Search Results for: plan b entertainment

Listen.com, which on April 5th acquired TuneTo, gave 35 employees pink slips and severance packages on Wednesday, citing current market conditions and the arrival of 15 employees from TuneTo. The company is only one of many in April to have let workers go due to a slowing dot-conomy. Challenger, Gray, & Christmans, a Chicago-based firm that has tracked Internet layoffs since 1999, says that dot-com companies released a record number-17,554-of employees in April alone. That’s an 84 percent increase from the previous month, in which 9,533 Internet workers were fired. In the first four months of this year alone, more… Read more »

www.warpedtour.com – The Vans Warped Tour and Blink-182 come together for a one-time only show on July 14 in Minneapolis, Minn. at Somerset Park. LAUNCH Media Inc. today announced that MCA recording artist Blink-182 will join this summer’s Vans Warped Tour for a one-time only performance in Minneapolis at Somerset Park on July 14. Veterans to the Warped Tour, Blink-182, first played the punk and skate festival back in 1997. Since then, they have experienced worldwide success, with their records reaping platinum status and their concert tours packing ’em in all across Europe, Australia, Asia, and the Americas. Just six… Read more »

Madonna will now play six concerts in Britain after all tickets for what was to be her only British appearance sold out minutes after they went on sale Thursday. The Material Girl will perform at London’s Earl’s Court on July 6, 7, 9, 10 and 12 in addition to her originally planned show at the venue on July 4, American Independence Day. Madonna fans camped out overnight to make sure they got tickets for the singer’s first public performance in Britain for seven years. Promoters said all 16,000 tickets for the first show had sold out within 15 minutes. Ticket… Read more »

ActiveBuddy Inc., the messaging industry’s foremost provider of interactive agent technology, and Capitol Records today announced an agreement to build branded interactive agents. Capitol Records will deploy the technology to promote its artists and new album releases beginning with a Radiohead-branded interactive agent. Capitol Records plans to launch the Radiohead agent as part of its global marketing campaign for “Amnesiac,” the Grammy Award-winning band’s fifth album, due for release on June 5. Through ActiveBuddy’s technology, Radiohead will be the first band to provide exclusive Radiohead content directly to its fans through instant messaging. The Radiohead agent will be the most… Read more »

Bowing to a threatened recording industry lawsuit, a Princeton University computer scientist decided against revealing Thursday how he and other researchers thwarted security measures meant to protect copyright digital music. Edward Felten, an associate professor whose team included Rice University and Xerox-PARC researchers, had been silent for days on whether he would present his findings at the International Information Hiding Workshop in Pittsburgh. On Thursday, a frustrated Felten said he decided against releasing the information because of the potential for lawsuits against the researchers, their schools and conference organizers. He did not say what he would do next. “Litigation is… Read more »

In yet another boon to ad insertion companies everywhere, Yahoo! has announced plans to diversify their advertising revenue streams by adding audio advertisements to Yahoo! Broadcast. The new streaming destination being offered by the king of all portals will carry streamed audio and video entertainment from content providers such as National Lampoon, ABCNews.com, Accuweather, CourtTV.com, The Sporting News and Travelocity.com. In 1999, Yahoo! bought its way into the multimedia content and streaming market when it purchased the talent and technology that was Broadcast.com from Mark Cuban, who now owns the Dallas Mavericks. Last month, Yahoo! confirmed that despite the site’s… Read more »

With the Hollywood-Washington war expected to be reignited today, Motion Picture Assn. of America prexy-CEO Jack Valenti on Monday warned lawmakers in no uncertain terms to back off. “May God save the First Amendment,” Valenti said during a keynote speech before the National Assn. of Broadcasters, which is meeting here for its annual confab. Valenti, like his counterparts in the music biz, was gearing up for the release this morning of a Federal Trade Commission report that will chart how well the entertainment biz has done in stopping the marketing of violent or suggestive fare to kids. The FTC reportedly… Read more »

Emmis Communications, a member of the Local Media Internet Venture (LMiV), a consortium of Bonneville International, Corus Entertainment, Entercom Communications, and Jefferson-Pilot Communications, says that it will not resume streaming until a hefty inventory of ad-insertion spots has been built. LMiV, which works with RealNetworks’ Radio Business Applications, a suite of services that allows broadcasters to insert advertising spots into their online streams, plans to build a radio-owned web portal for streaming stations. Jack Swarbrick, president and CEO of LMiV says, “Through our partnership with RealNetworks, LMiV’s technology gives our affiliates complete control over streaming. LMiV’s affiliates will be able… Read more »

Spanish-language broadcaster Univision Communications has created a music recording and publishing division, which will be headed by Jose Behar – the Latin music veteran who discovered Tejano singing sensation Selena. The new subsidiary, Univision Music Group, is headquartered in Los Angeles. As part of its music assets, Univision is acquiring a 50% interest in Disa Records, a privately held indie label based in Monterrey, Mexico, whose roster includes Los Angeles Azules. Disa’s owners, the Chavez family, will retain the other 50% and will continue to manage the business. Terms were not disclosed. Univision also announced an exclusive distribution accord with… Read more »

Cable TV’s music channel VH1 Tuesday unveiled a service to sell CDs on the Internet weeks before they hit retail shelves, becoming the latest in a string of announcements to spotlight rapid changes in music. Former Fleetwood Mac singer Stevie Nicks will kick off the service, dubbed “VH1 Hear Music First, on April 16 when she will make her new CD “Trouble in Shangri-La” available to fans at VH1.com before it lands in record stores on May 1. The service allows computer users to surf their way to www.VH1.com, where they can buy a CD for about the same price… Read more »