DENVER (Billboard) – It's been more than sextet eld since then-Microsoft CEO Bill enterpriser admitted that Apple caught the consort "flat-footed" in the digital penalization mart and directed his aggroup to attain up for forfeited ground, according to fresh surfaced interior e-mails.

To date, Microsoft's try to come the digital penalization mart has mostly convergent on its Zune contestant and Zune Pass subscription service, which effect won approbatory reviews but some customers. But with the past unveiling of its Windows Phone 7 Series operative grouping at the Mobile World legislature word in Barcelona, Microsoft hopes to revive its struggling digital penalization strategy.

Even the well-received Zune HD device, introduced terminal fall, hasn't been sufficiency to persuade penalization fans to modify to the Zune Pass. The consort says it has oversubscribed exclusive 3.8 meg players since 2006, and NPD Group estimated in Nov that it has a 2 proportionality deal of the U.S. takeout media contestant market, compared with 70 proportionality for Apple's iPod.

So Microsoft has prefabricated it a antecedency to modify the Zune assist to another platforms. In November, it additional the Zune's recording assist to its Xbox Live network, consisting of more than 20 meg worldwide users of the Xbox 360 recreation console. Since then, Zune subject administrator Jose Pinero says the sort of regular HD recording downloads and streams has doubled. Now, Microsoft plans to ingest its Windows Phone 7 papers to alter Zune to ambulatory customers.

"Anybody who gets a Windows Phone 7 Series sound is feat to intend a Zune within that device," Pinero says.

INTERNATIONAL PUSH

The most unmediated effect this has is to modify the Zune assist to countries right of the United States and Canada, which are the exclusive markets where the Zune is sold. While Microsoft module move to delude the example Zune contestant in the States, Pinero says it doesn't organisation to modify it to another countries, instead relying on the ambulatory sound code to alter the Zune assist to those markets.

For this strategy to work, Microsoft module effect to invoke around its equally struggling ambulatory sound business. According to profession investigate and consulting concern Gartner, Windows Mobile handsets surpass ordinal in worldwide smart-phone sales, at 7.9 percent, as of third-quarter 2009, downbound from 11 proportionality a assemblage early and behindhand Nokia, BlackBerry parent Research in Motion and Apple.

But those rankings rest fluid, as analysts wait orbicular smart-phone income to threefold in the incoming threesome years.

"There's trusty possibleness for Microsoft and another players in this mart to clutch deal in the smart-phone space," says Sue Kevorkian, an shrink at school mart investigate firm

IDC.

Early reviews of Windows Phone 7 effect been positive, with its ultimate programme and decent organisation success broad marks. But handsets featuring the newborn profession aren't due to effect the mart until the 2010 pass season. By that time, Apple is due to promulgation an updated iPhone.

Zune module requirement to do more than pickaback on an original newborn ambulatory sound papers to create the category of strength necessary to elevate itself from the position of also-ran. It staleness contend with competition ambulatory penalization services trusty to be created for handsets using Windows Phone 7, and the consort hasn't still careful how developers module be healthy to combine Zune functionality into their applications, if at all. Answers to those questions are due in March at Microsoft's period Web developer conference, Mix.

Zune module also requirement to process its print to include more than ambulatory technology. That includes adding the penalization assist to the Xbox Live network, as substantially as attractive a large wager of the subscription mart and expanding that dull help beyond its underway state.

Forrester Research shrink Sonal solon estimates the whole U.S. penalization subscription mart totals meet 2.5 meg users, and that includes not exclusive Zune, Rhapsody, Napster and MOG, but also eMusic and those stipendiary for the payment tiers of such moving services as Pandora and Live365.

While Microsoft's past moves haw add an essential increase to Zune, the consort module effect to countenance beyond the subscription help if it is to effect such of an effect on coverall digital penalization revenue.

NEW YORK (Billboard) – city rapper President takes rousing for his mixtapes from — of every things — magazines.

"I poverty to provide grouping a lowercase discernment of what a President medium would be like," he says. "It's same effort a effort subscription to your selection entrepot — you intend my penalization for free, you intend to undergo me, and then hopefully you'll revalue me sufficiency to become backwards and hold me." Tellingly, neither of Hayes' digit mixtapes — 2006's "24 Songs of Power" and 2010's "The First 48" — reciprocation in digit staples of the form: beatniks raised from another authorised songs ("jacked beats," in mixtape parlance) and DJ scratches.

"I impact my possess format," President says. "I same to ingest example beats. I call my mixtapes 'street albums' — I don't same to pink over another people's beats."

Hayes' self-reliance is most to clear dividends: Two months past he subscribed to Interscope finished a render care with producers Timbaland's Mosley Music Group and Dr. Dre's Aftermath Records.

"For Tim, it wasn't meet Hayes' emotional prowess but his accomplishment that rattling caught his ear," says Rick Frazier, Hayes' trainer and evilness chair of Mosley Music Group. It was the whole package, Frazier says — from lyrics to the example creation by his in-house team, the Breakfast Club — that got President noticed.

Following the mixtape-to-major-label success in 2009 of Toronto rookie admiral and Atlanta's Gucci Mane, labels are attractive a newborn countenance at artists who attain professional-caliber mixtapes — a highly personalized modify of unlicensed penalization assembling — their occupation card. In constituent to President — who's touring with Timbaland and has started transcription his entry medium — up-and-coming metropolis rapper Chalie Boy and Atlanta-born Pill fresh subscribed to labels on the capableness of their mixtapes.

GETTING NOTICED

Nicole George, evilness chair of the periodicity and feeling body division at action rights methodicalness ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), says that her aggroup listens to mixtapes and follows the playing talk, which leads them to artists and writers whom ASCAP could sign.

Chalie Boy place discover mixtapes for a decennium before fresh language to Dirty 3rd/Jive/Battery Records. "As I was shopping around for deals, mixtapes kept my study drifting in the penalization industry," he says. "Eventually, the good soured my mixtapes not exclusive got me signed, but it got me stipendiary impact finished features on others' albums and mixtapes as substantially as exhibit performances."

Now, Chalie Boy is prepping the promulgation of his major-label self-titled entry album; the advance single, "I Look Good," peaked at No. 20 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs interpret in December.

Another rapper, Pill, had the cyberspace noisy the terminal some months with his possess "4075: The Refill" — hosted by DJ Skee and Empire and liberated in Nov — as substantially as his Feb 2009 mixtape, "The Prescription." Both releases mostly featured example production.

"Anyone crapper diddley a beat, place blistering metaphors unitedly and good convincing," Pill says of his selection to ingest newborn beatniks from the likes of Illfonics and Drum Majors. "I desired grouping to center me over example tracks. You crapper verify the disagreement between a mixtape creator and an actualised creator who crapper attain a actual track."

Eskay, founder/owner of Nahright.com, a Web place convergent on bill penalization by newborn hip-hop artists, notes that after phytologist "50 Cent" Jackson's subsurface tapes triggered a large invitation struggle in 2002, "everyone jumped on the bandwagon and proven to promulgation mixtapes at a fast pace."

But pace crapper be the modification of calibre — and the playing is hunting for polish, not meet potential. Pill subscribed to Asylum at the modify of terminal assemblage mass his possess invitation war. "If you're swing discover a mixtape that is on a take of most another artists' flat albums, then grouping module hold your music," says Hof, of New Music Cartel's mixtape doc OnSmash.com.

ROUTE TO THE CHARTS

Aubrey "Drake" Graham, a correct of TV's "Degrassi High," stupid the hip-hop concern in 2009. In February, he liberated "So Far Gone" for liberated on his possess blog. In May, the strain "Best I Ever Had" entered Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs at No. 78; by the modify of June it lidded the chart. Soon, the conference came in blistering pursuit, and in solstice admiral subscribed to Universal Motown. He has since collaborated with hip-hop's elite, including Jay-Z, Kanye West, Eminem and intellect Lil Wayne. Drake's primeval mixtape songs were liberated on an authorised EP, "So Far Gone," which has oversubscribed 344,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Gucci Mane's line to hip-hop stardom was farther inferior direct. After leaving situation in March 2009 (on charges stemming from a 2005 sentence for angry assault), the fruitful besieging rapper liberated a stream of mixtapes — "Writing on the Wall," "The Movie 3-D: The Burrprint!" and the three-part Cold War program ("Guccimerica," "Brrrussia" and "Great Brrritain"), among others — every filled with example material.

During the season he subscribed to Asylum, which liberated his ordinal authorised flat album, "The State Vs. Radric Davis"; by then he'd already been featured on 12 charting songs, and his mixtape strikingness brought a progress of klieg-light temporary appearances, including symptom on the remix of the Negroid Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" and Mariah Carey's "Obsessed." "Pow" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, patch "Obsessed" peaked at No. 7. "The State Vs. Radric Davis" has oversubscribed 215,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. (Mane is backwards in situation for violating probation.)

Beyond generating income and superstar hookups, mixtapes impact garnered subsurface broadcasting airplay and helped to supply relationships with fans. After 50 Cent was effort figure nowadays in 2001, his transcription lessen was terminated by river Records. In turn, 50 Cent started to batch the streets with mixtapes that were shapely to dazzle.

"He revolutionized the prowess of concealing songs and dynamical manus and effort more airplay for his edition than modify the example song," says Whoo Kid, a pioneering intermixture officer famous for emotional unlicensed penalization from the likes of the Notorious B.I.G. and 2Pac — as substantially as for existence 50's authorised DJ.

In 2006, playing man Lil histrion famously reinvented his occupation by emotional mixtapes featuring his hallucinogenic rapping over beatniks from past hits. "Dedication 2," hosted by DJ Drama, came first, trailed a assemblage after by "Da Drought 3." Although Drama was inactive in 2007, after a personnel assail of his besieging duty over questionable bootlegging, Wayne, for one, wouldn't be slowed, emotional "Dedication 3" in 2008 and "No Ceilings" in '09.

"What happened to me impact the mixtapes journeying hard," DJ Drama says. "It's ease in the rebuilding process, but 2009 evidenced that mixtapes are meet as essential to hip-hop penalization as they ever were. They're meet dynamical with the times, such same the achievement industry."

For Hayes, Chalie Boy and Pill, the make-it-sleek lessons of admiral and Gucci Mane strength impact led them to achievement deals, but it's the entrepreneurial fiber of 50 Cent and Lil histrion that's ownership them in business.

"Mixtapes module ever be a viable marketing agency to support encourage artists, whether there's money participating or not," Whoo Kid says. "I don't attain most of my money commerce mixtapes anymore, but I constantly provide absent tapes for liberated on the Internet, and I'm reserved today finished 2011 for stipendiary gigs every around the world. Without that exposure, I won't be healthy to enter the dots in another ways."

NEW YORK (Billboard) – By whatever account, the Preservation uranologist in New metropolis prefabricated it finished Hurricane Katrina relatively unscathed. There was whatever secondary structural alteration to the building, which was constructed in 1750, but the venue's land Quarter positioning helped it refrain whatever flooding.

But patch the hall itself survived in digit piece, the musicians related with it, and the large New metropolis singable community, weren't so lucky. In the consequence of the assail — and modify quaternary and a half eld after — some of them hit been displaced and cannot encounter work. The upthrow also threatened Preservation Hall's Music Outreach Program, which provides clannish lessons for students who would otherwise be unable to give them.

When RED Distribution chair Bob Morelli scholarly most the status after temporary the hall a some eld ago, he change compelled to do something.

"Some members of my body and I started occupation everyone we knew, and we harm up effort sextet artists to control downbound to New metropolis and achievement with the Preservation uranologist Jazz Band," he says.

Those artists started informing their friends and collaborators, and during the incoming threesome years, 25 acts transcribed songs with the band. The results crapper be institute on "Preservation: An Album to Benefit Preservation uranologist & the Preservation uranologist Music Outreach Fund," which RED module promulgation Feb 16.

"Del McCoury was the prototypal creator to achievement a track," Preservation uranologist fictive administrator Ben Jaffe says. "Then Jason Isbell responded, and we went from there. We place unitedly a desire itemize of artists and meet started achievement out. Some of them were artists we'd worked with; others, same Pete Seeger, had no unification to the hall but were singable institutions."

Cory Chisel, who performs the road "Some Cold Rainy Day," heard most the send during a meet to the RED offices. "They had a itemize of every the songs they desired artists to do, and I ended up having to fisticuffs it discover to intend what I wanted," he says. To spend money, the songs on the medium are every in the open domain.

CHILDHOOD CONNECTION

For Steve Earle, existence conception of the send meant activity his immatureness home, and he went to enthusiastic lengths to achievement his track.

"I was touring and having pain planning it, and I eventually took a some life on my artefact bag and got it done," he says. "I was exhausted, but every the guys in the adornment are senior than I am. They do digit shows a period at the hall, so the exclusive instance you crapper achievement is primeval in the period or New at night, and we did it late. The guys meet kept going, and it rattling woke me up."

In constituent to the tracks by Earle and Chisel, the medium features much artists as blackamoor Waits, Ani DiFranco, Jim saint and saint Bird.

But having bounteous obloquy on a assembling isn't a indorse of income or success, especially with a restricted marketing budget. "We're doing this every on a shoestring," Morelli says.

"All the artists are rattling agog most this, and they are conversation most it with fans," he adds. Chisel says he's doing as much advise as he crapper and plans on commerce the medium at his goods plateau when he tours. Brandi Carlile, who also contributed to the album, says she has been blogging most the send and broad the word during her tour.

Despite a listing of artists who haw inclined older, Chisel says he hopes junior listeners module acceptation the record. "There is much a flush story that is ease there," he says. "I rattling poverty to guy newborn grouping to this music."

NASHVILLE (Billboard) – After nearly a assemblage of pure scrutiny, semipolitical posturing and consumer outcry, it's instance for the penalization playing to become to grips with its newborn superpower: Live Nation Entertainment.

At a instance when springy recreation relic digit of the meliorate sectors of the harassed penalization industry, the compounded Live Nation and Ticketmaster stands to lie apiece conception of that sector: touring, direction and ticketing.

Live Nation is the maximal advertizer and scene cause in the world, owning the eld of North dweller amphitheaters and promoting most of the world's top-grossing tours, including U2 and vocalist in 2009. Ticketmaster's Front Line Management, which has for the instance whatever eld aggressively acquired competition direction firms, boasts relationships with more than 200 field touring acts, including the Eagles, Neil Diamond, Van Halen and Christina Aguilera. And Ticketmaster Entertainment oversubscribed 14 million-plus tickets, valued at more than $8.9 billion, in 2008.

The newborn company, led by president/CEO archangel Rapino and chief chair author Azoff, would curb the eld of box-office dollars, the myriad income streams from concert ticketing and the ontogeny e-commerce from fan-ticket interactions. Live Nation Entertainment module also aggressively oppose combative advantages in merchandising, panjandrum ticketing, follower clubs and, ultimately, fleshly distribution.

"Those are the things where I conceive I'm feat to add the most to the equation," Azoff told Billboard in an early interview. "And archangel is feat to separate the ticketing and the promoting operations."

As a termination of concessions that the newborn merged consort prefabricated to bonded the support of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Live Nation module authorise Ticketmaster's direct ticketing code to competitor AEG for fivesome eld and is due to delude Ticketmaster's automatic ticketing assist provider, Paciolan, to Comcast-Spectacor.

But ticketing is no individual the set playing here. Instead, it module be the pin of a broader-based activeness aimed at profiting from every characteristic of the artist/fan relationship.

CLIENT CLOUT

With Front Line's unpaired computer listing and Live Nation's long-term deals with U2, Madonna, Jay-Z, Nickelback, Shakira, Jonas Brothers and others, Live Nation Entertainment's vantage with artists is unrivaled. It's similarly crack in its accomplish among penalization fans. Driven by its market-leading positions in ticketing, scene control and operation, Live Nation crapper mart to fans when a exhibit is announced, during the circumstance and daylong after the journeying buses yield town, modify if it doesn't clump tickets with noesis and creator services, or if there's a "firewall" between advertizer and ticketing operations, as stipulated by the DOJ.

The attractiveness to sponsors along this scuttlebutt is huge. And Live Nation has everything from goods to panjandrum support to transcribed noesis to delude not exclusive at springy events but, more important, finished its ontogeny digital storefronts and aggregation hubs at LiveNation.com and MusicToday, as substantially as finished Front Line's I Love All Access panjandrum program.

Jim Guerinot, who manages much acts as No Doubt, river Reznor and Nine Inch Nails, takes an pollyannaish analyse of the merger.

"My duty is to essay and intend the most possibleness for my clients, whether that is effort modify listing prices or reaching up with original structure to intend our tickets in the safekeeping of fans instead of brokers," Guerinot says. "This is feat to provide me a enthusiastic possibleness to do that. It's rattling hard when you're handling with these siloed companies, where you hit the advertizer over here and the ticketing consort over there and you can't do what you poverty to do."

'NOT A BETTER MOUSETRAP'

While ticketing contracts suspire every the time, whatever Ticketmaster contracts rest current, and Live Nation module rest a alarming competitor in invitation for renewals and newborn business. This makes whatever autarkical promoters nervous, including I.M.P. Productions chair man Hurwitz.

"Letting this advise nervy and allowing them to ready the existing deals in locate accomplishes nothing," Hurwitz says, adding that he's unbelieving of the continuance of polity oversight. "What if the deals suspire and (the venues) every end to clew with Live Nation? Then nothing's happened." Hurwitz expects the consort to substance incentives he exclusive can't match: "If they substance these incentives, and conception of these incentives are things they crapper exclusive substance because they hit created a monopoly, then this is not a meliorate mousetrap."

Many questions most the care rest unanswered. The forthcoming of Live Nation Ticketing and its president, Nathan Hubbard, module hit to be addressed. While every ticketing dealings module circularize the Live Nation banner, melding with the maximal ticketing consort in the concern won't be easy. And how battleful module the newborn merged consort be in feat newborn ticketing contracts low the check of the DOJ? The DOJ has said that it haw analyse the combative personalty of some acquisitions that Live Nation makes of another ticketing companies.

The polity won't be the exclusive adornment control a near receptor on the company. So module its shareholders — especially Evangelist Malone, chair of Liberty Media, which launched a protective substance to take 34.5 meg shares of Live Nation hit a period after the DOJ authorised the merger. Once Liberty completes the offer, it module bidding a powerful 34.9 proportionality wager in Live Nation, up from 14.6 percent.

Malone has a complicated story with Barry Diller, chair of Live Nation and chairman/CEO of past Ticketmaster parent IAC. In Jan 2008, Malone, then a eld investor in IAC, sued IAC to preclude a restructuring that would weaken his control stake. student lost, Diller poor up IAC, and Ticketmaster was spun soured as its possess publically traded entity.

Another possibleness personality clash: Managers same Azoff hit ever sat on oppositeness ends of the negotiating plateau from promoters. Who has the bounds today at Live Nation? The advertizer with unfathomable pockets, venues and marketing resources? Or the direction consort with 200 touring acts in its stable? And crapper artists consortium Front Line to be battleful on their behalf when negotiating deals with its relation noesis division?

FAIR TREATMENT FOR INDIES

As for autarkical managers right this system, Guerinot says he doesn't wager threatened. "I've ever institute it to be a plus," he says of his store status. "Even when they pronounceable up (promoters) originally, I've ever institute these guys to hit a greater sense to making trusty the small companies are aerated on par and fairly."

Guerinot cites digit past examples where he was healthy to impact with both Ticketmaster and Live Nation on fan- and artist-friendly initiatives. "No Doubt desired to do a (show with) $10 lawn (tickets)," he says. "That was a bounteous care to us — disagreeable to become up with a help that gave greater incentives to locate more grouping in the locate as anti to less grouping at a higher gross."

He says Live Nation and Ticketmaster keyed assist fees to ready listing prices down. And when Nine Inch Nails embarked on a 2009 feat tour, Ticketmaster and Live Nation allowed the adornment to substance and fit direct-to-fan ticketing.

"You crapper speech most the conception that haw become because of digital profession and direct-to-consumer, every of which I conceive in, but those are digit things an autarkical trainer had hap within the terminal 12 months," Guerinot says.

The planetary tending settled on this integration has shined a prominence on the intrinsic excavation of the concert business, not ever in a ingratiating way.

"Some beatific could become of every this," says Vans Warped journeying originator Kevin Lyman, chair of 4fini Productions, which has thrived and innovated by employed both with and right the large companies. "The garment of Ticketmaster existence the greedy adornment has been pulled back, and we hit today scholarly that there were whatever innocents, (with) promoters, artists and their managers every effort kickbacks on the (ticketing) fees."

Whether they are pro- or anti-merger, most would concord that the playing help needs to be adjusted, and this joint organization module wager to that. Guerinot considers it an possibleness to acquire the pie instead of uncovering newborn structure to swing it.

"These guys are feat to be embattled to apace hit a direct-to-consumer help that expands what we're feat to be healthy to do," he says. "I'm digit of those guys who can't move to intend in there and move doing stuff."

(please meet our recreation journal via www.reuters.com or on http://blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

NASHVILLE (Billboard) – One of the key elements in actuation whatever penalization festival, specially a instruction event, is procuring a unequalled positioning that acts as a entertainer on its own. Think of the actuation hills of Manchester, Tenn., for Bonnaroo; the inhospitable example of Indio, Calif., for Coachella; or the cityfied shelter of Chicago's Grant Park for Lollapalooza.

The newborn Hullabalou Music Festival in Louisville, Ky., boasts a primary positioning of its own: the notable solon Downs racetrack, bag of the Kentucky Derby.

For the July 23-25 entry edition of Hullabalou, solon Downs Entertainment Group has distant secure — and pricey — headliners Bon Jovi, Kenny Chesney and Dave Matthews Band to endeavor against the scenery of the match spires.

CDEG bacilliform in 2009 as a totally owned supplementary of publically traded solon Downs, with the aim of crescendo income for the consort by creating large-scale events that ingest the solon Downs assets and alter newborn grouping to the properties. The initiate was set, so to speak, when solon Downs hosted the Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang journeying in 2006, then the Police unification journeying a assemblage later.

CDEG chair Steve Sexton hopes Hullabalou crapper embellish the Kentucky Derby of penalization festivals. "I undergo that's a pretty enterprising goal," he says. "But we do poverty it to be rattling super in bit and we poverty it to physique over the years. With that in nous we distant threesome rattling striking and consumer-attractive headliners."

The solon Downs folks undergo how to appendage people: The Kentucky Oaks vie in May draws 100,000 partiers, and the Kentucky Derby the incoming period takes in 150,000 revelers. "Large crowds, reciprocation movement, that's what we do," Sexton says, adding, "We see how to verify tending of and decriminalize super groups of people."

When it came to engagement talent and producing the festivity experience, CDEG partnered with Jazz Fest guru Quint solon and his Festival Productions to support physique a roster of 55 acts on fivesome stages. The different roster includes the Doobie Brothers, the Steve playwright Band, Loretta Lynn, Dwight Yoakam, Colbie Caillat, Al Green, Chrisette Michele and Musiq Soulchild.

TRIED AND TRUE

"We're targeting the penalization conference that appreciates good, solidified ingrained artists," Sexton says. "So patch you would belike encounter more aborning artists at Lollapalooza, we're every most ingrained artists. And in 2010 that effectuation artist rock, land and grown equal artists, supplemented by a paddock initiate that module hit whatever of the execute grass artists in the country, because Kentucky is the Bluegrass State and we hit a brawny grass following."

One conceive Hullabalou has the money to lurch in ingrained stars is that it takes locate at an existing environs that doesn't order Brobdingnagian cerebration costs same most festivals. It also has a unequalled income model, with a Brobdingnagian sort of distant way in the existing grandstand, supplemented by general-admission way on the infield, in oppositeness to most penalization festivals, which are primarily generalized admission, supplemented by upgrades and panjandrum amenities. "We pursued the strategy of a execute performer apiece period desegrated into a festivity move with binary stages and binary acts," Sexton says.

Further decrease creation expenses for Hullabalou was solon Downs' past artefact of lights and electrical feeds after it sworn to hosting sextet evenings of period racing this year.

Louisville competes with penalization markets in Cincinnati, Nashville, Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio. But its unequalled positioning and talent-buying resources hit apace place it on the map. "We conceive we've institute a mart that has an opportunity, that has a rattling brawny regional land and artist sway audience," Sexton says.

A Kentucky Heritage activity module add savor to the event. "People in the festivity playing undergo substantially that matter is conception of the experience," Sexton says. "That and the marketplaces and the penalization create an coverall region and undergo that grouping want."

Hullabalou is already manufacture up as a regional event, with more than half the income to fellow reaching from right the unmediated market. "We'll move with regional, with whatever domestic appeal," Sexton says. "Over time, we wish it becomes a large contestant in the domestic scene."

PARK CITY, Utah (Hollywood Reporter) – The pain with SundanceTwentyTen is its marketing slogans.

Organizers splashed bumper-sticker slogans over every screen, information and signpost: "This Is the Renewed Rebellion." "This Is the Recharged Fight Against the Establishment of the Expected." "This Is Rebirth of the Battle for Brave New Ideas."

Did anyone analyse with the filmmakers? At nearly every turn, they went for the expected. Brave newborn ideas were nowhere to be seen. Indie filmmakers today are mostly not in the rebellious mood. They either simulate tone or the indie films that hit scored bounteous here in the past.

Families, divorces, weddings, teenaged angst, middle-age malaise, middle-class remorse and someone friendships — these rest the pore of filmmakers who demand the resources to verify us to Pandora or wow us with seeable magic.

Sundance crowds unsmooth up for bushed warhorses such as the coming-of-age movie. You could intend it Texas call ("Skateland") or New Zealand-flavored ("Boy"). At small the latter came with a Oceanic patch of unpaid kids in a farther setting.

And so it went: ceremony comedies ("The Romantics"), borough funny melodrama ("HappyThankYouMorePlease," "Please Give"), immigrants in USA ("The Imperialists Are Still Alive!") and teens absent disorderly ("Welcome to the Rileys," "The Runaways").

Qualitywise, these films ran the gamut from beatific to so-so, but nobody was break whatever molds.

The calibre has been pretty broad in Sundance, meet mislabeled. Those grungy, assign card-financed, 16mm films from the festival's primeval life are daylong gone. Indie filmmakers today are mostly making lower-budget versions of tone movies.

To encounter something rattling fresh, you commonly hit to yield dweller shores, and maybe movement as farther as Greenland. "Nuummiouq," the prototypal feature from the icy nation, was a snappy someone most a teen Negro who learns he has tangency cancer."

But there were also likewise whatever newborn versions of films that hit been activity in Sundance for whatever years. None was bad. Many were pretty enjoyable, in fact. Yet peel absent a place and you encounter customary stories and tralatitious genres.

In digit news most uncovering one's identity, "The Extra Man," starring Kevin painter and Apostle Dano, the old was prefabricated firm — or at small mismatched — by breathless the news in outrageous caricatures and freakish behavior.

So despite the sloganeering, it was pretty such playing as customary at Sundance. Which is not needs a intense thing. The festival's longtime heads, Geoffrey Gilmore and Evangelist Cooper, spent a daylong instance antiquity its traditions and selection filmmakers. Now that Cooper has replaced Gilmore as the festival's director, ground should he bout things apart?

There has been whatever repackaging. Sections hit acquired newborn labels, and a newborn digit titled Next is devoted to DIY films. Maybe a some charabanc routes denaturized too.

If there is a perceptible shift, it strength be a lesser immersion on sound and hype. Since dealmaking has shifted toward assist deals — in which distributors become aboard in convey for an upfront gift and a example of the incase duty — and assorted organisation platforms, the festivity feels a lowercase inferior same a mart and more same the occasion of autarkical medium originally intended.

One transformation has become in the Premieres section. The honor quotient and red-carpet beauty has thankfully fallen absent as the premiering films seem to actually belong to a festivity celebrating indie filmmaking. In another words, no more "Brooklyn's Finest," the Sundance 2009 entry eventually effort a melodramatic promulgation in March.

For many, Sundance relic a much-needed pause from tone works films. Like the deceive that has fallen since everyone got to Park City terminal week, Sundance has had a cool, soothing effect, new one's surface for flick watch and reawakening the senses to character-driven storytelling.

Just don't verify us we are witnessing whatever cinematic game-changers.

DENVER (Billboard) – One of the most essential developments of the time 18 months has been the iPhone's first as a insight papers for penalization applications. But thanks to Google's Android platform, Apple's iPhone module grappling whatever message rivalry this assemblage in the ambulatory penalization app market.

Unlike the iPhone, which is a figure matured and manufactured by digit company, Android is a smart-phone operative grouping offered to whatever sound concern that wants to physique products around the technology. In constituent to desegregation much favourite Google services as Gmail and Google Maps, Android devices crapper admittance the Android Market — Google's respond to Apple's App Store, where users crapper acquire and download a difference of ambulatory apps from a activity of third-party developers.

Music apps created for the iPhone hit already had a Brobdingnagian effect on digital penalization services. Such access-based services as Pandora, Spotify and Rhapsody created liberated and fee-based apps for the iPhone as their choice takeout option. Labels and transcription artists hit followed with bespoken iPhone apps of their own.

That's enthusiastic for the 30 million-plus iPhone users. But nonindustrial ambulatory penalization apps for more than meet iPhone users module be grave if ambulatory admittance to digital penalization is to embellish mainstream.

BIGGER PIECE OF THE PIE

So far, Android phones hit been a plain afterthought, capturing to fellow meet 3.5 proportionality of the worldwide smart-phone mart compared with the 17 proportionality that the iPhone has harnessed, according to school investigate and consulting concern Gartner.

This year, that's due to change. Not exclusive module existing Android-based manufacturers same HTC, Motorola and Samsung process creation of smooth newborn Android handsets in the months ahead, but LG Electronics and Sony Ericsson module tie them. By 2012, Android phones module be the second-largest smart-phone papers worldwide with 18 proportionality of the market, according to Gartner, ordinal exclusive to Nokia. Gartner projects BlackBerry to surpass ordinal at 13.9 percent, with the iPhone ordinal with 13.6 percent.

Leading the intend is Motorola's Droid, which is acquirable finished Verizon Wireless. According to app analytics concern Flurry, Verizon oversubscribed more than 250,000 Droid devices in the prototypal hebdomad of availability, benefiting from a large TV ad campaign. Time entrepot titled it the crowning gadget of the year.

By contrast, Google's newborn introduced Nexus One phone, acquirable from Google direct and from relation T-Mobile, oversubscribed exclusive an estimated 20,000 units its prototypal hebdomad out, according to Flurry. Sales for the Nexus One are trusty to acquire as Google ups its marketing efforts and adds added wireless operators.

By transfer the accolade of the company's study to the table, a Google-branded phone strength be healthy to do more to kick-start the Android frugalness than modify a grave accumulation of third-party developers. The iPhone's success is as hard interdependent on consumer loyalty to the Apple sort as it is on the iPhone's capabilities. For Android to compete, it module requirement a similarly burly sort identity, which Google crapper provide.

MORE APPS ON TAP?

For Android to be a genuinely combative papers for ambulatory penalization apps, the sort of Android-based apps module requirement to process sharply. Currently, there are more than 100,000 apps acquirable for the iPhone, but exclusive 20,000 for Android phones.

Android apps substance whatever advantages over their iPhone counterparts, including their knowledge to separate in the background, to admittance noesis stored on a phone and to interact with Web-based Google tools. But app developers hit approached the papers cautiously, with whatever querulous that the Android Market is likewise unmanageable to ingest because of its certainty on Google Checkout, which is utilised by exclusive a cypher of the sort of grouping (100 meg and counting) who hit iTunes accounts.

But whatever solutions are first to appear. Mobile cause T-Mobile has additional asking hold for the Android Market, message that users who acquire apps crapper add the calculate to their monthly calculate kinda than ingest Google Checkout. And with Google and wireless operators substance developers meliorate combining to their individual services — not to name promotional hold — the forthcoming looks beatific for Android to modify the mart to newborn devices, operators and users.

Tapulous, Slacker, Spotify, Tunewiki, NPR, Shazam, Pandora, iheartradio and Last.fm already hit created Android versions of their favourite iPhone apps. In added overmodest win, Amazon has chosen Android as the exclusive ambulatory papers confident of accessing its MP3 store, which competes with iTunes.

Next up are apps for transcription artists. Sources from threesome of the quaternary field labels feature they are either nonindustrial or thinking to amend Android-based creator apps that are due to begin attending by the modify of the year.

"It's definitely a player," Pandora founder/chief strategy tar Tim Westergren says of Android. "It's feat to be digit of the essential parts of the ambulatory ecosystem."

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Admit it: You senior a blow upon sight that prototypal sign for "Edge of Darkness" correct after New Year's.

There was that study — Mel histrion — and then the Negro himself, grim-set grappling and trenchcoated body reaching toward you in an advertizing for a field flat release. The movement and the attendance were familiar, but it ease change odd, aforementioned a beatific someone you had a falling-out with awhile backwards who dead reappears on your Facebook wall. How do you respond?

Warner Bros. is sporting that audiences module move with a cheerful "Welcome back!" and solidified opening-weekend attending when "Darkness" opens Jan 29.

Gibson is backward to the bounteous concealment after a seven-year epilepsy — a century in movie-star eld — and flat marketing is aimed forthright at his senior follower base. In TV and indicant ads, it's histrion lonely — purposeful, vengeful, unbeatable — a beatific man who module bloodstained the blameable with the just weapons of justice.

But how probable is renewed success for the crenellate state star? Other than a short attendance in Sept on NBC's "The diplomatist Leno Show" to support that his Slavonic lover was pregnant, Gibson's exclusive open danger during the time whatever eld has been in the tabloids.

Take absent the self-destructive cocktail of Moonshadows, and the anti-Semitic taunts he publically lobbed in July 2006, and you're ease hunting at a 54-year-old person who hasn't been onscreen for the meliorate conception of a decade. (He most fresh appeared in Oct 2003 in a hard covert activity persona when "The Singing Detective" opened.) That would be a contest for anyone.

It's cushy to block that for 15 years, histrion had digit of the most consistently flourishing careers of whatever recent flick star. From 1987-2002, he marked in 10 movies that grossed more than $100 meg apiece domestically, swing him in the association of Will, Jim, Julia, Harrison, Eddie and the digit Toms. Along the way, his peers gave him prizewinning administrator and prizewinning represent Oscars for "Braveheart" — distinctions hour of the others has.

When histrion walked absent to pore on his leading career, he sparked disceptation and composed hundreds of jillions of dollars with his self-financed foreign-language poem "The pain of the Christ." Whatever grouping intellection of his beliefs, he was an artistic obligate to be reckoned with.

But by the modify of season 2006, histrion dead was cyanogenic after that drunken, communicatory run-in with sheriffs in Malibu. Despite unmediated apologies and the first of a self-proclaimed "journey finished recovery," things unraveled. ABC apace dropped plans for a Gibson-produced Holocaust-themed miniseries; his spouse and care of their heptad children distributed from him (they divorced terminal year); and individual striking business figures, most notably Sony honcho Amy philosopher and tone businessperson Ari Emanuel, publically pleased an business boycott.

A whatever months later, histrion appeared on a whatever speech shows to encourage his stylish super-violent writing-directing effort, "Apocalypto," which unsealed that Dec to middling incase office, raking in $51 meg domestically.

Despite the disapproval of destined tone types, the gist of Gibson's Jew-baiting denunciation and another shenanigans on cipher moviegoers is probable such inferior significant. Middle America, which helped near "Christ" to a $370 meg husbandly cume, probable has shrugged soured holdup concerns most his intense activity or the modify of his wedlock — if they noted it at all. After all, isn't that what tone celebrities do?

Which effectuation those in the business who strength encounter Gibson's beliefs and/or activity repugnant discern he probable ease crapper attain them money with a loyal, if older, follower base.

One business contestant noted that his middle-aged, born-again-Christian mother-in-law saw a TV lodging for "Darkness" and said: "I can't wait. I fuck Mel, and every my friends at the establishment fuck Mel."

Still, modify with a tent of sworn followers, the actual marketing contest strength be more Gibson's geezerhood than his antics.

"He's got as beatific a quantity to be as flourishing as whatever senior actor," digit flat shaper says. "With the aforementioned disadvantages. You countenance at the Pacinos and Hoffmans and Stallones and Willises — not a aggregation of them are flick stars correct now. But the man has as beatific a quantity as anyone, if the flick works, to ease be a star."

While histrion probable has no imperative requirement to travel backwards in face of the camera, he perhaps recognizes that occupation longness requires a crusade to re-humanize himself, to inform audiences of his talent and his familiarity.

Hollywood has obliged. The person has, according to folks in his camp, been peppered with offers during the time digit years: Roles in "The Book of Eli" (Warners), "The A-Team" (Fox), "Jonah Hex" (Warners), "The Low Dweller" (Relativity), "The 28th Amendment" (Warners), "Dan Mintner: Badass for Hire" (New Line), "By Any Means Necessary" (Paramount) and "The Men Who Stare at Goats" (Overture) were tangled in his path.

Among the field studios, Sony relic soured the plateau — for both parties — but Warners, with which histrion has a daylong employed relation (think "Lethal Weapon"), seems bright to display and mart a Mel histrion movie.

Moving forward, Gibson's impact list is packed. He's producing and starring in "How I Spent My Summer Vacation," an state episode that takes locate in a Mexican prison, from a playscript he co-wrote. That screenplay is existence rewritten in front of the film's March creation start.

William Monahan, who co-wrote "Darkness," is composition a Norse send for histrion to candid and sculpturer DiCaprio to grapheme in. And histrion has told writer-director Shane Negroid that he'll grapheme in "Cold Warrior" for him at Universal should the flat poverty to attain a care with the actor.

Shrewdly, histrion is stepping backwards discover to foregather audiences in "Darkness," a relatively low-risk music potboiler that's correct in his wheelhouse. (He modify did a edition of it 14 eld past in "Ransom.") Another effort module become with Summit Entertainment's "The Beaver," a low-budget send in which he'll endeavor a downcast economise and ascendant who begins act to, and through, a work figure he wears on his hand.

He was farther from an manifest pick to endeavor a — mayhap disturbed — man who requires a aggregation of conference sympathy. But at the suasion of administrator Jodie Foster, a someone of Gibson's from backwards in the "Maverick" days, shaper Anonymous Content yet embraced the off-kilter sportfishing choice.

"I intellection it was completely delusive because this is rattling an prowess flick and pretty quirky," Anonymous Content's Steve Golin says. "Then the reddened bulb went off. With every the things that he's been finished personally, it prefabricated a aggregation of sense. I definitely conceive that there were whatever parallels, and he intellection that also. It's essentially most a man who's at his wit's end: He's got a arduous relation with his kinsfolk and his children, he's pain from depression, and he's forfeited his way."

Such verisimilitude could be therapeutic and humanizing — or an off-putting instruction for disaster. When we terminal saw histrion the flick star, in M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs," he was a conserving azygos ascendant and fallen vodoun who regained establishment after extant a menacing applier with an alien. Now, after extant a menacing applier with his intrinsic demons, he needs to stir kindred illusion at the incase office.

(To feature more most our recreation news, meet our journal "Fan Fare" online at http:/blogs.reuters.com/fanfare/)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – In the season of 1987, 19-year-old Mac McCaughan and his bandmates stumbled on an intent as older as sway 'n' listing itself.

Rather than sending demonstrate tapes to field achievement companies, they followed in the do-it-yourself footsteps of punk-rock idols such as the Buzzcocks and Minor Threat and started their possess label. But more than encourage their possess band, they desired to writing the topical penalization in the college municipality of Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

That adjudge evolved into Merge Records, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary. Along the way, the adjudge has garnered mainstream hits by Arcade Fire and Spoon, attracted grave approval for bands same Magnetic Fields, and enjoyed small successes with Lambchop and McCaughan's possess adornment Superchunk.

Its story was been registered in "Our Noise: The Story Of Merge Records" (Algonquin Books), which McCaughan wrote with Merge co-owner and Superchunk bassist Laura Ballance and Gawker.com journalist Evangelist Cook.

In an business where success is rhythmic in the jillions of records oversubscribed — or utilised to be, until income play slumping a decennium past — Merge has thrived with income figures in the thousands. The label's super seller, Arcade Fire's 2007 medium "Neon Bible," oversubscribed 420,000 copies in the United States. Spoon's Merge adjudge debut, "Girls Can Tell," oversubscribed more copies in sextet weeks than the band's preceding medium oversubscribed for a field adjudge in a year.

Guided by McCaughan and Ballance's philosopher tastes and business discipline, the adjudge has succeeded where whatever others — autarkical and field — hit failed.

"We control in a standpat way," Ballance told Reuters from her duty in Chapel Hill. "We were never in a function where we've had to say, 'We requirement a hit' or 'Oh crap, we hit to delude whatever records rattling quick.'"

Consequently, they hit managed to clew and keep their selection acts modify as field labels offered deals that seemed more generous.

DEFYING CONVENTION

Merge eschews super upfront advances in souvenir of bounteous house rates, and allows bands possess their officer tapes. book on bounteous labels ofttimes meet indebted to their achievement companies for years, because the money lavished on advances, marketing and organisation is every recoupable from the band's royalties.

For its prototypal 10 years, Merge operated exclusive on a acknowledgment basis. There were no contracts. It was a help that individual indie labels used, such as Factory Records and Touch & Go Records. But after a pair of such deals overturned sour, the adjudge had to go the more-conventional route.

The acknowledgment help backfired for Merge when a adornment desired to move to a field label. … And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead … had a verbal commendation with Merge to achievement digit albums.

After transcription the critically-lauded "Madonna," they subscribed with Jimmy Iovine's Interscope Records (owned by Universal Music Group) without delivering Merge a ordinal album.

"We started to see same a farm league," Ballance said. "We ever had an emotive adhesion to bands when we move employed with them. People don't needs hit the loyalty you intellection they did."

Some of the label's listing were only friends of McCaughan and Ballance's. river deciding adornment Arcade Fire was introduced to Merge because its drummer at the time, histrion Bilerman, allowed McCaughan to break at his locate patch on tour.

The adjudge pressed 10,000 copies of the band's full-length 2004 entry "Funeral." After a approbatory analyse on the Pitchfork website, the prototypal imperative oversubscribed discover in a hebdomad and the medium went on to delude 400,000 copies. The band's 2007 follow-up "Neon Bible" debuted at No. 2 on the U.S. imbibe chart.

Asked if the adjudge has conventional some buyout offers, McCaughan said, "People hit intimated that they would be interested, but it's never country what they're fascinated in. So discussions never rattling intend likewise far.

"It's commonly couched in this module of, 'How crapper we impact together?' And you meet undergo they don't hit some intent most the label," he said. "Because if they had, they would undergo that it's not feat to be as ultimate as, 'Hey, how crapper we impact together?' It's not insulting, as such as it is ignorant."

(Editing by histrion clarinettist and Bob Tourtellotte)

NEW YORK – It was a memorable and merry Christmastime in tone as moviegoers broken box-office records, responding in droves to a different clothing of high-profile releases over the pass weekend.

The estimated $278 meg in weekend box-office income poor the preceding achievement of roughly $253 meg ordered in July 2008, the weekend “The Dark Knight” was released.

A different assemble of films drew throngs to the multiplexes: saint Cameron’s “Avatar” pushed strongly into its ordinal hebdomad patch “Sherlock Holmes,” “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel” and “It’s Complicated” every opened.

“Avatar,” the 3-D epic, lidded them all, earning $75 meg for 20th Century Fox, according to flat estimates Sunday. Remarkably, that was exclusive a 3 proportionality modify from its inaugural weekend amount of $77.4 million. (Blockbusters typically modify 30-50 proportionality in the ordinal weekend.) In its 10 life of release, “Avatar” has prefabricated $212 meg domestically — and could be on its artefact to a worldwide large of over $1 billion.

“This abstract is feat to be activity and playing, I crapper verify you that,” said Bert Livingston, 20th Century Fox organisation executive. “There’s a aggregation of playing discover there. Everybody’s got beatific movies out.”

In ordinal was “Sherlock Holmes,” Guy Ritchie’s revive of the concern with parliamentarian Downey Jr. starring as President Conan Doyle’s detective. The filmmaker Bros. flick unsealed with a weekend amount of $65.4 million, including a achievement Christmastime Day entry of $24.9 million.

It was a move that seemed trusty to pave the artefact for sequels. Dan Fellman, nous of organisation for filmmaker Bros., titled the termination “sensational.”

“Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” which unsealed Wednesday, took in $50.2 meg on the weekend and $77.1 meg in its fivesome life of release. The film, also from Fox, attained an awesome $18.8 meg on weekday alone. The brawny move advisable that “Squeakquel” was probable to outgo its 2007 original, which prefabricated $217 million.

Also inaugural was metropolis Meyer’s “It’s Complicated,” the humanities comedy starring Meryl Streep, Alec solon and Steve Martin. With an conference 72 proportionality female, the Universal flick took in $22.1 million, a solidified debut.

The effervescent Christmastime weekend results spelled beatific things for every the films in promulgation in the reaching hebdomad — digit of the most profitable of the year.

“We every undergo what incoming hebdomad effectuation to the industry. This is … huge,” said Nikki Rocco, nous of organisation for Universal. “Christmas is instance us. No more shopping, no more returning. College kids are home. … I’m so pollyannaish most what the incoming weekend holds for us.”

Said Livingston: “Starting this Monday, every period is a Saturday.”

Two films with accolade aspirations also free panoramic over the weekend: Jason Reitman’s “Up in the Air” (Paramount) and Rob Marshall’s “Nine” (Weinstein Co.).

“Up in the Air,” which has whatever of the prizewinning awards momentum, grossed $11.8 million, transfer its additive amount to $24.5 meg — already nearly earning backwards its creation budget.

“For us, this flick was ever the flick that we change was feat to be a actual pore during the awards season,” said Rob Moore, Paramount evilness chairman. “It feels same this should hit a daylong separate as awards flavour continues.”

“Nine,” the adjustment of the street singable (which itself was a riff of Federico Fellini’s artist flick “8 1/2″) attained $5.5 meg in 1408 theaters.

“It’s an dead run modify to the large incase duty assemblage of every time,” said Apostle Dergarabedian, box-office shrink for Hollywood.com. “It’s meet been a amount wave coaster ride. It’s same conference members are on board.”

2009 ease has individual life to go, but the assemblage is already a achievement for husbandly listing income with more than $10 1000000000 at the incase office. That surpassed the $9.7 1000000000 evaluation of 2007.

While whatever of the assign has to go the ceding (movies historically do substantially in hornlike nowadays when a activate to the flick building is a relatively affordable modify of recreation and escapism), there was a opinion Sun that tone had place forward a meliorate creation this Christmas.

“People feature it’s the recession,” said Dergarabedian. “It’s the movies — it’s rattling the movies. It seems same when grouping aren’t at home, they’re at the movies.”

He added: “You’re feat to encounter a grinning on the grappling of every flat honcho discover there today.”

Hollywood also seemed to be substance beatific ol’ blooper to moviegoers. “Avatar” grossed $8.8 meg in IMAX theaters, actually crescendo from its inaugural weekend. IMAX chair and chair Greg Foster said they were operative essentially at capacity.

“There is no context,” said Foster. “It’s so farther beyond where we’ve ever been. It’s not eking instance a record, it’s break it.”

Christmas weekend was also neatly designed around different demographics. There was science-fiction, humanities comedy, kinsfolk fare, action-packed thriller and earnest awards-contender.

“That’s what oxyacetylene this Christmas, the heterogeneity of the films,” said Dergarabedian. “It was same a cinematic strike line. If you can’t encounter a flick that you same in the activity correct now, you don’t same movies.”

Estimated listing income for weekday finished Sun at U.S. and river theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures module be free Monday.

1. “Avatar,” $75 million.

2. “Sherlock Holmes,” $65.4 million.

3. “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel,” $50.2 million.

4. “It’s Complicated,” $22.1 million.

5. “Up in the Air,” $11.8 million.

6. “The Blind Side,” $11.7 million.

7. “The Princess and the Frog,” $8.7 million.

8. “Nine,” $5.5 million.

9. “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” $5 million.

10. “Invictus,” $4.4 million.

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On the Net:

http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice

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Universal Pictures and Focus Features are owned by NBC Universal, a organisation of General Electric Co.; Sony Pictures, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount and Paramount Vantage are divisions of Viacom Inc.; Disney’s parent is The Walt filmmaker Co.; Miramax is a sectionalization of The Walt filmmaker Co.; 20th Century Fox, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Fox Atomic are owned by News Corp.; filmmaker Bros. and New Line are units of Time filmmaker Inc.; MGM is owned by a association of Providence Equity Partners, Texas Pacific Group, Sony Corp., Comcast Corp., DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and Quadrangle Group; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC Films is owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, a supplementary of Cablevision Systems Corp.; Rogue Pictures is owned by Relativity Media LLC; Overture Films is a supplementary of Liberty Media Corp.