With an Eye to Digital, Music Publishing Agency Appoints a New Chief

The Harry Fox Agency, one of the main licensing clearinghouses of the music publishing business, has appointed a new chief executive, in a move that may signal a push into new forms of business as traditional revenue sources diminish.

The agency announced late Monday that Michael S. Simon, its senior vice president for business affairs, has been promoted to chief executive, replacing Gary L. Churgin, who is leaving the organization. No reason was given for the succession, and executives declined to comment further.

In the complex round-robin of music publishing, the Harry Fox Agency, or HFA, acts as a middle man between publishers and record companies. It is a subsidiary of the National Music Publishers' Association, and its main function has been to process the licenses that record labels need in order to pay “mechanical” royalties whenever music is sold or downloaded. (Ascap and BMI, two of the industry's other major clearinghouses, represent publishers w hen songs are performed or broadcast.)

That model, however, has been shaken by the Internet. As record sales have plunged over the last decade, mechanical royalties have declined. Groups like HFA, which represents about 46,000 publishers, have also been challenged by more nimble technology companies that say they can handle its licensing and royalty-reporting services more efficiently and transparently.

HFA began its transition to a more digital-focused company under Mr. Churgin, but in the industry Mr. Simon is perceived as being the strongest force behind this transformation. The agency has made deals with Spotify and YouTube that have expanded its traditional role, and developed services that it pitches to new clients as “information management and technology solutions.”

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

Murdoch Prevails Over Protests at News Corp Annual Meeting

For a second year in a row, Rupert Murdoch faced shareholder critics of his News Corporation at the company's annual meeting. And for a second year in a row their proposals for management changes were shot down.

At the meeting, held at the Fox studio lot in Los Angeles, all of the company's 14 proposed board members were elected with more than a majority of the preliminary vote, said Mr. Murdoch, its chairman and chief executive. The shareholders also voted against proposals to eliminate News Corporation's dual-stock structure and to require that its chairman be independent.

Some similar proposals were made last year after a phone-hacking scandal in Britain rocked the company, causing the demise of the 168-year-old newspaper News of the World and resulting in the arrests of dozens of people. But despite protest votes by some major shareholders, the proposals failed to overcome the Murdoch family's control.

The final votes will be reported to the Securitie s and Exchange Commission when tallied.

The phone-hacking scandal has focused intense scrutiny on the company since last year. In his opening remarks, Mr. Murdoch, 81, spoke in contrite tones about its efforts to deal with the fallout and reform.

“We've had to work hard to make amends,” Mr. Murdoch said. “Very hard.”

He described the company's new compliance procedures and noted its clearance last month by Ofcom, the British media regulator, which after an investigation declared the company “fit and proper” to hold a broadcast license. (A separate judicial inquiry has ended its hearings but not delivered a ruling.)

He also said details about News Corporation's planned split into two companies - one for its news and publishing divisions and the other for its more lucrative entertainment properties, like the 20th Century Fox studio and Fox Broadcasting - could be revealed by the end of the year. The company has a current market capitalization of about $59 billion.

Several people representing large shareholders were bluntly critical of the company's management. Julie Tanner, assistant director of socially responsible investing for Christian Brothers Investment Services, proposed (as she did last year) that the company establish an independent chairman.

“The lack of internal controls at the company has had real and lasting repercussions,” Ms. Tanner said. “It has resulted in shuttering a newspaper, criminal investigations, canceled the BSkyB acquisition, eroded public trust, and it has tarnished the company's reputation.”

Other investors, including the California pension funds the California Public Public Employess' Retirement System, or Calpers, and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, or Calstrs, lodged protest votes by not backing the re-election of the full board, whose members include Mr. Murdoch as well as his two sons, Lachlan and James.< /p>

Two new directors were elected: Elaine L. Chao, a former labor secretary under President George W. Bush, and Álvaro Uribe, a former president of Colombia. Mr. Uribe's appointment has been criticized because intelligence forces under his control have been accused of illegal wiretapping of journalists, human rights advocates and others.

Among the other questions Mr. Murdoch fielded was a request to include more left-wing commentary on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, which News Corporation owns. “We don't interfere with the editorial page,” he replied.

Despite the complaints about his leadership, Mr. Murdoch noted the company's financial success. Its stock is up about 45 percent over the last year, he said. It closed  on Tuesday up almost 1.7 percent, at $24.77.

Last week, Mr. Murdoch drew criticism for some typically candid statements on his Twitter account, in which he said, “Any shareholders with complaints should take profits a nd sell!” On Tuesday, he made a similar statement.

“When you buy the stock, you know what the company is,” he said. “If you don't like the company, don't buy the stock.”

 

Neil Young: One Show Well Worth Our Time and Money

Julie Glassberg for The New York TimesNeil Young with Crazy Horse in concert in September.

Like most families, we try to keep a tight rein on discretionary spending. But when I heard that the musician Neil Young would be touring with the band Crazy Horse, I decided that if he played anywhere near where we live, we'd certainly buy tickets.

Mr. Young may be an acquired taste for some (one of my college roommates, unfortunately, never appreciated him, nor my incessant playing of his albums). But I've never had that problem. His guitar sound often strikes me as a rock version of bagpipes - chilling and exciting, yet plaintive at the same time. I was a mere child when he arrived on the scene in the '60s, but his 1979 album with Crazy Horse, “Rust Never Sleeps,” provided much of the soundtrack to my college years. I have seen him perform live twice and each time came away awed at his talent and energy.

Which is how we came to drive two hours on Sunday to Tulsa, Okla., to a stop on his current tour within striking distance of our home in Northwest Arkansas. Even though we were seeing the concert in a smaller market and the tickets were relatively reasonable, the total cost of the outing was likely to reach nearly $400 - about what I was lucky to make in a week during my early years of Neil Young fandom. So our expectations were high.

Here's the rundown: two midrange tickets (about $120), a pub dinner before the concert ($45), two T-shirts ($60), two beers at the show ($15), gas and parking ($30) and a babysitter who came early, then stayed until we arrived home in the wee hours of Monday morning (another $120.)

When we arrived in Tulsa, we w ere a bit concerned. Instead of the city's gleaming Bok Center, Mr. Young was playing in a much smaller (and older) convention center. It promised a more intimate setting, but, as my husband noted, it appeared one step removed from a high-school hockey arena, with narrow corridors and stingy restroom capacity.

And aside from a few people with children in tow, the crowd was exceedingly … mature. Even as Mr. Young, 66, has aged, he has managed â€" or so we had thought - to recruit new, younger fans, with his unflagging enthusiasm and creativity. So where were they? We began to worry. Had Mr. Young become an oldies act? Was he reduced to playing recycled hits at second-rate sites? Were we doomed to an evening of disappointment and then a bleary-eyed drive home?

When the lights dimmed, however, our fears were immediately put to rest. Hulking over his wailing guitar like a deranged rag doll, Mr. Young put artists a quarter of his age to shame by playing hard for two and a half hours. The set mixed songs from his soon-to-be released album with Crazy Horse with older hits (“Cinnamon Girl,” “The Needle and the Damage Done”). I might have replaced one of his longer, distorted-guitar solos with one of the revamped folk standards from his recent “Americana” album, which oddly failed to make the set list. But that's just nitpicking. The second song of the show was one of my favorites, “Powderfinger.” That, by itself, was worth the price of my ticket.

All in all, we agreed on the long drive back in the dark, it was an evening that was (phew!) worth both the time and money spent.

How do you decide what entertainment to spend money on? Have you ever been disappointed by a big-ticket show?

Hollywood Moguls Pledge $90 Million to Organization Supporting Workers

Following in the philanthropic footsteps of entertainment moguls like Barry Diller and Rupert Murdoch, a trio of Hollywood heavyweights â€" David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg â€" pledged on Tuesday that they would each donate $30 million to the non-profit Motion Picture & Television Fund.

The organization, which provides health services and other support to entertainment industry workers and retirees, has faced severe financial challenges in recent years and is in the midst of a $350 million endowment campaign. In 2009 the fund abruptly said rising costs would force the closure of its acute-care facility, prompting outrage from patient families.

The Diller-von Furstenberg Family Foundation contributed $30 million in June; last month Steve Bing also chipped in $30 million. Anne and Kirk Douglas and Mr. Murdoch have already given $20 million donations.

With $90 million in new contributions, it would appear that the fund is now awash i n money. But that is not exactly the case: The Motion Picture & Television fund, established in 1921, said the promised money from Mr. Geffen, 69, Mr. Katzenberg, 61, and Mr. Spielberg, 65, would start flowing upon their deaths.

Ted Turner Cited for \'Place-Based\' Media Efforts

Ted Turner is known for his pioneering efforts in cable television, founding channels like CNN and TBS. He was honored on Tuesday for his leadership role involving other types of screens.

Mr. Turner was feted on Tuesday morning at the start of the fifth annual Digital Media Summit, taking place at the New York Hilton and sponsored by the Digital Place-based Advertising Association. He was honored with the first award presented by the association to someone its members deem an industry visionary.

The association's members are companies in the field of what is called place-based media â€" that is, firms that seek to reach consumers with advertising that appears in locations like stores, airports, health clubs, taxicabs and malls.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Turner's company, Turner Broadcasting System, was in the forefront of place-based media. It started networks, broadcasting programming and commercials, that included the Checkout Channel, in supermarkets; CN N Accent Health, in doctors' offices; CNN Airport Network; CNN College Television Network, now the MTVU unit of Viacom; and McDTV, inside McDonald's restaurants.

At the time, the idea of encouraging consumers to watch TV in locations where television was not usually watched was somewhat controversial, particularly because of the introduction of sponsored programs in classrooms by Whittle Communications under the Channel One banner.

Critics complained that the screens commercialized the environments in which they were installed. Years later, the screens are accepted, or at least tolerated, as critics have moved on to complaining about other forms of advertising they consider more obtrusive and intrusive.

Turner Broadcasting, which Mr. Turner sold to what is now Time Warner, is still in the place-based media business, operating digital networks under the Turner Private Networks banner.

Mr. Turner was unable to receive his award in person at the conference because “he's at the U.N.,” said Mike DiFranza, the chairman of the association, who is also the president of Capivate Network, a Gannett unit that operates TV screens in elevators.

Instead, those attending the conference watched a video that paid tribute to Mr. Turner, who is 73. In the video, Mr. Turner said he considered his role in starting place-based media among his “proudest accomplishments.”

“Just like the early days of cable, you're on the cusp of something big,” Mr. Turner said.

Mr. DiFranza concluded the tribute by quoting a motto of Mr. Turner's, which has also been attributed to the likes of Henry Ford: “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise.”

The conference is to continue at the Hilton through Tuesday afternoon.

CNN to Interview Reddit\'s Violentacrez: A Troll Comes Out From Under the Bridge

Last week's story on Gawker that outed Violentacrez, the moderator of several controversial forums on the online community of Reddit, hit all the Web's hot buttons: Freedom of speech versus privacy, anonymity versus accountability, and community versus the broader community.

But what had been a fetish object of the Web is about to break out into broader realms: Violentacrez, aka Michael Brutsch, indicated on Reddit that he was going to sit for an interview on CNN, a network where Anderson Cooper had focused on the salaciousness of “Jailbait,” one of the forums Mr. Brutsch moderated. According to Christa Robinson, a spokeswoman for CNN, Mr. Brutsch will likely be interviewed on “AndersonCooper 360″ this Thursday.

The identity of Mr. Brutsch, who posted and moderated under the name Violentacrez, was revealed in a story by Adrien Chen on Gawker. Using his alias, Mr. Brutsch had distributed suggestive images of underage girls, posted links to stories of de ad teen girls, and hosted forums on porn, racism, incest and gore. Mr. Brutsch pleaded with Mr. Chen not to reveal his identity and when word got out, many other so-called Redditors said it violated the expectation of anonymity, one of the tenets of the Web.

Mr. Chen was unmoved.

“Under Reddit logic, outing Violentacrez is worse than anonymously posting creepshots of innocent women, because doing so would undermine Reddit's role as a safe place for people to anonymously post creepshots of innocent women.

I am OK with that,” Mr. Chen wrote.

Apart from the controversy, Reddit has been very much in news, having hosted a so-called “Ask Me Anything” forum by President Obama at the end of August. The controversy over Violentacruz serves as a reminder that even though Reddit seems to be in the middle of things, some of its content lies far outside the mainstream.

Mr. Brutsch lost his job after his identity was revealed , and all posts from Gawker were banned on Reddit for a time, which sparked its own debate on Reddit and elsewhere. The folkways and codes of the Web are mutable and subject to a great deal of debate, and the running argument over the right of anyone to post anything on the Web has been fascinating to behold. You can read vivid trips down that hobbit hole here, here, here, and here as well. And it should make for some interesting television if Mr. Brutsch sits for the interview.

Tuesday Reading: Web Tools Cut Wait Time at Doctor\'s Office

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.

• F.D.A. warns of other risks from tainted drugs. (National)
• Fatal E. Coli outbreak tied to county fair. (National)
• Well-off would benefit from student debt-relief plan, study says. (Business)
• Airlines likely to match Southwest's fare increase. (Business)
• Hospitals ditch formula samples to promote breastfeeding. (Science Times)
• A spotlight on compounded medicines. (Well)
• Allergies on the move. (Well)
• Can a computer tell how you really feel? (Science Times)
• Web tools help reduce waiting time at the doctor. (Well)
• Myths of running barefoot, etc. (Well)
• Options in treating incontinence. (Well)
• Steroid shot near spine gives illness an opening. (Science Times)
• An E.V . charger goes portable. (Wheels)
• Converting Word files into an e-book. (Gadgetwise)

Private Student Loan Gripes Echo Mortgage Complaints

Gripes received about the handling of private student loans bear an “uncanny resemblance” to complaints about mortgage servicing during the housing crisis, and the government should consider changes to address some of the problems, says the federal ombudsman for student loans.

Rohit Chopra, the loan ombudsman for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the author of a new report on private loans prepared for Congress, said yesterday that the bureau has received nearly 3,000 complaints about private student loans since March.

Unlike student loans made by the federal government, private loans lack some consumer protections, like income-based repayment plans to help borrowers manage payments, or deferments for military service. Many borrowers said they were never advised about the difference between a federal and private student loan and complained that they had not been fully informed of the terms of their loans.

The va st majority of the complaints related to servicing of the loans, like problems with fees, billing, deferments and forbearances. Many borrowers told the agency, for instance, that they had trouble getting their payments credited properly and obtaining accurate information about their loans from their servicing firms. They often ran into trouble when their loans were transferred or sold to different servicers.

The report notes that some borrowers reported problems with unauthorized payments, in cases where the borrower has a checking or savings account with the same institution that is servicing their loan. If the borrower was late with a payment, the bank might deduct the funds from the account automatically - sometimes even charging an overdraft fee, if the payment overdrew the account.

In another instance, Mr. Chopra said, the agency heard from a borrower who was on time with payments but went into default because of a clause in the loan terms. A co-signer on th e loan filed for bankruptcy, which caused the loan to go into default under the terms, even though the borrower wasn't the one filing.

Many borrowers reported that they had tried to make “good faith” payments toward their debt but were placed in default anyway.

A large majority of the complaints related to seven companies, with nearly half related to loans serviced by Sallie Mae. But Mr. Chopra noted that the company is a major player in making, servicing and collecting student loans, so the number of complaints “does not seem particularly disproportionate.” Over all, he said, the distribution of complaints “is not surprising,” given the companies' relative market share. (He also noted that the study is based mainly on borrower complaints and isn't meant to be a statistically significant analysis of problems in the private loan industry.)

The largest share of complaints came from borrowers aged 22 to 29, suggesting that younger borrowers who hav e recently graduated into a tight job market are struggling, Mr. Chopra said.

Mr. Chopra's report makes several general recommendations. Congress, he urges, should consider options that would allow student loan borrowers to modify or re-finance their loans at more attractive interest rates. It also suggests that other government officials - specifically, the head of the consumer bureau, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Education - look into ways to improve servicing of such loans. The report also urges officials to consider broader application of income-based repayment plans already available for federal loans, to reduce the burden on students who also have private loans.

Have you had problems with private student loan? What was the outcome?

Breakfast Meeting: The Rules of Debate Engagement

The second presidential debate, which takes place Tuesday night, will have a more freewheeling town hall format that is intended to produce a more spontaneous interaction between the candidates and the audience. But as Jeremy W. Peters reports in The Times, little is actually left to chance. The process for selecting participants, and the rules and time limits they will participate under, are tightly managed in order to minimize surprises.

In fact, the rules for the debate were spelled out carefully in a memorandum of understanding between the two campaigns, Mark Halperin reported on Time magazine's The Page. The memo runs some 20 pages, and includes restrictions like “will not ask follow-up questions.'' Candy Crowley of CNN, has indicated she may indeed ask such questions, prompting concern from both parties that the rules may not be strictly followed. But as Brian Stelter reports in the The Times, Ms. Crowley on Monday cited precedent from previous town hall deba tes for the practice of following up with the candidates.

Did Ricky Gervais's edgy â€" some say offensive â€" performance as the host of the Golden Globe Awards show the last three years finally wear too thin for the event's organizers? Perhaps. Monday night, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association said it had chosen the stars of two NBC comedies, Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, as co-hosts for next January's Globes show, which will air on NBC.

Leslie Moonves, who has guided the CBS Corporation to a decade of ratings success and overall profit, will stay on as chief executive through 2017, the company announced on Monday.

And on television these days, it pays to be a zombie. Bill Carter reports on Media Decoder that AMC's popular zombie drama, “The Walking Dead,'' drew 10.9 million viewers for the premiere of its third season on Sunday night. That beat every other entertainment show on television that night, even on broadcast TV, and trailed only professional football on NBC.

News Corporation Shareholders Meeting: Much Ado Might Not Add Up to Much

News Corporation will be holding its annual meeting Tuesday on the Fox studio lot in Los Angeles and there will be several efforts by large shareholders to diminish Murdoch family control, citing the hacking scandal in England.

But efforts to use the scandal to loosen the Murdochs' grip on the company will likely fail for several reasons: First and foremost, Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, has delivered financial results for shareholders, with shares rising 44 percent in the last year, in part due to a $5 billion stock buyback that Mr. Murdoch once resisted.

And even if the business results weren't remarkable, there isn't a great deal that unhappy shareholders could do about it. Even though the family owns 13 percent of the equity in the company, it controls 40 percent of the voting stock. In addition, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the Saudi investor and a strong supporter of the Murdochs, owns seven percent of the voting stock. S o substantive changes are unlikely to take place.

But that doesn't mean that everyone will go along quietly. Both CalPERS and CalSTRS, two large California pension funds, have publicly stated that they will be voting against the re-election of Mr. Murdoch and his two sons, Lachlan and James, to the board of the media company; they were joined in that effort by the fund managers Hermes and Legal & General. And the Christian Brothers Investment Services has offered a shareholder resolution calling for Mr. Murdoch to give up his chairmanship of the board.

In spite of the vocal opposition, Mr. Murdoch predicted things will go well, writing on Twitter last week:

Busy preparing for next week's company AGM. Signs pretty peaceful, but any shareholders with complaints should take profits and sell!

- Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) 11 Oct 12

(Mr. Murdoch also used his Twitter account to graphically name-call celebrities in Britain who were advocating laws to curb invasions of privacy, but that tweet has been removed from his timeline.)

Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG who follows the company, expressed surprise that there was significant opposition to Mr. Murdoch's handling of the company.

“It's honestly ridiculous and you can quote me,” he said in an email. “There are lots of media companies to buy in the world. Rupert Murdoch and the Murdoch family control News Corp â€" if you don't like Murdoch running the company, find another media stock to invest in. It's that simple.”

But some shareholders are resolute about the need for a change.

“An independent voice is needed, and Rupert is certainly not independent,” Julie Tanner, director of socially responsible investing for New York-based Christian Brothers Investment Services Inc., told BusinessWeek. She added â €œthere's been a lack of responsiveness by the board to this scandal. The company is at risk where a scandal like this could happen again without having very clear and strong oversight.”

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Institutional Shareholder Services, which advises investors on on corporate-governance issues, also expressed support for splitting the roles of chairman and chief executive.

In the meantime, The Financial Times reported late Monday that Rebekah Brooks, the disgraced former head of News International in Britain, had received more than $11 million in pension, salary and legal fees following her resignation, an amount that was many times larger than had been previously reported. Ms. Brook has been charged with multiple counts of conspiracy connected to phone hacking and an ensuing cover-up and is set to go on trial next September. And The Independent published an account suggesting that several “embarrassing” emails between Ms. Brooks and Prime Minister D avid Cameron had been unilaterally withheld from the Leveson Inquiry, a Parliamentary Committee investigating hacking and the relationship between News Corporation and the current administration.

There will be changes to the board of News Corporation, although they may not be the ones that shareholders have been pushing for. The company has announced that two new board members will be nominated at the meeting, including the former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and the former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. They would replace Andrew Knight and John Thornton, who plan to step down after the meeting on Tuesday.