Entertainment Industry News

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has had talks with News Corp about a tie up, which would involve News Corp getting paid to take its news websites off Google Inc, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The "Twilight" sequel scored the third-biggest opening weekend of all time at the North American box office on Sunday, as millions of young women swooned over the complex love triangle involving a high school girl, a vampire and a werewolf.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Country crossover star Taylor Swift overshadowed the late Michael Jackson at the American Music Awards on Sunday, winning five prizes including artist of the year.

LONDON - An auction house says it is selling a rare first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" found in a family's guest lavatory in southern England.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp, Time Warner Inc and Qualia Capital LLC are interested in buying Hollywood's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio, home of the James Bond movies, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Talks between General Electric and Vivendi over the future of NBC Universal have stalled, the New York Times reported on Friday night.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Blockbuster Inc said on Friday that it would change its stock structure in a move the beleaguered U.S. movie rental chain said will improve liquidity.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Media mogul John Malone said the U.S. No.1 satellite TV operator DirecTV Group is not up for sale in an interview with business cable network CNBC on Friday.

PARIS (Reuters) - A second auction of art and furniture once owned by fashion guru Yves Saint Laurent has raised 8.9 million euros ($13.22 million), up to three times the estimated amount, auctioneers Christie's said on Friday.

-Yesterday's Winners: Criminal Minds (CBS), CSI: NY (CBS)

Three networks – ABC, CBS and Fox -- dominated this eighth week of the 2009-10 season. CBS finished first overall in households and total viewers, ABC topped the adult 18-49 and adult 25-54 charts, and Fox was the primary force among adults 18-34. Both ABC and Fox built over the comparable year-ago period, with CBS on the downside, particularly in the demos. Even so, CBS has now ranked first in total viewers for seven of the last eight weeks. Comparably, and excluding Oscar week, ABC rose to its most-watched week since the week of Sept. 22, 2008, with a seven-week high among adults 18-49.

LOS ANGELES - Two Web sites that sold songs by The Beatles for 25 cents apiece should remain shut down indefinitely, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

It still has a long way to go. But the arrival of Heather Locklear on Melrose Place on Tuesday lifted the struggling revival to its best performance in total viewers (1.57 million), women 18-34 (1.6 rating/5 share) and women 18-49 (1.1/ 3) in six weeks. Compared to one week earlier, Melrose Place increased by 23 percent in total viewers and as much as 38 percent among adults 18-34 (1.1/ 3).

NEW YORK - Eight decades after pioneering the concept of broadcasting, NBC is on the verge of a startling move that illustrates broadcast television's decline.

Traditionally, The Emmy Awards airs one day before the official start of the TV season. But The 62nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards will be telecast on NBC on Sunday, August 29 due to the network's Sunday night football franchise.

NEW YORK - PlayStation 3 owners will soon be able to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix to their TVs using the gaming console, just as Xbox 360 owners have been able to do for a year.

-Yesterday's Winners: NCIS (CBS), Dancing With the Stars (ABC), NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS), The Good Wife (CBS)

LOS ANGELES - With local, organic food, minimal electricity use and on-site composting, the Environmental Media Association's 20th anniversary party might be the green standard for future Hollywood awards shows.

-Friday's Winners: Nothing. Friday is eerily reminiscent of what happened to Saturday.

LOS ANGELES - Fans scrambled to see 3-D movies such as "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" in theaters this year and new 3-D televisions could soon have home viewers feeling as if they're surrounded by a spaghetti hurricane on their couches.

-Yesterday's Winners: The 43rd Annual CMA Awards (ABC), Criminal Minds (CBS), CSI: NY (CBS)

-Yesterday's Winners: Dancing With the Stars (ABC), Two and a Half Men (CBS), The Big Bang Theory (CBS), House (Fox), CSI: Miami (CBS)

-Yesterday's Winners: Survivor: Samoa (CBS), CSI (CBS), Grey's Anatomy (ABC), The Office (NBC), The Mentalist (CBS)

ZURICH (Reuters) - Brazilian Romero Britto has created the 2010 edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival's poster, adding to a long list of striking images by famous artists that have made the posters desirable objects among collectors.

-Yesterday's Winners: Baseball World Series, Game 6 (Fox), Criminal Minds (CBS), CSI: NY (CBS)

-Yesterday's Winners: NCIS (CBS), V (ABC), The Biggest Loser (NBC), Dancing With the Stars (ABC), NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS), The Good Wife (CBS)

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Playboy spent 56 years making sure that the world would know it by the sign of its bunny ears. Now that the company is up for sale, Playboy's iconic logo, not the magazine, might be what saves it.

Led by games one through four of The Baseball World Series (New York Yankees vs. Philadelphia Phillies), it was a clean sweep for Fox, with a first-place finish in households, total viewers and the three key demos -- adults 18-49, adults 25-54 and adults 18-34. Compared to the year-ago week (when there was only the fifth -- and final -- game of Tampa Bay at Philadelphia in The World Series), Fox increased by as much as 54 percent in total viewers. Needless to say, the network is certainly hoping for a seven game series. ...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - If AOL's announcement on Thursday of another 2,500 job cuts is anything to go by, the painful layoffs that have ravaged the media industry over the past year are nowhere near over.