business
China bans US chickens, shuts Pepsi plant
China banned imports from a top US poultry producer and ordered a Beijing Pepsi factory to close Sunday as authorities clamped down on food production and distribution amid a new coronavirus cluster in the capital. Health officials also reported 22 new virus cases in Beijing, where they have tested more than two million residents as they seek to contain a wave of new infections linked to a wholesale market in the capital. Imports of frozen chicken from Tyson Foods have been “temporarily suspended”, the General Administration of Customs said, after a virus outbreak was found at one of the company’s production facilities in the US. Products from the firm that have already arrived in China will be confiscated, the statement said. US food and drinks giant PepsiCo was also ordered to shut down ...
Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera Scrap Fall Seasons Due to Coronavirus
The Lyric Opera of Chicago and San Francisco Opera have canceled the fall portions of their 2020-21 seasons due to the new coronavirus. The Lyric Opera eliminated four of its 10 productions and delayed opening night from Sept. 17 to Jan. 16. San Francisco canceled five of seven stagings and delayed opening night from Sept. 11 to April 25. Twenty-six performances were canceled in Chicago and 37 in San Francisco. Lyric general director Anthony Freud said Tuesday he hopes to reschedule the missed stagings for future seasons: a double bill of Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” and Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci;” what was to have been the North American premiere of George Benjamin’s “Lessons in Love and Violence;” Puccini’s “Tosca;” and Verdi’s “Attila.” The season now is set to start with the Chicag...
Riot Fest 2021 Set With Headliners My Chemical Romance, Smashing Pumpkins & Run the Jewels
Chicago’s Riot Fest 2020 has been scrubbed, due to the health crisis. But the multi-day festival will return next year with a bill headlined by My Chemical Romance, Smashing Pumpkins, Run the Jewels and Pixies. Also confirmed to the 2021 lineup are Coheed and Cambria, Taking Back Sunday, Sublime With Rome, Dirty Heads and Lupe Fiasco, performing The Cool in full. The 2021 edition will take place Sept. 17-19, 2021 at Douglas Park, almost a year to the day from the scheduled 2020 show (originally set for Sept. 11-13). A first of three waves of performers 50 acts is announced with Vic Mensa, Living Colour, Big Freedia, Toots and the Maytals, Best Coast, L7, Gogol Bordello, and many more on board. “If you already have your 2020 ticket, you’re in luck, it’s good for 2021,” reads a stateme...
Minister: Naira Marley will be prosecuted
Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mohammed Bello, has announced that rapper Azeez Fashola who is popularly known as Naira Marley, and some members of his team, will have their days in court. Marley’s June 13 concert in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja has been widely criticized and condemned for its blatant flouting of COVID-19 guidelines and protocols. FCT authorities have shut down the Jabi Lake Mall venue of the concert and Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika has temporarily withdrawn the license of Executive Jets–the airline that flew Marley and his crew to Abuja. In a statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary Anthony Ogunleye, Bello said “there is a very real possibility that a single positive individual at that event could by now have gone ahead to infect several others t...
NPR Variety Show ‘Live From Here’ Canceled by American Public Media
The Chris Thile-hosted variety series was a retooled version of Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” Live From Here, the Chris Thile-hosted radio show that served as a successor to A Prairie Home Companion when the latter series was retooled in 2017, has been canceled by American Public Media. CEO Jon McTaggart revealed the news in a post on APM’s website announcing drastic cuts at the broadcaster. Thile and Live From Here’s official social accounts also broke the news on Tuesday (June 16). “Not one live broadcast has gone by where I didn’t thank my absurdly lucky stars for your wide open ears and hearts,” Thile wrote on Twitter. “Over the weekend, I was informed that American Public Media will no longer be producing the show. “While this news fills me with sadn...
Warner Music Group Moves to Replace Old Debt With New, Better Debt
The music company is conducting a private offering to purchase senior notes due in 2023 with funds from sales of senior notes at a better interest rate due seven years later. Warner Music Group is trading old debt for new debt with a better interest rate and later due date. The music company is conducting a private offering for $535 million of senior secured notes due in 2030 that it expects to close June 29, it was announced Tuesday (June 16). At the same time, Warner wants to use the proceeds to purchase $300 million of new senior secured notes due in 2023. If Warner sells $535 million notes due in 2030 to redeem $300 million of notes due in 2023, it would replace a 5% interest rate with 3.875%. On $300 million of principal, the difference in rates of 1.125% equals $3.375 million of inte...
Universal Music UK Reboots EMI Records With Rebecca Allen at the Helm
Universal Music Group is relaunching EMI Records, the iconic British record label which UMG acquired for $1.9 billion in 2012. As part of the relaunch, UMG’s Virgin EMI is renamed EMI Records, effective immediately. The Virgin Records imprint will continue under the new EMI Records banner. At the helm is newly-appointed EMI president Rebecca Allen, a 20-year UMG veteran and former Billboard Women In Music honoree. Closely associated with the British pop movement of the 1960s, EMI’s star-studded roster in the UK in the ’60s and ’70s included The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Jackson Five, The Temptations and Smokey Robinson. EMI continued to be home to the UK’s top music stars in the 1990s, when it signed acts l...
Liam Gallagher On Track For Third Solo U.K. No. 1 With ‘MTV Unplugged’
Liam Gallagher is plugged in for a third solo No. 1 in the U.K. The former Oasis frontman blasts to the top of the midweek albums chart as his live LP MTV Unplugged (Warner Records) outsells the rest of the top 5 combined, the Official Charts Company reports. If the set holds its spot when the Official U.K. Albums Chart is published this Friday (June 19), it’ll continue a streak for Gallagher, which began with As You Were (from 2017) and continued with his sophomore album Why Me? Recorded in Hull City Hall, MTV Unplugged has generated the most physical sales — CD and vinyl – and is the most downloaded release in the first half of the week, according to the OCC. The album was due to be released April 24 but was delayed when the vinyl manufacturing plant pressing the LP was temporarily...
Universal Music Opens First-Ever Offices in Israel and Morocco
The new outposts, in Tel Aviv and Casablanca, continue the arms race among the labels of overseas resources sniffing for new talent. After broadening its footprint in Asia in 2019, Universal Music is continuing its global expansion with new offices in Israel and Morocco, marking the label as the first major music company to open standalone operations in either country. The new outposts in the Middle East and North Africa will add to UMG’s existing network of A&R and marketing in more than 60 countries. UMG Morocco will be based in Casablanca, while the Israel office will operate out of Tel Aviv. The moves come one month after Universal officially opened a new hub for hip-hop label Def Jam Africa based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Lagos, Nigeria. And the push into North Africa and...
BMI Announces Winners of 2020 Film, TV & Visual Media Awards
The winners of BMI’s 36th annual Film, TV & Visual Media Awards were announced Monday (June 15) across the organization’s social and digital platforms. Honorees — who were awarded for their work on the top-performing films, TV shows and other visual media from the previous year — include composers Tyler Bates, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Atli Örvarsson, Mike Post, Mac Quayle and Brian Tyler. Örvarsson was the top winner this year, with a total of five awards (known as “crystals”) for his work on TV series including Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, Chicago Fire, FBI and FBI Most Wanted. Elsewhere, Tyler, Quayle and Bates received three apiece. Tyler won for his work on Hawaii Five-0, Magnum P.I. and Yellowstone; Quayle won for 9-1-1, 9-1-1: Lone Star and American Horror Story;...
Twitch Users Are Getting Takedown Notices En Masse for the First Time: Here’s Why
A flurry of copyright takedown notices hit Twitch users last week, causing a storm on social media. Here’s what’s really going on and what to watch for next. Over the last week, users on gaming-focused livestream platform Twitch received a sudden flurry of takedown notices for clips of old videos using unlicensed background music. The more than 2,500 notices — which the RIAA filed on behalf of rights holders for recordings including Ariana Grande’s “7 Rings” and DNCE’s “Cake By The Ocean” — caused a storm on social media, with users complaining on Twitter they felt blindsided by the requests, some for clips dating as far back as 2017. Contrary to some users’ claims, Twitch’s Music Guidelines — which explicitly prohibit users from incorporating music into their streams wit...
Lady Gaga’s ‘Chromatica’ Enters Week Two Atop Australia’s Chart
Lady Gaga’s Chromatica (Interscope/Universal) hangs on for a second week at No. 1 in Australia, as DaBaby’s “Rockstar” (Interscope/Universal) completes a month at the top. Chromatica, which also snares the U.K. chart lead for a second week (by a narrow margin), is Gaga’s fourth No. 1 Down Under. The highest new debut this week belongs to Melbourne alternative rock act Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever, whose sophomore album Sideways To New Italy arrives (Ivy League/Universal) at No. 5 on the ARIA Albums Chart and is the best-selling vinyl album of the week. It’s the followup to their debut Hope Downs, which peaked at No. 24 in June 2018. Sideways To New Italy impacts the Official U.K. Albums Chart this week, at No. 45. Also bowing in the Australian top 5 is The Ghost Inside’s self-title...
