NEW YORK (AP) — A New York woman has sued rapper-producer Sean “Diddy” Combs, saying he fired her because of her age two decades after she helped launch his career. Fifty-one-year-old Francesca Spero filed the age discrimination lawsuit Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan. The lawsuit says the Malverne resident introduced Combs to hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and Uptown Records after meeting Combs in 1988. It says she worked at Combs’ Bad Boy Entertainment record label as an executive for 12 years before being fired in March. The lawsuit says Spero was fired after having hip surgery and confiding to an executive that she was treated for a drug dependency relapse. A publicist for Combs says “there are many reasons why Ms. Spero is no longer employed by Bad Boy, but age discrimination is not one of them.” ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .
September 2, 2010 | Posted in
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Memphis’ House of Blues Studio D, where artists including Isaac Hayes and Three 6 Mafia have recorded, is moving to Nashville. The Studio D building was called Sounds of Memphis when it was built in the late 1960s by MGM and Memphis label owner Gene Lucchesi. In 1986, Gary Belz bought the building and teamed with Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh to expand it, attracting artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Matchbox 20 and Travis Tritt. Later, Belz rebranded the studio under the House of Blues entertainment umbrella. Despite attracting high-profile music acts such as Justin Timberlake and Erykah Badu, Studio D has seen its business drop. So Belz decided to move the entire structure to his Nashville House of Blues complex, where he needed more recording rooms. — Information from: The Commercial Appeal, http://www.commercialappeal.com ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .
September 1, 2010 | Posted in
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LAS VEGAS (AP) — Getting money down on your favorite sports team is getting a little easier in Nevada with the first-ever legal wagering application for smart phones. It won’t work in the U.S. outside the Silver State – the only place where sports gambling is legal – but its technology is sophisticated enough to let visitors from other states conveniently place bets while they’re here, even if they’re not inside a casino. American Wagering Inc. is launching the program for BlackBerry devices in time for the start of college football and the NFL regular season. The public company, which operates nearly 60 Leroy’s Horse and Sports Place sports books throughout Nevada, plans to launch new apps for iPhones, Droids, and Windows-based phones soon. “I’m all-in on this,” said Vic Salerno, American Wagering’s chief executive. “We’ve reinvented the company entirely.” Salerno said it took 14 months to develop the application and get it approved by Nevada gambling regulators. Each version for other phone operating systems requires separate approval from the Nevada Gaming Control Board, which will scrutinize their security systems and other features. The application requires bettors to appear at a sports book in person just once, when first creating their account with Leroy’s. That allows the company to verify a person’s age and tie their account to one specific phone. When that person then logs into the system, a combination of GPS and cellular tower coordinates verify he or she is within Nevada’s borders before allowing them to place a bet. Placing bets on sports through phones isn’t new in Nevada, said John English, the company’s senior vice president for business development. A beeper system, affectionately known as a “wager pager,” lets gamblers call in their bets and verify their position through a code sent to the beeper from a limited-range tower, he said. Salerno and English said custom versions of the apps will likely be offered in future years to major gambling operators like Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc., MGM Resorts International, Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Wynn Resorts Ltd. An American Wagering subsidiary, Computerized Bookmaking Systems, Inc., currently supplies equipment and software for 85 percent of the race and sports books in the state. ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .
September 1, 2010 | Posted in
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hollywood is finishing its summer with record revenue but the lowest actual movie attendance in five years. Domestic receipts from the first weekend in May through the upcoming Labor Day weekend should come in at about $4.35 billion – $100 million more than the record set last year, according to Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. Attendance is down because of a steep rise in ticket prices, heavily due to a surge in 3-D screenings, which cost a few dollars more than regular movie admissions. Through Labor Day, the actual number of tickets sold during the summer season is expected to come in at 552 million, the lowest since 563.2 million tickets were sold in summer 2005, Dergarabedian estimated Monday. Ticket prices this year are averaging $7.88, according to the National Association of Theatre Owners. That’s up 38 cents, or 5 percent, from 2009. “To have record revenue built on the back of much higher ticket prices, in a way, it’s kind of a shallow victory. You want to see attendance go up every year, not down,” Dergarabedian said. The summer delivered some huge crowd-pleasers, led by Disney’s “Toy Story 3,” which followed “Shrek 2″ as just the second animated film to top $400 million at the domestic box office. Paramount’s “Iron Man 2″ shot past $300 million, while Summit Entertainment’s “The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” has almost hit that mark. Topping $200 million were the Warner Bros. release “Inception,” Paramount and DreamWorks Animation’s “Shrek Forever After” and Universal’s “Despicable Me.” Sony had three $100 million hits with “The Karate Kid,” “Grown Ups” and “Salt.” Other releases failed to live up to the hype of summer blockbuster season, among them the Warner Bros. sequel “Sex and the City 2,” Disney’s “The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” and 20th Century Fox’s “Marmaduke” and “Knight and Day.” “Audiences were underwhelmed, and they voted with their absence,” Dergarabedian said. “If you asked most people what they thought of the quality of the movies, it’s kind of a so-so summer. We could have done a lot worse were it not for films like `Inception’ and `Toy Story 3.’” — Online: http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .
August 30, 2010 | Posted in
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Jill Etesse was hooked on the “Twilight” books the second she cracked the series opener. She ripped through the saga on paper and rented movie No. 1. Then the madness began. “I joined the lines of teens for `New Moon,’” said the 38-year-old mom of two. “My husband is deathly embarrassed. Half my friends think I’m crazy.” Etesse, from Leesburg, Va., won’t let her 8-year-old daughter anywhere near Team Edward OR Team Jacob, but did she take herself to “Eclipse” this summer? “Oh yeah.” Is there something, um, icky about moms lusting after the boys of “Twilight” or other morsels of ripe screen candy? Heck no, said 54-year-old Toni Downey of Limerick, Pa. We’re not dead yet! Downey’s more into Matt Bomer, 32, of TV’s “White Collar” at the moment, but “I’ve had impure thoughts about barely legal boys as well.” Strictly the celebrity look-don’t-touch variety, she notes. Eighteen-year-old Taylor Lautner’s six-pack? “Mind-boggling,” said Downey, who has a 25-year-old daughter. “She likes Buffy as her only vamp thing, and we both thought Pattinson was hotter as a blond in Harry Potter.” Into the light they’ve come, publicly declaring their sometimes puzzled joy, juggling movie schedules with diaper changes, kid lunches and soccer practices. They’re definitely looking forward with younger fans to the last two “Twilight” movies starting next year, and they’re scooping up all sorts of reads intended for the young. “I have no idea why it’s so appealing to me,” Etesse said of her “Twilight” jones. “I’m married to a tall, dark and handsome French-Irish guy, but those abs, you know. I’d trade a pair of my Jimmy C’s for my husband to have those.” In June, 30-year-old mom Christina Fiedler was undaunted by a tent city of young people on her way in to a special screening of “Eclipse” at a Los Angeles theater. She’s not all that much older than 24-year-old Robert Pattinson and his mid-20s Cullen kin, played by Kellan Lutz and Jackson Rathbone, but her mom status makes her feel light years their senior, especially since they’re all supposed to be teens on screen. “What an odd experience to be an adult woman in a theater full of screaming tweens,” said Fiedler, who has a 2-year-old son and has blogged about her “Twilight” habit at Mom Logic. “I didn’t go with my Team Jacob or Team Edward shirt like some of the women my age did. There were quite a few of them. I didn’t talk back to the screen like they did.” Is there an age cutoff of appropriateness? A mom code when it comes to ogling young hunks? Single mom Victoria Martinez, 37, in Hemet, Calif., said yes. She has three boys of her own, ages 15, 14 and 11, and won’t let her mind wander to jail bait. The Cullen clan may be playing teens, but they’re way legal in life so it’s full steam ahead. “I don’t have a husband or even a significant other to worry about when it comes to my man candy crushes,” she said, adding that she’s a bit of a cougar on the ground. “Taylor Lautner isn’t on my list because he’s only 18 and I still think of him as Shark Boy.” Martinez first heard of the Twilight saga when she learned the bedroom-eyed Pattinson was cast as Edward. “He’s the reason I read the books. There’s just something irresistible about him. I’ll continue to lust over and enjoy them on the big screen long after the teens move on to the next big thing.” She has others, not just the Twilight crew. There’s Jake Gyllenhaal, who at 29 was “a nice piece of summer eye candy” in “Prince of Persia.” Downey especially liked the Entertainment Weekly spread featuring Bomer pouring a jug of water over his head, nicely soaking his white T-shirt. “And he and his character have a pinch of naughty in the devastating smile,” she said. With an upswing in grown-ups (yes, women) embracing books intended for teens, are moms thinking younger, or at least enjoying the freedom to express their still-young sides in ways June Cleaver was denied? Fiedler’s Team Edward, though considers him bad boyfriend material for his younger fans. He encourages Bella to keep secrets from her family and ditch her old friends. He needs anger management counseling and the two are never happy. Besides, his family finds her “irresistible.” You be the judge. “It’s not so much as a ‘lust’ thing as it is escaping from a hectic daily life and into their frivolous ones,” she said. “It’s this generation’s Romeo and Juliet – forbidden love.” ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .
August 25, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by a concert promoter against the late Michael Jackson over a failed reunion concert. U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. on Thursday granted a motion by lawyers for Jackson’s estate to dismiss the case. Allgood Entertainment sued Jackson on June 10, 2009, roughly two weeks before the singer’s death in Los Angeles at age 50. They claimed Jackson and his then-manager broke a contract for a Jackson reunion show. Baer wrote in the ruling that if there was a breach in the contract, Allgood broke the agreement first. An after-hours phone message left for Allgood’s attorney, Ira Meyerowitz, was not immediately returned. ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .
August 19, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — Mark Kennedy, who previously worked for The Associated Press for 13 years, is rejoining the news agency as its theater and pop culture writer. The announcement was made Thursday by Entertainment Editor Alicia Quarles. Throughout his years at the AP, Kennedy was a regular contributor to the entertainment desk. He wrote compelling, revealing features on high-profile artists and forward-thinking articles on theater, music, film, books and more. Kennedy, 40, also was an editor on the AP’s national and supervisory desks, helping cover such major events as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. He reported from Kabul in 2003 and helped anchor coverage from Los Angeles in the aftermath of Michael Jackson’s death. Since March 2010, Kennedy has been an editor at AOL News in New York. In addition to writing theater features and reviews, Kennedy will contribute to other aspects of entertainment including music, film and industry trends. AP’s previous theater writer, Michael Kuchwara, died in May after a brief illness. He covered theater for 25 of the 40 years he reported for AP. Kennedy has a master’s degree from Harvard University and received his bachelor’s from Brown University. ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .
August 19, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — A source close to Steven Tyler says the Aerosmith frontman told the source he will be a judge on Fox’s “American Idol” next season. While an official announcement about Tyler has yet to come from Fox and the producers of the top-rated show, the source told The Associated Press on Wednesday, “there is no reason to refute” Tyler’s account. The source spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter. Fox and producers FreemantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment had no comment on the report. The “Idol” judging panel has been in flux with the departure of mainstay Simon Cowell, as well as Ellen DeGeneres’ recent announcement that she would not return for a second season. ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .
August 18, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — If you’ve never time-shifted a prime-time television series – watched it later on a DVR, over the Internet or ordered it on demand – you’re now in the minority. A survey of viewers conducted on the eve of the new fall season quantifies what has become commonplace in millions of American homes: People are putting themselves in charge of their own TV schedule. Sixty-two percent of viewers across the country interviewed in a poll conducted for the nation’s largest cable company, Comcast Corp., said they have used time-shifting technology. Six in 10 people said they owned a digital video recorder. Among the new majority is Bethany Hardy, 36, of Arlington, Va., a writer and mother of a 3-year-old. She said she and her husband rarely watch live television. “It’s a generational thing,” she said. “All of my friends are pretty much the same way.” Hardy said it’s usually between 9 p.m. and 10 p.m., after the toddler has been put to bed and she’s cleaned the house a little, that she has time to think about catching up on “Mad Men,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “True Blood” or some of her other favorites. “If I didn’t have the DVR, I don’t think TV would be in the running,” she said. “I would probably be doing more surfing on the Internet or reading books. I just don’t have the time to figure out what shows are on at what time.” It’s the same thing in Amarillo, Texas, when Bryan Barcroft gets his 7-, 5- and 3-year-old children to sleep. He follows “Big Brother,” “NCIS” and other shows on DVR. They tape “America’s Got Talent” and watch each week’s two episodes back-to-back with the kids, zipping through the commercials. “We could live without it, but we wouldn’t be interested in watching television, and that’s our main form of entertainment,” said Barcroft, a 35-year-old information technology specialist at a bank. Diana Kerekes, Comcast’s vice president of video services, said people at the company are struck by how rapidly the new technology has been adopted. That’s evident in both the survey’s findings and Comcast’s internal data of how the company’s products are used. “It’s huge,” she said. The survey found that 60 percent of viewers report time-shifting more than they did a year ago. Going back three years, 84 percent said they are doing it more often – more than half of the people saying they use it “significantly more.” “The people who are doing this are not young kids who wear black and live in SoHo,” said Alan Wurtzel, chief researcher for NBC Universal. “They are mainstream.” Consider HBO’s experience this season: “Entourage” averages 1.78 million viewers for the live Sunday-night debut of each week’s episode. Another 1.87 million people watch a playback on DVR, 1.66 million order it later in the week on demand, and 2.3 million watch during other times it is shown on the network. Four of five people said they’d be watching some programs live this fall, Comcast’s survey said. But 41 percent said they’d also be watching some shows on DVR, 17 percent said they’d see some online and 16 percent said they’d order programming on demand. The upward trajectory of DVR ownership has been well chronicled, but fewer people are aware of how quickly on demand viewership is catching on, Kerekes said. Comcast, which has 23.2 million customers, gets some 350 million orders of VOD programming a month, she said. Television shows now surpass movies, music video and children’s programming, she said. One heartening sign for networks could be that time-shifting will make many customers apt to try something new. Kim Cooper, an online support specialist from Charleston, S.C., said that’s one thing on her mind when she sits down on a Sunday and programs each of her two DVRs for the week. “If you see something coming up you’ll say, `Do you want to give it a shot?’” Barcroft said. “We decide in the first five or 10 minutes whether we like it or not.” Most of the networks offer programming for on demand usage, although frequently not until the day after it appears on TV, Kerekes said. Comcast offered some 1,700 items for on demand viewing during an average month in 2004; now it’s more than 17,000 a month. It’s a similar story at Time Warner Cable Inc., which averaged 1,400 on demand offerings a month in 2005 and now has more than 12,000 each month. In three years, there’s been an 800 percent increase in use of a Time Warner feature that allows viewers to start at the beginning of a program no matter what time they tune in. Going forward, it will be important for networks to understand the different experiences for customers watching a show as it’s placed on the TV schedule, online or on demand, she said. HBO creatively offered “extras” on demand leading up to “The Pacific” miniseries, including a Tom Hanks interview, and that helped drive viewers to the show’s premiere on the TV network. Comcast’s random survey of 1,000 people – not just Comcast customers – was conducted online between July 22-28 by International Communications Research. Its margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percent. The networks are finding a lot more people like Deb Holcomb, 42, of San Francisco, who is using different ways to piece together her TV experience. She doesn’t have cable or satellite, or a DVR, and gets about 20 stations for free over the air with a digital signal. “When I just have to watch something on ESPN, I go to a nearby bar,” she said. “The pizza and beer are still less than a monthly cable bill. If it’s a series on HBO, I rent it at the video store. If it’s not a network show, I might be able to stream it from the website when it’s convenient to watch. “Those options provide me with as much flexibility as cable and a DVR for a lot less money,” she said. “If none of those options are available, it probably wasn’t good enough to bother watching anyhow.” — Online: http://www.comcast.com/ — EDITOR’S NOTE – David Bauder can be reached at dbauder(at)ap.org ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. 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August 17, 2010 | Posted in
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NEW YORK (AP) — Lindsay Lohan’s mom says the actress will be moving away from California and back to New York after she gets out of drug rehabilitation. Dina Lohan, during an often tense interview with NBC “Today” show co-host Matt Lauer on Friday, said her daughter was doing “wonderfully” after 14 days in jail and lashed out at California Superior Court Judge Marsha Revel, who put the actress there. “She’s great,” Lohan said. “She’s been through a lot. The judge played hardball. Lindsay was in with alleged murderers and she’s become friends with a lot of them. Lindsay rolled with the punches and she’s doing wonderfully.” Lindsay Lohan served 14 days of a 90-day jail sentence for violating her probation in a 2007 drug case. She was sent to a UCLA drug rehab facility for a court-mandated three-month treatment, and her mother said she’d be out soon. Revel removed herself from Lohan’s case earlier this week after a prosecutor complained she improperly contacted experts or participants in the case. Lauer prodded Lohan, noting that there were some observers who thought the 24-year-old actress had this coming to her because of bad behavior. “I think that’s all propaganda and what people are reading,” she told him. “As you know, you’re in the business of entertainment, so I think a lot of it is pre-orchestrated and you’re reading things that are not based on fact.” Lauer also asked her about a belief that her daughter was not well-served by those around her, including her parents. “As a parent, you have to let her go a little bit,” she said. “When she went out to Los Angeles when she was 19, I had to let her go and let her live and fall and fail and survive. Without failure, there’s no success. I was there in close proximity, but you can’t make your child not go out and go to a club and not get behind the wheel of a car. I certainly don’t condone any of that behavior.” “They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do when they turn 18, 19,” Lohan said. “… And you kind of lose a little power and control, which you want to do for your child. You want to let them go. Without failure, there’s no success.” Said Lauer: “You’re confident she’ll come through it?” “She’s already through it,” Lohan said. Michael Lohan said in an interview Friday on CBS’ “The Early Show” that his ex-wife should be out of their daughter’s career “and I shouldn’t be any part of her career. I never was. I never was a manager or anything.” “I tried to do my best as a father. I made my mistakes. I wound up in jail. … Lindsay certainly paid a price for that,” he said. “… But it’s time to put everything aside. I thought Dina did that. But, obviously, you know, we have some work to do ourselves on this.” Dina Lohan said she had put her daughter in drug rehab the first time, and argued with Lauer over how many times Lindsay had been in drug treatment. She said her daughter’s life has been under a microscope because of tabloid interest. “You can’t blame it all on the tabloids,” Lauer said. “She’s made some wrong decisions.” Lohan said Lindsay will be coming to New York. California is “a wonderful state,” she said, but “it’s a different game you play there, the court system is a little different.” — NBC is owned by General Electric Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. — Online: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/ http://www.cbs.com/ ? 2010 The Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use .
August 13, 2010 | Posted in
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