An insider’s view of the Oscars
Browse the celebrity-filled audiences at the Academy Awards in our interactive gallery of these historic (and recent) images.
U.S. presidential drama “Lincoln” led the pack of Oscar nominees on Thursday with 12 nominations including a nod for best picture, in the race for the world’s top film honors.
Joining “Lincoln” in the competition for the best movie Oscar were eight films - shipwreck tale “Life of Pi” with 11 nods, musical “Les Miserables,”Iran hostage drama “Argo,” French language drama “Amour,” Osama bin Laden thriller “Zero Dark Thirty,” comedy “Silver Linings Playbook,” Quentin Tarantino’s “Django Unchained,” and mythological film “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”
READ ON: “Lincoln” leads pack with 12 Oscar nominations
A political ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin is taking legal action against American pop star Lady Gaga for promoting gay rights to minors during a concert on Sunday.
Vitaly Milonov, a member of the ruling United Russia party in the St Petersburg assembly and the architect of a city law that bans gay “propaganda”, accused the singer of breaking the law at the beginning of her show.
“We saw that in addition to music, songs and such, there were direct calls for 12-year-old citizens to support the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community,” Milonov said, adding that he would file a complaint to prosecutors over the singer’s actions.
He had unsuccessfully called on authorities to bar people under 18 from attending Lady Gaga’s show.
READ ON: Lady Gaga accused of illegal gay rights promotion in Russia
Netflix Inc signed a multi-year agreement with Walt Disney Co, gaining exclusive U.S. pay television rights to Disney movie releases from 2016.
Netflix shares were up 8 percent at $82.21 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday.
Netflix subscribers will be able to watch new Disney movies on TV, tablets, computers and mobile phones, the companies said in a statement.
Disney’s direct-to-video new releases will also be made available on Netflix starting 2013.
READ ON: Netflix gets exclusive pay TV rights for Disney movies
Sirius XM is launching “BuzzFeed Radio”, a weekly show hosted by the editors and reporters of BuzzFeed, a fast-growing website known for its quirky content that spreads quickly online.
The one-hour call-in show will air live to the satellite radio provider’s 22 million subscribers on Tuesday at 6 pm Eastern and be replayed again on Wednesday mornings and evenings.
BuzzFeed said late Sunday it built its Web audience of more than 30 million monthly unique visitors by posting viral content such as animal photos and witty lists such as “the 21 Absolute Worst Things in The World”, but is now expanding its political coverage.
In January it hired Politico’s senior political writer Ben Smith to be its editor-in-chief. In February it hired award-winning writer Michael Hastings, who broke a major story involving General Stanley McChrystal in Rolling Stone magazine in 2010.
BuzzFeed has also has partnered with the New York Times to stream video from the upcoming Democratic and Republican conventions.
NBC on Sunday announced more record audiences for its prime-time TV coverage of the London Olympics, even as the Twitterverse erupted in complaints about the U.S. network’s online streaming efforts and delays in broadcasting key competitions.
Contributions to the Twitter hashtags #NBCfail and #NBCsucks surged on Sunday, with many posters complaining about the quality of NBCUniversal’s online platform, which promised to show every sporting contest live for those unwilling to wait hours for the network’s main primetime coverage of the day’s events.
“you suck! I can’t stream anything because your website is broken. It even verified directtv account, just to tease me. #NBCFail” read a posting to #NBCfail on Sunday by Twitter user Beth Hodgson.
Others complained about the plethora of ads interrupting NBC’s coverage across multiple broadcast and cable outlets, and commentary by some of the NBC anchors.
“Finally got @nbcolympics live stream working online only to find it full of ads & streaming issues,” Cindy Gallop said on Twitter.
READ ON: Record viewers, online complaints for Olympics broadcaster NBC
Actor Andy Griffith, whose portrayal of a small-town sheriff made “The Andy Griffith Show” one of television’s most enduring shows, died on Tuesday at his North Carolina home at age 86.
“At approximately 7 a.m., July 3, 2012, Andy Griffith passed away at his home on Roanoke Island, Dare County, North Carolina. The family will release further information shortly,” county Sheriff J.D. Doughtie said in a written statement.
READ MORE: Actor Andy Griffith dies at 86
Tom and Ray Magliozzi, hosts of National Public Radio’s popular “Car Talk” program, will retire in September after decades of dispensing automotive repair and driving advice laced with a side of wicked humor.
The pair, in their guise as the self-deprecating Click and Clack, the Tappett Brothers, have been taping the weekly show for WBUR, Boston’s public radio affiliate, for 35 years, but say it is time to “stop and smell the cappuccino.”
Elder statesman Tom Magliozzi turns 75 this year.
“My brother has always been ‘work-averse,’” Ray Magliozzi, 63, said in a statement. “Now, apparently, even the one hour a week is killing him.”
NPR will continue to broadcast the show with material curated from the best of the more than 1,200 episodes recorded by the Magliozzis over the years, with occasional updates from the brothers.
READ MORE: “Car Talk” brothers announce retirement
What would happen if HBO no longer had the pay-TV industry’s marketing team propping it up all the time? The results would be disastrous, and there’s no way that HBO could make up in online volume the number of subscribers it would lose from cable. Which is why, even though some users would actually pay more for access to HBO GO without all the other cable channels, you won’t see it show up as a standalone service anytime soon.
