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| NEIL DIAMOND TO BE HONORED AT 2012 BILLBOARD TOURING AWARDS: Billboard announced today that legendary singer/songwriter Neil Diamond will receive its prestigious Legend of Live Award at the 2012 Billboard Touring Awards on Nov. 8 at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. Additionally, Harlem’s Apollo Theater will receive this year’s Humanitarian Award — the first venue to be so honored. To register for or learn more about this year’s conference click here. Billboard.biz |
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| SHOULD PANDORA FEAR XBOX MUSIC? It’s a recurring theme: a new music service hits the market, Pandora’s stock price takes a dip. It happened with Spotify. It happened with news of Apple’s upcoming radio service. And it happened Monday with Microsoft’s new Xbox Music. Pandora investors need not worry about every new service – but the low barriers for Internet radio market entry are another concern…. Billboard.biz |
Register today for the Billboard Touring Conference & Awards  November 7-8 in New York City and Save $50. (Use Promo Code BIZ12) |
ROLLING STONES AND THE BENJIS: A day after the Rolling Stones announced four 50th anniversary tour dates, Music Week reports secondary ticket sites are offering tickets for up to £11K (about $18K); This comes after the Telegraph wrote that some ticket packages to London’s 02 Arena were selling for £1K ($1,600). Meanwhile Keith Richards told BBC 6Music (via NME) that the band earning about £16 million ($25.7 million) “sounds about right to us.”
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MICHAEL S. SIMON NAMED PRESIDENT/CEO OF HARRY FOX AGENCY: Michael S. Simon has been promoted to president and CEO for the Harry Fox Agency, succeeding Gary Churgin, who is leaving the company. Simon, previously the organization’s senior VP of business affairs/ general counsel/chief strategic officer, has been with HFA since 2001. No details were given on Churgin’s departure.
Billboard.biz
C3 EXPANDS RELATIONSHIP WITH BRAZIL’S GEO: C3 Presents has expanded on its venture with Lollapalooza Brasil partner GEO, the live entertainment division of Globo Organization, Brazil’s leading sports, media and entertainment firm. C3’s new joint venture GEO makes C3 its exclusive partner for all festivals, tours and special projects in Brazil.
Billboard.biz
VALUE OF AEG DISCLOSED TO BE AT LEAST $8 BILLION: AEG, owned by billionaire Philip Anschutz, is valued between $8 billion to $10 billion, according to a report by Forbes citing a source “with intimate knowledge of the sports, entertainment and real estate company’s books and their appraisal” who is not authorized to speak publicly. The brief report breaks down AEG’s assets by venues, teams and new businesses and looks at its relatively low debt.
Forbes
CLOUD STORAGE SERVICES NOW HAVE OVER 375M USERS, COULD REACH 500M BY YEAR-END: According to market intelligence firm iHS iSuppli, the market for paid and free cloud storage services continues to grow rapidly and the total number of Internet users who use paid and free cloud storage services is currently around 375 million. By year-end, the company’s analysts say, that number will likely reach 500 million and by 2013, the company projects, about 625 million Internet users will use these services
TechCrunch
NEW STUDY SAYS FILE-SHARERS BUY 30% MORE MUSIC THAN NON-P2P PEERS: A study by the American Assembly, a non-partisan public policy forum affiliated with Columbia University, published a teaser of its forthcoming Copy Culture Survey which indicated that media sharing and consumption habits in the United States and Germany reveals that file-sharers buy 30% more music than their non-sharing counterparts. In addition, the research reveals that contrary to popular belief, offline “copying” is far more prevalent than online music piracy.
TorrentFreak
OBAMA ON THE MARIAH CAREY-NICKI MINAJ FEUD: President Barack Obama weighed in on the raging feud between ” American Idol” judges Mariah Carey and Nicki Minaj on Friday, playing along with a radio host’s questions despite appearing to know little about the inter-diva situation. ” I think that they are going to be able to sort it out, I am confident,” an amused Obama told Michael Yo of The Yo Show. “I’m all about bringing people together, working for the same cause, I think both outstanding artists are going to be able to make sure that they’re moving forward and not going backwards.”
Billboard.com
