Country artists win US radio royalties victory - BBC News
A new deal between media giant Clear Channel and a leading Nashville music label could pave the way to all artists being paid for US radio airplay.
The agreements gives artists on the Big Machine label payment for songs played on traditional radio stations for the first time.
In exchange, artists have agreed to a cap on payments from tracks played on digital stations.
Taylor Swift and Tim McGraw are among artists who will benefit from the deal.
"We're going to more than double our income from Clear Channel in the short term," said Big Machine CEO Scott Borchetta.
"They'll make it up on the back end as digital continues to grow."
Clear Channel CEO Bob Pittman called the deal "an opportunity... to align our interests in all of our revenue streams and grow digital listening to its full potential."
The deal is a significant coup for the record industry, which has been trying to secure royalties from songs played on traditional radio for decades.
Songwriters receive a small amount when their songs are played on US radio, whereas performers do not.
But they are paid royalties for online usage, placing a heavier financial onus on digital radio platforms than their terrestrial counterparts.
Rather than compensating artists every time a song is played, the Clear Channel agreement will pay them a share of advertising revenue generated across all platforms.
Clear Channel's 850 stations make it the largest radio group in the United States and a major influence on broadcasting practice.
Trott backs decision to rest Anderson - ESPN.co.uk
Jonathan Trott did not earn his reputation as a cricketer through playing an array of dashing shots, so it should be of little surprise that he took a similarly cautious approach to a tricky off-pitch episode at Edgbaston on Tuesday.
Placed in a potentially awkward position - charged with talking to the media a few days after the retirement from limited-overs cricket of Kevin Pietersen and the enforced resting of James Anderson - Trott adopted a characteristically dead bat to all questions in a safety-first display which a generation of bowlers would recognise in an instant. Indeed, had Trott paused the press conference to mark his guard, it would have hardly have seemed incongruous.
"You can understand it in a way, but it's a huge disappointment as well," Trott said of Pietersen's decision, thereby ensuring he neither offended Pietersen nor the England team management. "It wasn't a huge surprise. Kev is his own guy and has to make his own decisions. The team fully support his decision. Whatever he decides to do with his cricketing career is fine."
Trott's diplomatic response - as admirable as it was sensible - did inadvertently highlight the uneasy truce that pervades within the England camp at present. It will take careful management over the coming months to ensure that the constructive working environment that helped England to No. 1 in the Test and T20I rankings is maintained.
A recurring theme of the next 18-months or so will be the schedule. Those members of the squad who play all three formats of the game can expect to spend less than two weeks in the UK between mid-October and April. Those involved in the World Twenty20 will be absent for several weeks before that. Irrespective of the actual amount of cricket the squad play or of the comparison with teams of the past, the fact of the matter is that men with young families - be they players or coaches - are uneasy with those demands.
Trott's situation is somewhat different from Pietersen's. Trott is not currently in the England T20 side and he did not even enter the draw for the 2012 IPL season. His T20 record is better than might be presumed, too: only five men (Marcus Trescothick, Darren Stevens, Darren Maddy, Murray Goodwin and Owais Shah) have scored more runs in English domestic T20 cricket and none of their averages comes anywhere near Trott's 39.20. Indeed, no England-qualified player with more than a dozen games behind them has a higher T20 average than Trott, while the 525 runs he scored in the 2009 T20 Cup was a then-record.
"Not being involved in T20, you get that little break," Trott said. "You have to speak to the guys who play all three about how they feel, but I'm really happy with the scheduling for me. It's really busy but that's part of being an England cricketer. We're the only country who play constantly from April through until September and there are always places to go in the winter. It has got a little bit busier, but it's part and parcel. You have to accept and get on with it.
"I didn't put my name forward for this IPL because I knew the workload. I'd been in international cricket for a year at the point when I did, but you now realise it is a lot of cricket. You make a decision and you've got to live with your own decision. Kevin's made his mind up about what he wants to do and that's fine. The guys support and understand the decision he's made. There's plenty of talent to come in and take his place. It's a bit of a blow, but you have to pick yourself up and get on with it.
"Kev was playing all three formats and he's been doing it since 2004, a lot longer than myself. He'll have his reasons. It is quite strenuous but you accept that when you get selected, you go there knowing what's ahead of you. From my side, I've no complaints about how the schedule has been."
Trott did admit, however, that he could see the logic in rotating players. "It's happened in the past, and probably will in the future with the schedule getting busier and busier," he said. "It's only right that these things happen.
"Jimmy Anderson would have liked to have played and quite rightly. He's the spearhead of our bowling attack, and you can understand that he will probably be a little bit disappointed. But with the bowlers and their heavy workload, it's going to happen from time to time. But it's not as if you're giving away international caps. We have guys who are vying to play and whoever takes his place should do a great job."
George Dobell is a senior correspondent at ESPNcricinfo
© ESPN EMEA Ltd
Assad names new Syrian PM, army battles rebels - Reuters
BEIRUT |
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad named a Baath Party stalwart to form a new government on Wednesday, signaling no political concessions to a 15-month-old uprising, as the army battled rebel forces near the Mediterranean coast.
The appointment of Riyad Hijab, agriculture minister in the outgoing government, as prime minister follows a parliamentary election last month which authorities said was a step towards political reform but which opponents dismissed as a sham.
"We expected Assad to play a game and appoint a nominal independent but he chose a hardcore Baathist," said opposition campaigner Najati Tayyara. The new government, like its predecessors, would wield no real power, he added.
"The cabinet is just for show in Syria and even more so now, with the security apparatus totally taking over."
Activists said soldiers backed by helicopters and tanks fought rebels in the coastal province of Latakia for a second day on Wednesday, in the heaviest clashes there since the revolt against Assad erupted in March last year.
The relentless violence has shredded an eight-week-old ceasefire deal brokered by former United Nations chief Kofi Annan. Rebels, who say they are no longer bound by the accord, have killed more than 100 soldiers this week, according to one monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Russia called for a broad international meeting, including regional powers Turkey and Iran, the Arab League, European Union and permanent U.N. Security Council members, to rescue Annan's plan, but the United States gave the idea short shrift.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has accused Iran of supporting pro-Assad militias, said it was "a little hard to imagine inviting a country that is stage-managing the Assad regime's assault on its people".
Clinton was due to discuss the crisis in Syria later on Wednesday with ministers from Turkey and European and Arab states gathered in Istanbul for counter terrorism talks.
The British-based Observatory said rebels seized control of police and intelligence buildings in the Latakia town of Selma overnight, before army reinforcements arrived at dawn.
The soldiers killed a rebel captain in Selma and six civilians in Haffeh, a mostly Sunni Muslim area where clashes have been most intense, it said.
Observatory director Rami Adbelrahman said that hospital staff in the cities of Latakia and Banias reported a constant stream of ambulances bringing soldiers to emergency rooms.
"We have 50 to 60 soldiers injured, some in critical condition," he said by telephone. "There will be rebel casualties, too, but it is hard to know how many." Rebels do not take their wounded to government hospitals for fear of arrest.
Local activists provided shaky footage of a Syrian helicopter firing rockets. A member of the rebel Free Syrian Army in Latakia said its lightly-armed fighters faced shellfire.
"There was heavy fighting all night. In the morning, Syrian forces started shelling Selma and Haffeh," the FSA's Ali al-Raidi told Reuters by telephone.
Syria heavily restricts access to international media organizations, which Damascus says have contributed to inciting violence, making it hard to verify reports from either side.
More than 35 people were reported killed on Tuesday and Assad's forces also suffered heavy casualties with at least 26 soldiers killed, many in ambushes by insurgents.
The clashes were a rare surge of violence in Latakia province, home to several towns inhabited by members of Assad's minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, which has been generally hostile to the mostly Sunni-led uprising.
RUSSIA PROPOSES SYRIA MEETING
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for a broad international meeting on the crisis in Syria with the aim of reviving Annan's peace plan, but made clear he believed Assad's opponents were responsible for its failure so far.
Western powers also support Annan's peace plan but say pressure must be stepped up against Assad after the massacre of 108 women, children and men in Houla nearly two weeks ago. They hold Assad's forces responsible, a charge Damascus rejects.
"We believe it is necessary to assemble a meeting of states with real influence on different opposition groups. There are not that many," Lavrov said in Beijing, where he accompanied President Vladimir Putin to a security summit.
"The goal of such a meeting - different to the Friends of Syria meetings which are devoted to supporting Syria's National Council and its radical demands - would be for all external players to agree, honestly and without double standards, to fulfill Kofi Annan's plan because we all supported it."
The Friends of Syria, a loose grouping of mainly Western and Arab countries that want an end to Assad's rule, have held several meetings since February to coordinate steps against him.
One of Assad's most vocal Arab critics, Saudi Arabia, said on Tuesday that Gulf Arab States were losing confidence in Annan's plan and called on the Security Council to put it under Chapter 7 of the U.N. charter, a measure that could authorize the use of force.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, addressing a Friends of Syria sanctions working group, echoed that call saying nations should take actions against Syrian authorities including, if necessary, under Chapter 7.
But Putin and his Chinese hosts, both veto-wielding council members, reiterated their opposition to any outside intervention on Wednesday, calling on both sides in Syria to stop violence and start talks without delay.
(Additional reporting by Gleb Bryanski in Beijing, Arshad Mohammed in Baku and Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Michael Roddy)
The Platters founder Herb Reed dies at 83 - BBC News
Herb Reed, the last surviving founding member of the US vocal group The Platters, has died in Boston aged 83.
The singer's manager said he died after a period of declining health that included chronic heart disease.
Founded by Reed in 1953, the group had hits with songs including Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, Only You and The Great Pretender.
Following the replacement of original band members, he was the only singer to appear on all 400 recordings.
Reed continued touring, performing up to 200 shows per year, until last year.
Formed as harmonising street singers in Los Angeles, The Platters were the most popular black singing group of their time.
Reed is credited with coming up with the group's name - inspired by disc jockeys who referred to their records as "platters".
The original line-up included Reed, female vocalist Zola Taylor, David Lynch, Tony Williams and Paul Robi, who went on to have four number one hits in the US between 1955 and 1958.
Reed credited his survival in the music industry to the poverty he experienced as a child.
Growing up in Kansas City, Missouri, he said in his biography he was careful with money because he did not want to assume the group's success would continue.
The Platters continued to record until the late 1960s and tour in various incarnations, with more than 100 different members, until the present day.
The group were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.
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