The Breakfast Meeting
What’s making news in media.
The Golden Globe nominations were announced on Thursday, with “Lincoln” leading the way with seven nominations, Brooks Barnes reported. But true to form, he writes, the awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association were spread about quite evenly, with “Argo” and “Django Unchained” close behind with five nominations apiece; “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Les Misérables” and “Silver Linings Playbook” each received four. The Globes will be handed out on Jan. 13, with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey as co-hosts of the telecast, a role recently filled by Ricky Gervais.
- Beyond their own merit, the Globes are considered important to gaining momentum heading into the Oscars, particularly this year when voting for Academy Awards nominees begins unusually early, on Monday. The biggest beneficiary, The Carpetbagger blog concludes, is “Django Unchained,” Quentin Tarantino’s bloody slave revenge fantasy from the Weinstein Company, which had failed to earn any nominations with the Screen Actors Guild on Wednesday.
Europe settled its antitrust case against four major publishers and Apple over the pricing of e-books along the lines of a similar settlement in the United States, Kevin J. O’Brien reports. The four and Apple agreed to end their attempt to set prices along what is called the “agency model,” which allows publishers to set a price and then provide the seller a commission on each sale. The settlement — which didn’t include the fifth major publisher, Pearson, owner of Penguin — frees Amazon to set whatever price it wants for books, a practice that has worried publishers who see Amazon dominating the e-book market. Despite those concerns, the European competition commissioner, Joaquín Almunia, said the issues were clear:
Obviously, the coordination of commercial behavior between competitors — here, with the help of Apple — is forbidden by our competition rules. Whatever the publishers’ initial concerns about retail prices, dealing with this situation through collusion is not acceptable.
The 12-12-12 benefit concert for Hurricane Sandy victims brought in at least $30 million from the sales of tickets and corporate sponsors, chief among them JPMorgan Chase Company, James C. McKinley Jr. reported. But that number does not include money donated online or via telephone to the Robin Hood Foundation, a charity that is distributing the money to aid groups.; organizers predict that the total will easily top the $35 million raised after the Sept. 11 attacks by the Concert for New York.
- The Runway blog has the skinny on the kilt worn by Kanye West during Wednesday’s concert, which was among the many head-turning moments during the broadcast. It appears to be from Givenchy’s fall 2012 men’s wear collection, Denny Lee writes; and like any cultural phenomenon has its own Twitter handle: @KanyesSkirt.