time Warner posted a fourth-quarter loss of $16 billion. [AP]
• Bill Keller says there are "deadly serious" discussions taking place at the New York Times about charging for access to the paper's website. [E&P]
• Obama campaign manager David Plouffe has signed a seven-figure deal with Viking to write a book about last year's presidential election. [AP]
• Thanks to Ron Burkle, Wal-Mart customers can no longer pick up copies of magazines like People, Sports Illustrated and Time. [NYP]
• Jonathan Wald is leaving CNBC. [CNBC]
• Ticketmaster and concert promoter Live Nation are close to a merger. [WSJ]
♦ The Emmy Awards will take place on Sunday evening; AMC's Mad Men is the "overwhelming favorite" to win for best drama series. [Reuters]
♦ What's happening with the New York Sun, which said it will shut down on September 29th without additional funding? It's a "very fluid situation," according to Ira Stoll. [Portfolio]
♦ Tina Fey's SNL imitation of Sarah Palin earned NBC its most-watched web clip in history. [THR]
♦ According to a new research study, Survivor is the most addictive show on TV. [NYP]
♦ MSNBC is expanding to India and Indonesia, among other places. [THR]
♦ The founders of Dreamworks have sealed their pact India's Reliance, a deal that will provide them with $1.2 billion to set up a new film company. [WSJ]
Because the music industry is an even worse place to invest your money than the newspaper industry at the moment, everyone is looking for the next big thing. The closest they've come is "360 deals," where artists get a huge check in return for a big cut of all their different revenue streams. First, Madonna signed a contract like this with Live Nation for $120 million. Then Jay-Z signed a contract with Live Nation for $150 million. Live Nation wants to sign 15 more artists to contracts like this. Then everybody else in music can quietly retire. Hope you like the Jonas Brothers a lot!
HP endorser turned Mac user Jay-Z is dumping his current label, Def Jam, where he held the title of president, for a $150 million deal with concert promoter Live Nation. The deal includes increased financing for non-music ventures, touring, and new albums. The massive falloff in record sales means the industry's top moneymakers, whose profits subsidize the discovery and marketing of new artists, are deserting the labels. And who can blame them? (Photo by ashbyyokosuka)
Two weeks ago I ran a gantlet of pushy ads to buy local nightclub tix from Live Nation, the Beverly Hills-based event promoter for whom Madonna dumped her record label. Now, Live Nation is spamming my private inbox with a fat HTML brochure. The baloney line: "You have received this email because you are a member of the Live Nation mailing list, which you joined free of charge and without any obligation when you previously provided your email address to us in connection with the purchase of tickets." Yes, of course I checked every opt-out button. Yes, I knew they'd add me to their list anyway. But I really wanted to see Debbie Harry and I'm too busy to futz with multiple email addresses. Coming up on Boing Boing: How this new business model for musicians is so much better for me than shopping at Tower Records.
Dear label-hating pundits who gush about Madonna's oh-so-innovative deal with Live Nation: Have you tried to buy anything from Live Nation's site? All I wanted was tix to a local show at a midsize club. Live Nation splatted my screen with so many upsells, signups and talking audio popups that I felt like I'd walked into the old Tower store on Newbury Street. Live Nation surcharged me nine bucks a pop for general admission seats. My print-at-home passes (left) were lost amid pages of tree-killing, color-ink-squandering ads. I Photoshopped the tickets onto one clean page for printing, solely for my own peace of mind.
More and more artists are striking innovative deals to sell their music — and leaving the traditional record industry contract behind. The Wall Street Journal reports that once Madonna's contract with Warner Music is up, she will link up with concert-promoter Live Nation. While not as revolutionary as Radiohead's pay-what-you-want plan, or Prince's free-music-with-newspaper deal, Live Nation is a concert production company, not a record label. Madonna's deal will bring album production and distribution, concerts, merchandise and publicity under one company.
