At Least 20 Million Tuned to \'Sandy Relief\' Concert

The “12-12-12″ concert held in New York City on Wednesday night to raise money for Hurricane Sandy relief efforts was sampled by at least 20 million people, according to estimates by the measurement firm Nielsen.

The firm said Friday that 19.3 million Americans watched at least a few minutes of the event, subtitled “The Concert for Sandy Relief,” via one of the 15 Nielsen-rated channels that carried it.

Other smaller channels not rated by Nielsen also carried it, as did dozens of Web sites. Organizers said there were millions of Web streams during the concert, but those are not included in the Nielsen TV total.

Nielsen, in a blog post on Friday, described the concert as “the most widely distributed live musical event in history, accessible to nearly two billion people worldwide on television, radio and the Internet.”

Most of the American channels that carried the concert were relatively small, so the average TV audience at any time durin g the concert was 5.2 million. An earlier concert and telethon for storm victims, “Hurricane Sandy: Coming Together” on NBC, had an average of 6.2 million viewers.

Held at Madison Square Garden, the concert featured Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Alicia Keys and a full house of other artists who appeared in support of the Robin Hood Relief Fund. The fund has not announced how much money was raised.

Royalties for Satellite Radio Set to Rise Steadily Through 2017

Recorded music royalties are set to rise in coming years for Sirius XM Radio, the only satellite radio service in the United States, as a result of a judgment by a panel of federal judges.

The three-judge panel, known as the Copyright Royalty Board, said in a brief statement on Friday afternoon that the rate paid by satellite radio for the use of sound recordings, currently 8 percent of the company's gross revenue, would climb to 9 percent in 2013, and then rise 0.5 percentage point each year until reaching 11 percent in 2017. That money will be paid to SoundExchange, a nonprofit group that distributes digital royalties to record labels and musicians.

The decision does not cover royalties to music publishers and songwriters, which are negotiated directly. It also does not cover rates for Internet radio, which are in place through 2015 and work under a different, per-stream model.

Sirius's royalty rate, the subject of nearly two years of litigation, was widely expected to rise. The last time the Copyright Royalty Board set rates for satellite radio, in late 2007, Sirius and XM were still struggling as separate companies; they merged the next year and still nearly went bankrupt before getting a $530 million loan from Liberty Media in 2009.

In their 2007 decision, the judges set rates that rose from 6 percent to their current level of 8 percent. They noted then that 13 percent represented the upper end of the “zone of reasonableness” for such rates.

Since then, the merged Sirius XM has grown substantially and become profitable. It now has more than 23 million paying subscribers. In its most recent quarterly accounts, it reported that it was holding $556 million in cash.

Last year, the company had $3 billion in revenue.

For mont hs, Liberty Media has been increasing its stake in Sirius with the intention of taking it over; it has nearly finished that process, which must be approved by the Federal Communications Commission since it involves the transfer of broadcast licenses. Mel Karmazin, Sirius's chief executive, announced in October that he would leave the company early next year.

The news of the royalty rates was not widely publicized until well after the markets closed on Friday. Sirius closed for the day at $2.99, up nearly 7 percent.

A spokesman for Sirius did not respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for SoundExchange said late Friday afternoon that her organization was still reviewing the decision.

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

ESPN to Use Twitter to Send Instant Replays of College Football

A mock-up of an instant replay embedded in a Twitter post from ESPN.

For the holidays this year, college football fans are getting the gift of portable instant replay.

Starting Saturday, in time for bowl season, Twitter in partnership with ESPN and Ford will provide embedded replays from football games in posts sent via Twitter. Both ESPN and Ford will promote the tweets.

“The instant replay applies classic Twitter strengths, mainly mobile and real time, to video,” said Glenn Brown, the director of promoted content and partnerships at Twitter.

Fans of college football will be able to see the replays on whatever platform they use to access Twitter, though ideally with a mobile device, Mr. Brown said. “You get an alert on your phone, you can run into a bar and catch the rest of the game,” he said.

Instead of being sent to watch the video clips on a separate Web site, users will be able to watch the videos without having to leave Twitter.

The replays, which will begin with a short promotional clip for the Ford Fusion, will be selected by ESPN's college football editors. The posts will be promoted to people who are not following Ford or ESPN but who may be interested in the clips based on the people they follow, and what they post to Twitter about, Mr. Brown said.

“When it comes to college football it's a tremendous opportunity to watch across all our screens,” said Lisa Valentino, the vice president of digital and mobile advertising sales at ESPN. “That appetite is tremendous.”

Tanzina Vega writes about advertising and digital media. Fo llow @tanzinavega on Twitter.

ESPN Suspends Commentator Over Racial Comments About Quarterback

ESPN announced on Friday that it had suspended Rob Parker, a commentator on the network's program “First Take,” because of his racially oriented comments about the rookie quarterback for the Washington Redskins, Robert Griffin III.

During a planned discussion on Thursday's show about whether Mr. Griffin, who is black and wears his hair in braids, was a “post-racial figure,” Mr. Parker, who is himself black, asked the question: “Is he a brother, or is he a ‘cornball' brother?”

Pressed to explain, Mr. Parker said: “He's black; he kind of does his thing. But he's not really down with the cause. He's not one of us.”

He also said that Mr. Griffin was engaged to a white woman and referred to “all this talk” that the quarterback may be a Republican. The subject of Mr. Griffin's hair being in braids also came up, and Mr. Parker said that this gave him pause because “that's very urban” and “wearing braids is pure brother.”

The c omments were immediately countered by one of the other panelists on the show, Stephen A. Smith, who is also black. He said he was uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken about Mr. Griffin.

“The ethnicity or the color of his fiancée is none of our business,” Mr. Smith said. “It's irrelevant. He can live his life in whatever what he chooses. The braids that he has in his hair, that's his business. That's his life.”

ESPN did not take any action in the immediate aftermath of the show, which was broadcast at 10 a.m. on Thursday. It was not until much later in the day, after the issue had been taken up on various Web sites, including one called “Awful Announcing,” that the network issued a first statement labeling the comments inappropriate.

On Friday, ESPN released another official statement: “Following yesterday's comments, Rob Parker has been suspende d until further notice. We are conducting a full review.”

A network spokesman, Mike Soltys, said ESPN would have no further comment pending its review.

Mr. Parker is a former columnist for The Detroit News.

The incident was instantly connected to other racially oriented comments made on ESPN. In 2003, the conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who then appeared on ESPN's weekend NFL pregame coverage, said that the Philadelphia Eagle quarterback Donovan McNabb was overrated by a media that was “very desirous that a black quarterback do well.”

An ESPN executive first defended Mr. Limbaugh. But three days later, after a storm of criticism over what many labeled a racist remark, the network released a statement saying it had told Mr. Limbaugh that his comments were “insensitive and inappropriate.”

He resigned from ESPN that evening, saying he did not want to be “a distraction” to the network because of the McNabb comments.

Mr. Parker has declined comment since the program was broadcast, though he did respond via Twitter, calling his critics misinformed.

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

The Breakfast Meeting: Golden Globes Lift \'Django,\' and Introducing Kanye\'s Kilt

The Golden Globe nominations were announced on Thursday, with “Lincoln” leading the way with seven nominations, Brooks Barnes reported. But true to form, he writes, the awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association were spread about quite evenly, with “Argo” and “Django Unchained” close behind with five nominations apiece; “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Les Misérables” and “Silver Linings Playbook” each received four. The Globes will be handed out on Jan. 13, with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey as co-hosts of the telecast, a role recently filled by  Ricky Gervais.

• Beyond their own merit, the Globes are considered important to gaining momentum heading into the Oscars, particularly this year w hen voting for Academy Awards nominees begins unusually early, on Monday. The biggest beneficiary, The Carpetbagger blog concludes, is “Django Unchained,” Quentin Tarantino's bloody slave revenge fantasy from the Weinstein Company, which had failed to earn any nominations with the Screen Actors Guild on Wednesday.

Europe settled its antitrust case against four major publishers and Apple over the pricing of e-books along the lines of a similar settlement in the United States, Kevin J. O'Brien reports. The four and Apple agreed to end their attempt to set prices along what is called the “agency model,” which allows publishers to set a price and th en provide the seller a commission on each sale. The settlement - which didn't include the fifth major publisher, Pearson, owner of Penguin - frees Amazon to set whatever price it wants for books, a practice that has worried publishers who see Amazon dominating the e-book market. Despite those concerns, the European competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, said the issues were clear:

Obviously, the coordination of commercial behavior between competitors - here, with the help of Apple - is forbidden by our competition rules. Whatever the publishers' initial concerns about retail prices, dealing with this situation through collusion is not acceptable.

The 12-12-12 benefit concert for Hurricane Sandy victims brought in at least $30 million from the sales of tickets and corporate sponsors, chi ef among them JPMorgan Chase & Company, James C. McKinley Jr. reported. But that number does not include money donated online or via telephone to the Robin Hood Foundation, a charity that is distributing the money to aid groups.; organizers predict that the total will easily top the $35 million raised after the Sept. 11 attacks by the Concert for New York.

• The Runway blog has the skinny on the kilt worn by Kanye West during Wednesday's concert, which was among the many head-turning moments during the broadcast. It appears to be from Givenchy's fall 2012 men's wear collection, Denny Lee writes; and like any cultural phenomenon has its own Twitter handle: @KanyesSkirt.

 

Noam Cohen edits and writes for the Media Decoder blog. Follow @noamcohen on Twitter.