Apple\'s Plans for Internet Radio Come Up Against Big Music Publisher

Music September 28, 2012, 7:29 pm

By BEN SISARIO

The rough news for Apple lately is not only about its much-derided new maps program.

Apple's plans for an Internet radio service have recently hit a snag over the licensing of music controlled by Sony/ATV, a joint venture between Sony and the estate of Michael Jackson, which recently became the world's biggest music publisher.

The two, naturally, are at odds over what rate Apple should pay to stream Sony/ATV songs on its service, but what's new is that Apple needs to negotiate at all. Typically, streaming services have obtained publishing rights from the major performing-rights organizations, Ascap and BMI, which for decades have acted as clearinghouses on behalf of publishers and songwriters.

But in recent years, some music companies have moved away from that model, figuring that the returns would be better if they handled licensing deals directly and opted out of the “blanket” rates set by those organizations.

When an investor group led by Sony bought EMI Music Publishing in June for $2.2 billion, Sony/ATV took control of the world's largest music publishing catalog, with two million songs, including most Beatles songs as well as current hits by Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. EMI had already withdrawn its digital rights from Ascap, and Sony/ATV will follow suit with the rest of its catalog, effective Jan. 1.

In other words, just as Apple hopes to line up the licenses it needs to operate a streaming radio service, obtaining those licenses has suddenly become more complicated.

Critics of Sony's acquisition of EMI, and of the Universal Music Group's parallel deal for EMI's record la bels for $1.9 billion, warned that this consolidation would give the companies too much market power. These companies will now be so big, the argument goes, that no credible Internet radio service can operate without making a deal.

Martin N. Bandier, the chairman of Sony/ATV, said in an interview on Friday that the disagreement with Apple was simply an effort to get a higher royalty rate for his songwriters.

“This wasn't us not wanting the service,” Mr. Bandier said. “We want the service. It's like oxygen. We just want to be paid fairly, no different than the N.F.L. refs. Do you want replacement writers?”

Apple declined to comment. The news of Sony/ATV's negotiating standoff with Apple was first reported by The New York Post.

While Ascap and BMI still handle digital licensing for Sony/ATV's catalog through the end of the year, it was unclear whether Apple would be able to go to those organizations now. Mr. Bandier said any deal struck in the n ext few months would expire once Sony/ATV withdraws its digital rights in January. But Vincent Candilora, the senior vice president for licensing at Ascap, said that any deal would last as long as its agreed-upon term.

“When Ascap enters into a final license with any licensee,” Mr. Candilora said, “the permissions to the songs in our repertory at the time remain with that license until it expires.”

A spokesman for Sony/ATV said the company is still negotiating with Apple.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

Advertising Week Begins Monday, Focusing on Technology and Returning Veterans

By STUART ELLIOTT

It has been said many times that the most popular words in the advertising business are “new and improved.” But the phrase offers a way to describe changes in store when the ninth annual Advertising Week takes place in New York next week.

The event, scheduled to begin on Monday and end next Friday, has new sponsors - among them Adobe, Amazon, AMC Networks, Machinima, Pandora, Premier Retail Networks, Telemundo, Time Inc. and Twitter - who will join returning sponsors like AOL, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn and Microsoft.

Also new is a trade show, billed as a technology showcase, which is being called the Advertising Week Experience - possibly because the initials spell “AWE.” The estimated 40 exhibitors will be based at the Times Center on West 41st Street.

“It will not be a shlockfest,” said Matt Scheckner, who has been the executive director of Advertising Week since it began in 2004. “It has a very classy look.”

In another new step, Advertising Week 2012 will begin what it calls Operation Deploy, in partnership with the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. The goal of the initiative is to find jobs in the ad industry for returning veterans. Two dozen agencies and companies have agreed to interview job seekers, with a target for each participant to hire one veteran.

On the improvement front, organizers of Advertising Week are hoping to untangle logistical difficulties, primarily complaints from attendees that the sites for events are spread across Manhattan.

So the more than 150 panels, speeches and other events will take place at fewer sites that are closer to each other. For example, scores of events will take place in Times Square, at the Times Center; the Nederlander Theater, also on West 41st Street; a newly refurbished Liberty Theater, with entrances on West 41st and West 42nd Streets; and the Nasdaq Market S ite, at 4 Times Square.

Another improvement, Mr. Scheckner said, will be “to try to make more sense of the program” by grouping events into tracks that include mobile marketing, the intersection of Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley and multicultural marketing.

More information about Advertising Week can be found on the Web site advertisingweek.com.  There is also a Twitter feed under the handle @advertisingweek.

Stuart Elliott has been the advertising columnist at The New York Times since 1991. Follow @stuartenyt on Twitter and sign up for In Advertising, his weekly e-mail newsletter.

Baton Rouge Newspaper Sees an Opportunity in New Orleans

September 28, 2012, 5:47 pm

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY

It's a Hail Mary pass for New Orleans newspaper lovers dreading the day the city no longer has a daily paper. Starting on Monday, the first day the Times Picayune no longer prints every day, the Advocate from Baton Rouge will offer home delivery of a New Orleans edition.

Many of the bylines in the paper will be familiar to readers there. That's because the Advocate hired seven people who left the Times Picayune to work in its New Orleans bureau. The publisher, David Manship, whose family has owned the paper since 1909, said that the Advocate had not had a reporter in New Orleans since its correspondent moved back to Baton Rouge, some 80 miles to the northwest, during Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Ma nship said the new edition, which will say New Orleans edition in red banner on the front, will feature coverage of basic news beats like city government. He will wait to see how it is received before deciding whether to expand into areas like arts coverage.

“If this thing goes like we hope it would, then we would add some additional staff,” said Mr. Manship.

But the Times Picayune is not taking this expansion into its turf lightly. Ricky Mathews, the president of NOLA Media Group who on Monday will take over as publisher of the Times Picayune, said that the company has been planning for six months to build its presence in Baton Rouge. He said the paper already has three reporters there but will now add 16 staff members to its Baton Rouge bureau - 12 on the editorial side and four on the sales side.

He said he welcomed the competition.

“We believe that competition is good and what we've got to do is serve this region really well no matter who it is,” said Mr. Mathews.

In May, the Times Picayune announced that it would scale back print production to three days a week and shift its emphasis to its free Web site, Nola.com. Widespread layoffs followed, and some longtime Times Picayune employees left voluntarily.

In New Orleans, the newspaper war has already begun. Starting on Sept. 24, the Advocate has handed out 11,000 to 18,000 free copies throughout the city. Mr. Manship said more than 6,000 households had signed up for home delivery.

Both papers hope the changes will help with their declining circulation. According to data tracked by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the Times Picayune's circulation from Monday through Friday declined to 134,639 in March, from 142,700 the same time the year before. The Advocate's circulation from Monday through Friday declined to 76,263 in March, compared with 82,695 the same time the year before.

Mr. Manship said that the success of the New Orleans editio n depends heavily on advertisers in that city.

“If the advertising community in New Orleans doesn't support it, then I would have to rethink the whole thing,” said Mr. Manship. “If I don't make money on it, as nice a guy as I am, I can't afford to throw money into a hole.”

As It Followed a Car Chase, Fox News Showed a Man Kill Himself

By BRIAN STELTER

The Fox News Channel, in the course of following a car chase live in Arizona, on Friday broadcast the suicide of the man who was being pursued by the authorities.

The network anchor at the time, Shepard Smith, apologized to viewers after returning from a sudden commercial break. “That won't happen again on my watch, and I'm sorry,” Mr. Smith said, clearly shaken by the circumstances.

The broadcast immediately spurred scrutiny about the network's tendency to take car chases live during its daytime newscasts. Mr. Smith, in particular, has developed a reputation for his colorful play-by-play coverage of such scenes.

Mr. Smith had been following the chase, then switched to other news, including the violence in Syria, before returning to Arizona as the man being pursued pulled his car over. “Looks like he's a little disoriented or something,” Mr. Smith said as the man ran down a path.

The Associated Pres s reported that the chase may have been provoked by a carjacking.

The man left the car, then stepped a few feet off the path into a grassy area and pulled a gun out of his right pocket. He pulled the trigger and fell face-first to the ground before Fox cut to Mr. Smith, who was leaning forward and saying to his producers, “Get off, get off, get off, get off it.” He raised his voice and said again: “Get off it. Get off it.”

A Fox spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment about whether the network would continue to show such chases.

Car chases, captured by local news helicopters in some major cities, are frequently shown on a 5- to 10-second delay because of the possibility of violence. Fox and, to a lesser extent, several other national cable news networks, like HLN and MSNBC, sometimes pick up the local feeds, especially on relatively slow news days.

Mr. Smith said on the air afterward: “W hen the guy pulled over and got out of the vehicle, we went on delay. So that's why I didn't talk for about 10 seconds. We created a five-second delay, as if you were to bleep back your DVR five seconds. That's what we did with the picture we were showing you, so we would see in the studio what was happening five seconds before you did, so that if anything went horribly wrong, we'd be able to cut away from it without subjecting you to it.”

But the Fox control room did not cut away in time. Then, Mr. Smith realized, it was too late.

He leaned back in his chair, disgusted, and the network cut to a commercial break.

After the break, Mr. Smith apologized at length. “We really messed up,” he said. “And we're all very sorry. That didn't belong on TV.”

The case called to mind a televised suicide in Los Angeles in 1998, when a man unfurled a banner that read “HMO's are in it for the money. Live free, love safe or die,” then set his truck on fire and shot himself with a shotgun. The scene was broadcast live by several Los Angeles television stations, including two that had been running children's programming beforehand. One of the stations' feeds was repeated by the cable news channel MSNBC.

After that incident, some local stations apologized, put  time delays on future live coverage and instructed aerial cameramen during to send back wide shots rather than close-ups during chases.

Giving With an Eye on the Impact

September 28, 2012, 3:19 pm

By BUCKS EDITORS

Paul Sullivan's Wealth Matters column this week discusses philanthropists who not only want their donations to do good, they are looking for a way to measure the impact of their giving.

It's called impact investing, and has become increasingly popular over the last decade or so.

While Paul is writing mainly about people have millions to give to charitable causes, people with far less in their bank accounts have also done impact investing. He mentions GiveWell, a nonprofit group that says most of its money comes from smaller donors.

Have you ever donated money with the idea of making a measurable impact? Tell us about your experience.

Headline in The Onion About Ahmadinejad Taken Seriously in Iran

The satirical report, "Gallup Poll: Rural Whites Prefer Ahmadinejad to Obama," was posted as truth by the FARS news agency on Friday, The Lede blog reported.

Upsides and Downsides of Family Loans

September 28, 2012, 1:34 pm

By RON LIEBER

In this weekend's Your Money column, I provide a primer on creating a family loan pool. The advantages here are many. There is potentially more money available if many family members contribute. Many people can participate in setting the rules and distribution of loans, so emotion is less likely to get in the way. And it may be easier to enforce those rules if an entire clan is standing behind the loan.

So what are the downsides of loaning money to a family member, and can a structure like the one I describe help avoid some of the potential pitfalls?

Universal Closes on EMI Deal, Becoming, by Far, Biggest of Remaining Big Three

Music September 28, 2012, 1:32 pm

By BEN SISARIO

The Universal Music Group closed on its $1.9 billion acquisition of EMI Music on Friday, a week after receiving regulatory clearance in Europe and the United States and more than 10 months after it first made the deal with Citigroup.

As a condition of approval, Universal will be forced to sell off about a third of EMI's assets to other music companies. Even so, it will be the largest, by far, of the three remaining major record companies, with a global market share of about 36 percent.

Universal has now paid the balance of the purchase price to Citigroup, after paying roughly 90 percent of it earlier this month, Citi and Universal's parent company, Vivendi, announce d on Friday. In its arrangement with Citi, struck last November, Universal assumed the full regulatory risk for the deal, agreeing to pay the full $1.9 billion regardless of the decisions by the Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission and other government agencies around the world.

“This is a next step towards ensuring the health of our industry,” Lucian Grainge, the chairman of Universal, said in a statement. “EMI is finally returning to people who have music in their blood. We are acquiring incredible labels and a roster of stellar talent, including top-selling artists like Katy Perry, Lady Antebellum, the Beatles and the Beach Boys. We remain true to our vision of investing in EMI, growing the company as a vibrant source of new music, offering consumers more choice and supporting the growth of online music services.”

Just 15 years ago there were six major labels, but their ranks have consolidated through successive mergers.

According to the European Commission's conditions for approving the deal, Universal must sell off EMI's prestigious Parlophone label along with a long list of other labels and assets, which means that the worldwide rights to release music by superstars like Coldplay, Pink Floyd and Kylie Minogue will be up for grabs.

Those assets might be worth well over $500 million, and according to the European regulators' conditions, the majority of them must be sold to a single music company, to shore up competition.

The sales have not begun, but among the likely bidders are the Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and BMG Rights Management, which is backed by Bertelsmann and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

Ben Sisario writes about the music industry. Follow @sisario on Twitter.

On a Night Crowded With Hits, \'Big Bang\' and \'Grey\'s Anatomy\' Stand Out

By BILL CARTER

The television season's first Thursday - a night always packed with hit shows - delivered some of the most-watched episodes of premiere week with established favorites like “The Big Bang Theory” and “ Grey's Anatomy” coming back strong.

New entries like “Elementary” on CBS and “Last Resort” on ABC got off to promising starts. And Fox's “X-Factor” proved it has found its audience level, which is lower than last year but still competitive on a tough night.

NBC's results for its comedy are the hardest to gauge because, while better in every case than last week, they are most likely skewed because NBC stations in two cities, Cleveland and Baltimore, carried an N.F.L. game between the Browns and the Ravens Thursday night, no doubt to huge local audiences. NBC's true results won't be clear until about 4 p.m. Friday.

What is clear is that “Big Bang” remains the biggest power on Thursday. It has th e most viewers of any show, 15.3 million, and the best rating in the advertiser-preferred audience segment of 18- to 49-year-olds-a 4.8. That has been topped in premiere week only by ABC's comedy powerhouse “Modern Family,” which had a 5.5 rating.

But ABC had strong results for a drama it has had to fear might be fading, “Grey's Anatomy.” Perhaps because of its dealing with a compelling cliffhanger from last season, “Grey's” posted a strong 4.3 rating in the 18-49 group, with about 11.5 million viewers.

The network's new drama, “Last Resort,” which had probably the best critical reception of any new series, scored a 2.2 rating in the 18-49 audience at 8 p.m. with a solid nine million viewers. Best news for that drama, it added about 700,000 viewers in its second half-hour.

“Elementary,” CBS's latest crime drama (the only kind of drama the network does anymore), recorded a solid 3.1 in the 18-49 rating, with a total of 13.3 million viewer s. The fact that it exceeded its lead-in, “Person of Interest,” in the 18-49 segment was a promising sign. “Person of Interest,” meanwhile, turned in a typically sound 18-49 number (3.0) and a resounding total viewer total 14.2 million.

But much will be made of the precipitous drop in ratings for the premiere of “Two and a Half Men” on CBS. Statistically it was down 67 percent from last season (when it was on Monday) but that number was hugely inflated by the national attention surrounding the departure of Charlie Sheen. The actual numbers for “Men” last night, a 3.5 with 12.3 million viewers, would not be bad for any network show, though CBS will surely watch closely where they move from here.

Fox now knows basically what it has in “X-Factor” â€" a more-than-respectable show on a super-competitive night, though not anything like the blockbuster the network once hoped the show might become. “X” averaged a 3.2 rating in the 18-49 segment, down only 6 percent from last week despite the greatly increased competition. It had 9.2 million total viewers. The numbers are still well better than the average for network shows.

“Glee” may be more a concern. Once a breakout hit, the show slid to a 2.5 rating within the 18-49 group, which had been the core for the series. That was down 14 percent from a week ago; it had 5.9 million viewers.

NBC's comedies did show some growth, but football was surely a boost. The four shows jumped by an average of about half a million viewers over totals from last week. As usual, “The Office” was the best performer, and its 18-49 rating, a 2.4, looked much more robust than the puny 2.1 for its premiere a week ago. But that will surely come down when football numbers are factored out.

And then it will go up again, as delayed viewing is eventually counted in. “The Office” has always been among the biggest gainers in all of televisi on when delayed viewing is included. The other NBC shows also perform at more acceptable levels when those numbers are included.

Indeed, all the shows, especially on a competitive night like Thursday, need to be re-assessed first after three days, and then after seven days of recorded viewing is reported by Nielsen.

Bill Carter writes about the television industry. Follow @wjcarter on Twitter.

The Breakfast Meeting: New F.T.C. Rules for Children Online, and Being a Replacement Official

September 28, 2012, 9:51 am

By NOAM COHEN

The Federal Trade Commission is expected to tighten rules soon about Web sites that collect information about children, Natasha Singer writes, greatly increasing the need to obtain parental permission for common practices like using cookies to track young users' activities online, or their location via a mobile phone, or accepting photographs submitted by children under 13. The current federal rule, which dates to 1998, requires parental consent before Web sites can collect personal information like phone numbers or physical addresses from children, but those rules can appear antiquated considering how technology has changed over more than a decade.

The authorities arrested the man thought to be responsibl e for “The Innocence of Muslims” - the crude YouTube video that set off riots in the Muslim world - for violating the terms of his probation in a 2010 bank fraud case, Brooks Barnes reported. The man, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, was ordered held without bail because the magistrate considered him a flight risk. He was arrested for eight violations of his terms of probation, including lying to law-enforcement officers.

• Google's senior executive in Brazil on Wednesday was questioned by the authorities over a video on YouTube, which is owned by Google, that criticized a local mayoral candidate, Claire Cain Miller reported. A Brazilian court had ordered the video taken down as violating local election laws and after rejecting Google's appeal issued an arrest warrant for the executive, Fabio Coelho. Late Wednesday, the video was taken down, and Mr. Coelho wrote a blog post registering Google objection to the court's restriction of “legitimate free speech videos” t hat “should remain available in Brazil.”

On Thursday night, an hour before kickoff at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore, a roar could be heard - it wasn't for the hometown Ravens, Adam Himmelsbach reports, but for the regular officials who had been locked out by the N.F.L. owners, who installed replacements. The referee working the game, Gene Steratore, a 10-year veteran presided over the opening coin toss at midfield and said simply: “Good evening, men. It's good to be back.”

• The deal that brought back the officials was well on its way to being done, the union officials and owners say, but the “Monday Night Football” debacle certainly got everyone's attention, Judy Battista reported. She writes:

When the league and the union returned to the negotiating table Tuesday, each side was more conciliatory. The officials wanted to get back to work and undoubtedly realized this was the time to get the best deal they could. In th e end, though, the league probably moved more than the officials to complete the deal.

• The replacement officials were forbidden to speak to the media, but now that the replacements are being replaced, they are free to talk. One of the replacements, Jeff Sadorus, a former college official, spoke to Sam Borden of the work as “something I had wanted to do forever and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” though the barrage of criticism began to take a toll. And, now that it is all over, there is a final indignity over the uniform: “I think in the contract we signed, it said we had to return the equipment,” he said. “It's O.K. - I have a lot of stripes.”

Facebook already reminds users when it's time to send birthday greetings to their “friends,” but a new tool that the company announced on Thursday will allow users to mail a physical gift as well, Somini Sengupta reports. Gift givers can pay with a credit card and recipients will have to offer up their offline addresses so a gift can be delivered.

Friday Reading: Teens Say Parents Text and Drive

September 28, 2012, 8:07 am

By ANN CARRNS

A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.