Entertainment Industry News - Reuters

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Country crossover star Taylor Swift overshadowed the late Michael Jackson at the American Music Awards on Sunday, winning five prizes including artist of the year.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp, Time Warner Inc and Qualia Capital LLC are interested in buying Hollywood's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio, home of the James Bond movies, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Talks between General Electric and Vivendi over the future of NBC Universal have stalled, the New York Times reported on Friday night.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Blockbuster Inc said on Friday that it would change its stock structure in a move the beleaguered U.S. movie rental chain said will improve liquidity.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Media mogul John Malone said the U.S. No.1 satellite TV operator DirecTV Group is not up for sale in an interview with business cable network CNBC on Friday.

ZURICH (Reuters) - Brazilian Romero Britto has created the 2010 edition of the Montreux Jazz Festival's poster, adding to a long list of striking images by famous artists that have made the posters desirable objects among collectors.

PARIS (Reuters) - A second auction of art and furniture once owned by fashion guru Yves Saint Laurent has raised 8.9 million euros ($13.22 million), up to three times the estimated amount, auctioneers Christie's said on Friday.

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Playboy spent 56 years making sure that the world would know it by the sign of its bunny ears. Now that the company is up for sale, Playboy's iconic logo, not the magazine, might be what saves it.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - If AOL's announcement on Thursday of another 2,500 job cuts is anything to go by, the painful layoffs that have ravaged the media industry over the past year are nowhere near over.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - BusinessWeek will lay off up to 130 workers, about a third of its staff as Bloomberg LP prepares to take over the magazine from McGraw-Hill Companies Inc, two sources at the magazine said on Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Liberty Media Corp Chairman John Malone said on Thursday that DirecTV Group would be "compatible" with a telephone company if either of its current partners showed an interest in buying it.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Danny Boyle's Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" didn't just garner rave reviews and worldwide acclaim, it also triggered a change in the way Indian movies are being distributed.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. digital media company RealNetworks Inc is in talks with partner MTV Networks to restructure the ownership of their two-year old Rhapsody America joint venture, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners cut its stake again in The New York Times Co, almost two years after it bought a big stake in a bid to shake up the newspaper publisher.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The upcoming debut album by British singing sensation Susan Boyle has become the largest global CD pre-order in the history of Amazon.com, the online retailer said on Thursday.

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Newspapers will play a smaller role in News Corp's operations in future as the group focuses on more profitable pay-TV operations in western Europe and India, the group's head of Europe and Asia said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cable television operator Cablevision Systems Corp will distribute News Corp's Fox Business Network in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Fox said on Thursday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California regulators gave final approval on Wednesday to the first mandatory U.S. energy curbs on television sets, a growing but often overlooked power drain that accounts for 10 percent of home electric bills in the state.

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Vivendi could exit from U.S. media group NBCU Universal as it has no intention to be part of the future joint venture being discussed by Comcast and General Electric, its chief financial officer said on Thursday.