Search Results for: sting

Nelly Furtado is miffed about a midriff. The Canadian singer has complained that a photo of her on the cover of British men’s magazine FHM was digitally altered to show a bare torso – and it’s not hers. “There I am with a shirt that has actually been digitally altered to go to just below my chest, with a stomach that I don’t recognize, saying ‘Nelly Furtado – her sexiest shoot yet,”‘ the singer told British Broadcasting Corp. radio on Monday. “I don’t like being misrepresented to my fans. You work hard to represent a certain thing and have a… Read more »

Looking to take advantage of what they say is a large and lucrative niche audience untapped by television programmers, two cable divisions of Viacom (news/quote), MTV Networks and Showtime, are developing a plan to create the first cable channel aimed directly at gay viewers. The still unnamed channel would be offered to cable system operators as a pay channel like HBO or Showtime – only much less costly at $5 or $6 a month – but it would also include advertising. MTV Networks and Showtime have conducted extensive audience testing and concluded that there is, as one Showtime executive put… Read more »

Napster will launch a test version of its new copyright-compliant online music service Thursday, months after legal action brought by the recording industry forced a shutdown of the wildly popular file-sharing network. The test or “beta” version, which lacks content from the major music labels, will not be open to the public. Instead, it will be offered to 20,000 people randomly selected from a group of more than 2 million users who e-mailed Napster showing interest in participating in the beta test. More than 100,000 files will be available on Napster for the beta trial. All are currently licensed to… Read more »

Federal communications regulators said Tuesday they changed their minds about an edited version of “The Real Slim Shady,” a song by rapper Eminem, deciding it was not that offensive after all. In June, the Federal Communications Commission proposed slapping KKMG-FM in Pueblo, Colorado with a $7,000 fine for airing the song by Eminem, despite editing done by the station, which is owned by Citadel Broadcasting Co. The FCC initially said the radio station did not delete parts that referred to sexual activity. But Citadel countered the references in the edited version were not explicit or graphic enough to be offensive… Read more »

Backstreet Boy Nick Carter said he was simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time” when he was arrested at a Tampa, Fla., nightclub. “I ain’t a bad person. I’ve never been in trouble my whole life,” said Carter, at 21, the youngest of the five-member pop group. “I was basically in tears almost.” In a phone interview with MTV News during the “Total Request Live” video countdown show, Carter said Tuesday that he was arrested after a fight at the club that got blown out of proportion, which he said he wasn’t involved in. Officers said in an… Read more »

Christina Aguilera’s camp is fighting back against a Web site that has been airing a sexually explicit video and photographs they allege to be of the pop star. The singer’s representatives posted the following statement on her official Web site www.christina-a.com on Monday (Jan. 7) and plan to take any legal action necessary: “It has recently come to our attention that certain pornographic Web sites are posting sexually explicit photographs and video footage on the Internet fraudulently representing that it is Christina. The video clips advertised on the Web sites are of a woman with blonde hair shown only from… Read more »

Online music company Listen.com Tuesday scored licensing deals with two major music labels for its nascent music subscription service, a move that underscored the record industry’s new readiness to cut deals with independent Internet distributors. The agreements with EMI, a unit of EMI Group Plc and BMG, a unit of Bertelsmann AG, represent a coup for Listen.com, one of the few remaining independent firms competing with Web services backed by the major music companies themselves. Listen.com said it expects to soon announce more licensing deals with major labels. Listen.com launched its service called Rhapsody in early December but its content… Read more »

Satellite radio broadcaster XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. said Monday it hit the high end of the subscriber benchmark set by Wall Street, suggesting the new service has sparked consumer interest. XM Chief Executive Hugh Panero told the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the company had 28,000 subscribers at Dec. 31, and had increased to 30,000 since then. Wall Street analysts estimated it would sign between 20,000 and 30,000 subscribers for the period ended Dec. 31. The company has already shipped 100,000 radios, Panero said, adding that its manufacturing partners would produce 50,000 radios a month by March. The… Read more »

Sirius Satellite Radio, the satellite radio broadcaster, today announced the programming lineup for its 100 channels of digital entertainment. Sirius will broadcast 60 original music channels, all commercial-free, in almost every musical genre, from rap to reggae, classical to country, new rock to hard rock, as well as HITS channels playing all the top hit songs virtually on demand. Rounding out its lineup, Sirius will broadcast 40 world-class channels of the best variety of sports, news, talk and entertainment. TOP HITS ONLY ON SIRIUS With distinct channels dedicated to the top hit songs for Rock, Top 40, Country, R&B, Rap… Read more »

Irish rock band U2, which enjoyed a triumphant 2001 playing to sold-out crowds in support of its acclaimed new album, led the list of nominees Friday for the Grammy Awards, the music industry’s top prizes. U2 picked up eight nominations, including the key album, song and record of the year categories, organizers announced at a news conference in Beverly Hills. The group’s four members were “thrilled and really excited, and not at all blase,” U2 manager Paul McGuinness told Reuters from the band’s Dublin base after he tracked them down across Europe to break the good news. “There’s a lot… Read more »