Entertainment Industry News

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Final box office figures for "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" showed the movie's ticket sales rising to $142.8 million from an estimated $140.7 million last weekend, the studio behind the film said on Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rupert Murdoch has spent months complaining that Google is ruining the newspaper business, and now he wants to do something about it.

-Friday's Winners (keep in mind that the expectations are lower on this evening): Nothing. Sorry, but 8.43 million viewers for Ghost Whisperer, the most-watched show of the evening, does not a winner make.

Based on the final Live Plus Same Day ratings for the week of Nov. 9, CBS remained the most-watched network in daytime, while NBC and ABC finished neck-and-neck for second. First among key women 18-49 was NBC, followed by ABC and CBS. Take a look at the results:

Bill Moyers, host of PBS' veteran Bill Moyers Journal, will step down from the weekly show on Friday, April 30, 2010. Also concluding that night will be Now on PBS, which has been canceled.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A copy of the book "Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There" that belonged to the British girl who inspired author Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" will be sold at an auction next month, the company behind the sale said on Monday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Scottish singer Susan Boyle, who shot to fame after her audition for "Britain's Got Talent" was aired in April, appears set to have the biggest album in Britain this year, music retailer HMV said on Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has had talks with News Corp about a tie up, which would involve News Corp getting paid to take its news websites off Google Inc, a source familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

ATHENS (Reuters) - 20th Century Fox will make a profit with James Cameron's 3D sci-fi epic "Avatar," Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman Jim Gianopulos said in an interview, and dismissed reports the movie cost $500 million as "ridiculous."

LONDON - An auction house says it is selling a rare first edition of Charles Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" found in a family's guest lavatory in southern England.

LOS ANGELES - Two Web sites that sold songs by The Beatles for 25 cents apiece should remain shut down indefinitely, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

NEW YORK - Eight decades after pioneering the concept of broadcasting, NBC is on the verge of a startling move that illustrates broadcast television's decline.

-Yesterday's Winners: Criminal Minds (CBS), CSI: NY (CBS)

NEW YORK - PlayStation 3 owners will soon be able to stream movies and TV shows from Netflix to their TVs using the gaming console, just as Xbox 360 owners have been able to do for a year.

Three networks – ABC, CBS and Fox -- dominated this eighth week of the 2009-10 season. CBS finished first overall in households and total viewers, ABC topped the adult 18-49 and adult 25-54 charts, and Fox was the primary force among adults 18-34. Both ABC and Fox built over the comparable year-ago period, with CBS on the downside, particularly in the demos. Even so, CBS has now ranked first in total viewers for seven of the last eight weeks. Comparably, and excluding Oscar week, ABC rose to its most-watched week since the week of Sept. 22, 2008, with a seven-week high among adults 18-49.

LOS ANGELES - With local, organic food, minimal electricity use and on-site composting, the Environmental Media Association's 20th anniversary party might be the green standard for future Hollywood awards shows.

-Yesterday's Winners: NCIS (CBS), Dancing With the Stars (ABC), NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS), The Good Wife (CBS)

LOS ANGELES - Fans scrambled to see 3-D movies such as "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" in theaters this year and new 3-D televisions could soon have home viewers feeling as if they're surrounded by a spaghetti hurricane on their couches.

-Yesterday's Winners: The 43rd Annual CMA Awards (ABC), Criminal Minds (CBS), CSI: NY (CBS)

-Yesterday's Winners: Dancing With the Stars (ABC), Two and a Half Men (CBS), The Big Bang Theory (CBS), House (Fox), CSI: Miami (CBS)

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.

-Yesterday's Winners: Survivor: Samoa (CBS), CSI (CBS), Grey's Anatomy (ABC), The Office (NBC), The Mentalist (CBS)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The "Twilight" sequel scored the third-biggest opening weekend of all time at the North American box office on Sunday, as millions of young women swooned over the complex love triangle involving a high school girl, a vampire and a werewolf.

-Yesterday's Winners: Baseball World Series, Game 6 (Fox), Criminal Minds (CBS), CSI: NY (CBS)

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.

-Yesterday's Winners: NCIS (CBS), V (ABC), The Biggest Loser (NBC), Dancing With the Stars (ABC), NCIS: Los Angeles (CBS), The Good Wife (CBS)

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.

Led by games one through four of The Baseball World Series (New York Yankees vs. Philadelphia Phillies), it was a clean sweep for Fox, with a first-place finish in households, total viewers and the three key demos -- adults 18-49, adults 25-54 and adults 18-34. Compared to the year-ago week (when there was only the fifth -- and final -- game of Tampa Bay at Philadelphia in The World Series), Fox increased by as much as 54 percent in total viewers. Needless to say, the network is certainly hoping for a seven game series. ...

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.