"X Factor" judge L.A. Reid quitting TV talent show

L.A. Reid, "The X Factor" judge, says he is leaving the TV talent show next season after two years on the panel.
Reid, 56, chairman and chief executive of Epic Records, told "Access Hollywood," the television program and website, he has decided to leave the Fox reality singing show to return to the record label full time.
"I have decided that I will not return to 'The X Factor' next year," Reid told "Access Hollywood" late Thursday. "I have to go back and I have a company to run that I've kind of neglected, and it saddens me a little bit, but only a little bit."
He added that the show was "a nice break, it was a nice departure from what I've done for the past 20 years, but now I gotta go back to work."
Fox declined to comment on Reid's departure on Friday.
Reid joined "The X Factor" when Cowell introduced the show in the United States in September 2011. Reid sat alongside Paula Abdul, former Pussycat Dolls singer Nicole Scherzinger and Cowell.
Cowell fired Abdul and Scherzinger after a disappointing first season and brought in pop stars Britney Spears and Demi Lovato.
But "The X Factor" audiences have dropped this year to an average 9.7 million from about 12.5 million an episode in 2011.
The show broadcasts a two-part finale next week with the winner earning a $5 million prize and record contract.
Epic Records, a unit of Sony Music Entertainment, which commands a roster of artists including Avril Lavigne, will sign the winners of "The X Factor."

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White House TV comedy aims for laughs, not politics

There is a crazy family living at the White House, but it's not the Obamas. It's the Gilchrists, whose never-ending follies pulse and push upcoming TV comedy romp "1600 Penn."
Starring Bill Pullman as U.S. President Dale Gilchrist and Jenna Elfman as his first lady, the show's co-creator Josh Gad said on Friday that there is plenty of precedent for family madness at the Oval Office.
"You can look as far back as Mary Todd Lincoln ... and you can see dysfunction in the halls of the White House," Gad told reporters on a conference call, referring to the wife of Civil War President Abraham Lincoln.
Gad, who shot to prominence in the Tony-winning musical "The Book of Mormon," also plays the error-prone, good-intentioned son Skip, who with his three younger siblings backstop the earnestness of his father and step-mother.
"We really wanted to dissect what it meant to be a family in the most extraordinary of circumstances - and what's more extraordinary than being the first family?" Gad said.
The show, which takes its title from the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue street address of the White House, debuts on January 10 on NBC.
It sees Skip crashing a Latin American trade meeting at the White House and helping convince the region's leaders to abandon the arm-twisting Brazilian president and cut a deal instead with his father - summoning their courage with booze.
It is all part of Skip's plan to redeem himself after causing a public relations embarrassment by burning down a fraternity house at his college.
"It's like a drop of a political thing that will spark a family problem," Elfman said, whose character struggles to win the trust of her step-children and fights the media's trophy-wife label.
"1600 Penn," is co-created by Jon Lovett, a former speechwriter for President Barack Obama.
The White House has been successful grounds for TV in the past, inspiring shows like Aaron Sorkin's drama series "The West Wing" from 1999-2006, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Emmy-winning turn as a frustrated vice president in the satirical "Veep."
But Gad said "1600 Penn" has no interest in party politics and that President Gilchrist's party affiliation is deliberately vague.
"I can't emphasize that enough," Gad said. "We never set out to make a political show."
Nevertheless, Pullman, who played the president in the 1996 blockbuster film "Independence Day," said the 2012 U.S. presidential race gave him plenty of fodder to study.
"It was a surreal time to be making this because of the campaign going on," Pullman said. "Every day that we were shooting (the race) was in the news.

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Participant Media starts cable network for millenials

 Participant Media, the company behind films including "Lincoln" and "The Help," is starting a new cable network targeting millenial viewers, with content from Davis Guggenheim and The Jim Henson Company, among others.
It will be led by Evan Shapiro, who joined Participant in May after serving as President of IFC and Sundance Channel.
Participant has bought The Documentary Channel and entered into an agreement to acquire the distribution assets of Halogen TV from The Inspiration Networks. No terms were disclosed.
The combined and rebranded properties are expected to reach more than 40 million subscribers once the yet-to-be-named network launches in the summer.
"The goal of Participant is to tell stories that serve as catalysts for social change. With our television channel, we can bring those stories into the homes of our viewers every day," said Participant chairman and founder Jeff Skoll.
Those producing content for the new network also include producer Brian Graden, The Jim Henson Company's Brian Henson, columnist and blogger Meghan McCain, Morgan Spurlock, Gotham Chopra, filmmaker Mary Harron, writer/director Timothy Scott Bogart, and Cineflix Media, a TV producer and distributor in which Participant Media controls an equity interest.
Guggenheim directed the Oscar winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" for Participant.
"Our content will be specifically designed for the viewers that the pay TV eco-system is most at risk of losing," said Shapiro. "We all know that Millennials are changing how media is consumed. However, they also have the strong desire and inimitable capacity to help change the world. Our research shows that there is a whitespace in the television landscape and we believe that a destination for ‘the next greatest generation' will be a win for our affiliate partners, advertisers and the creative community.

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Hulu Plus doubles subscribers to 3 million

 Hulu Plus more than doubled the number of subscribers who pay for access to its premium content in 2012. The streaming service now numbers 3 million paid subscribers, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar announced in a blog post Monday.
That's a far cry from the nearly 30 million subscribers the company's main rival Netflix attracts, but it is a sign that Hulu is moving in the right direction. Because the company had not released its numbers publicly for months, some analysts had privately speculated that its growth had stalled. Hulu's paid-subscription service launched in 2010.
In addition, revenue at Hulu grew over 65 percent in 2012 to close the year at $695 million.
"When it comes to building things that matter, most entrepreneurs hope to have the good timing and the good fortune to find and ride (and ideally shape) one massive wave," Kilar wrote. "At Hulu, we are doubly fortunate in that we are at the crest of two massive waves that we believe will persist for the long term: the rise of online video advertising and the rise of online video subscription services."
Like Netflix, Hulu has also gotten into the original content game - launching documentary shows with the likes of "Super Size Me" director Morgan Spurlock and the campaign dramedy "Battleground." In 2012, the company said it invested $500 million in content.
Kilar wrote that Hulu now has 430 content partners, producing 50,000 hours of video on Hulu and Hulu Plus.
However, advertising, not subscriber numbers remains the major driver behind Hulu's revenue, and here too the company said it is expanding. In 2012, Kilar wrote the company attracted some 1,000 advertisers, a 28 percent uptick from last year.

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HBO making "Game of Thrones"-themed beer

Winter is coming - and so is a new line of beers based on HBO's fantasy drama "Game of Thrones." Presumably, all will boast a full, robust head, perhaps resting on top of a spike.
HBO is teaming with Cooperstown, N.Y. brewery Ommegang for a line of brews centered around the series, the New York Times reports. The first beer, Iron Throne Blonde Ale, is slated to go on sale in March, in time for the March 31 premiere of the show's third season.
It sounds like the perfect libation for watching the premiere from the comfort of your $30,000 Iron Throne replica.
A second "GoT"-themed beer will go on sale in fall 2013, with two more varieties expected to go on sale in conjunction with new seasons of the series.

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Russian opera diva Vishnevskaya dies at 86

MOSCOW (AP) — World-renowned Russian opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya, who with her husband defied the Soviet regime to give shelter to writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and suffered exile from her homeland, has died at 86.

Moscow's Opera Center, which Vishnevskaya created, said the singer celebrated internationally for her rich soprano voice died Tuesday in the Russian capital. It didn't give the cause.

Vishnevskaya and the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich married in 1955, frequently performed together and used their star status in the Soviet Union to help friends in trouble. In the most notable example of their defiance of the Communist authorities, they sheltered Solzhenitsyn at their country home for several years as he faced official reprisals.

"They hosted Solzhenitsyn at the moment when he had no place to live, even though they knew that the authorities will not pat them over their shoulder for doing that," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a Soviet-era dissident who heads the respected Moscow Helsinki Group rights watchdog, according to the Interfax news agency.

After Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the country, Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich left the Soviet Union with their two daughters in 1974. They lived in Paris and then Washington, and were stripped of their Soviet citizenship in 1978.

They returned to Russia after the Soviet collapse and became involved in public activities and charitable work. Rostropovich, who was Vishnevskaya's third husband, died in 2007.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who restored Soviet citizenship for Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich in 1990, praised them for their eagerness to help others. "They were people who not only excelled in art, but came to help those who needed it," Gorbachev was quoted by Interfax as saying.

Vishnevskaya was born in Leningrad in 1926. Her parents separated when she was 5 and she was raised by her grandmother. She remained in the city during the Nazi siege and served as a volunteer helping defend the city from Luftwaffe bombings.

Vishnevskaya joined Moscow's Bolshoi Theater in 1952, making her debut as Tatiana in "Yevgeny Onegin" the following year. She remained its prima for more than two decades, performing dozens of soprano roles in Russian and European opera classics.

The late Boris Pokrovsky, who directed her at the Bolshoi, once praised Vishnevskaya's "extraordinary musical and vocal abilities, theatrical charm, hot temperament, natural feeling of the stage, and bold outspokenness."

Dmitri Shostakovich, a neighbor and a close friend, wrote two song cycles and an orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Songs and Dances of Death" for her. Benjamin Britten wanted her to be part of the premiere of his "War Requiem" in 1962, but the authorities prevented her from leaving the Soviet Union.

She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida in 1961 and first sang Liu in Turandot in La Scala in 1964. In 1966, she won the coveted title of the People's Artist of the USSR.

Another legendary Russian diva, Yelena Obraztsova, hailed Vishnevskaya as a perfectionist. "Everything she did, she did well," Obraztsova said, according to RIA Novosti news agency. "She was very demanding to herself, not just others."

Vishnevskaya, who is survived by her two daughters, will be buried Friday at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery alongside her husband.

President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences, praising the singer's "remarkable talent, strong will, nobleness and self-dignity." And Putin's envoy for international culture ties, Mikhail Shvydkoi, called her death a "huge loss not just for the Russian, but for the world culture."

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Russian opera diva Vishnevskaya dies at 86

MOSCOW (AP) — World-renowned Russian opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya, who with her husband defied the Soviet regime to give shelter to writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and suffered exile from her homeland, has died at 86.

Moscow's Opera Center, which Vishnevskaya created, said the singer celebrated internationally for her rich soprano voice died Tuesday in the Russian capital. It didn't give the cause.

Vishnevskaya and the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich married in 1955, frequently performed together and used their star status in the Soviet Union to help friends in trouble. In the most notable example of their defiance of the Communist authorities, they sheltered Solzhenitsyn at their country home for several years as he faced official reprisals.

"They hosted Solzhenitsyn at the moment when he had no place to live, even though they knew that the authorities will not pat them over their shoulder for doing that," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a Soviet-era dissident who heads the respected Moscow Helsinki Group rights watchdog, according to the Interfax news agency.

After Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the country, Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich left the Soviet Union with their two daughters in 1974. They lived in Paris and then Washington, and were stripped of their Soviet citizenship in 1978.

They returned to Russia after the Soviet collapse and became involved in public activities and charitable work. Rostropovich, who was Vishnevskaya's third husband, died in 2007.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who restored Soviet citizenship for Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich in 1990, praised them for their eagerness to help others. "They were people who not only excelled in art, but came to help those who needed it," Gorbachev was quoted by Interfax as saying.

Vishnevskaya was born in Leningrad in 1926. Her parents separated when she was 5 and she was raised by her grandmother. She remained in the city during the Nazi siege and served as a volunteer helping defend the city from Luftwaffe bombings.

Vishnevskaya joined Moscow's Bolshoi Theater in 1952, making her debut as Tatiana in "Yevgeny Onegin" the following year. She remained its prima for more than two decades, performing dozens of soprano roles in Russian and European opera classics.

The late Boris Pokrovsky, who directed her at the Bolshoi, once praised Vishnevskaya's "extraordinary musical and vocal abilities, theatrical charm, hot temperament, natural feeling of the stage, and bold outspokenness."

Dmitri Shostakovich, a neighbor and a close friend, wrote two song cycles and an orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Songs and Dances of Death" for her. Benjamin Britten wanted her to be part of the premiere of his "War Requiem" in 1962, but the authorities prevented her from leaving the Soviet Union.

She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida in 1961 and first sang Liu in Turandot in La Scala in 1964. In 1966, she won the coveted title of the People's Artist of the USSR.

Another legendary Russian diva, Yelena Obraztsova, hailed Vishnevskaya as a perfectionist. "Everything she did, she did well," Obraztsova said, according to RIA Novosti news agency. "She was very demanding to herself, not just others."

Vishnevskaya, who is survived by her two daughters, will be buried Friday at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery alongside her husband.

President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences, praising the singer's "remarkable talent, strong will, nobleness and self-dignity." And Putin's envoy for international culture ties, Mikhail Shvydkoi, called her death a "huge loss not just for the Russian, but for the world culture."

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Russian opera diva Vishnevskaya dies at 86

MOSCOW (AP) — World-renowned Russian opera diva Galina Vishnevskaya, who with her husband defied the Soviet regime to give shelter to writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn and suffered exile from her homeland, has died at 86.

Moscow's Opera Center, which Vishnevskaya created, said the singer celebrated internationally for her rich soprano voice died Tuesday in the Russian capital. It didn't give the cause.

Vishnevskaya and the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich married in 1955, frequently performed together and used their star status in the Soviet Union to help friends in trouble. In the most notable example of their defiance of the Communist authorities, they sheltered Solzhenitsyn at their country home for several years as he faced official reprisals.

"They hosted Solzhenitsyn at the moment when he had no place to live, even though they knew that the authorities will not pat them over their shoulder for doing that," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a Soviet-era dissident who heads the respected Moscow Helsinki Group rights watchdog, according to the Interfax news agency.

After Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the country, Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich left the Soviet Union with their two daughters in 1974. They lived in Paris and then Washington, and were stripped of their Soviet citizenship in 1978.

They returned to Russia after the Soviet collapse and became involved in public activities and charitable work. Rostropovich, who was Vishnevskaya's third husband, died in 2007.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, who restored Soviet citizenship for Vishnevskaya and Rostropovich in 1990, praised them for their eagerness to help others. "They were people who not only excelled in art, but came to help those who needed it," Gorbachev was quoted by Interfax as saying.

Vishnevskaya was born in Leningrad in 1926. Her parents separated when she was 5 and she was raised by her grandmother. She remained in the city during the Nazi siege and served as a volunteer helping defend the city from Luftwaffe bombings.

Vishnevskaya joined Moscow's Bolshoi Theater in 1952, making her debut as Tatiana in "Yevgeny Onegin" the following year. She remained its prima for more than two decades, performing dozens of soprano roles in Russian and European opera classics.

The late Boris Pokrovsky, who directed her at the Bolshoi, once praised Vishnevskaya's "extraordinary musical and vocal abilities, theatrical charm, hot temperament, natural feeling of the stage, and bold outspokenness."

Dmitri Shostakovich, a neighbor and a close friend, wrote two song cycles and an orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Songs and Dances of Death" for her. Benjamin Britten wanted her to be part of the premiere of his "War Requiem" in 1962, but the authorities prevented her from leaving the Soviet Union.

She made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Aida in 1961 and first sang Liu in Turandot in La Scala in 1964. In 1966, she won the coveted title of the People's Artist of the USSR.

Another legendary Russian diva, Yelena Obraztsova, hailed Vishnevskaya as a perfectionist. "Everything she did, she did well," Obraztsova said, according to RIA Novosti news agency. "She was very demanding to herself, not just others."

Vishnevskaya, who is survived by her two daughters, will be buried Friday at Moscow's Novodevichy Cemetery alongside her husband.

President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences, praising the singer's "remarkable talent, strong will, nobleness and self-dignity." And Putin's envoy for international culture ties, Mikhail Shvydkoi, called her death a "huge loss not just for the Russian, but for the world culture."

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Soprano Geraldine Chauvet makes Met Opera debut

NEW YORK (AP) — The Metropolitan Opera's final performance this season of Mozart's last opera, "La Clemenza di Tito," was notable for the unexpected company debut of mezzo-soprano Geraldine Chauvet.

The 38-year-old French singer took over Monday night as Sesto on short notice in place of Elina Garanca, who was ill.

Chauvet had made her first U.S. appearance in January in another trouser's role, as Adriano in a concert performance of Wagner's "Rienzi" with the Opera Orchestra of New York and has sung "Carmen" in several European houses.

With a winning smile and agile range, she made a strong impression in her first-act aria, "Parto, parto," when Sesto agrees to murder his friend Tito, the emperor of Rome who later pardons him — hence the title "The Clemency of Tito."

In addition to shimmering singing, her strong-yet-vulnerable manner contributed to a well-rounded portrayal. The crowd responded with strong applause.

The rest of the sturdy cast in the two-act opera seria was unchanged from most performances of the run, headed by tenor Giuseppe Filianoti as Tito and soprano Barbara Frittoli as Vitellia, daughter of the deposed Emperor Vitellio. Conductor Harry Bickett led a lively performance.

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Swiss opera diva Della Casa dies at 93

GENEVA (AP) — Famed for her beauty that matched her serene voice, Swiss-born diva Lisa Della Casa  swept up crowds at opera houses of the past century with an elegant and radiant style that established her as one of the finest sopranos of her generation.

After more than 400 performances at the Vienna State Opera, where her interpretations of many great roles, particularly those from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss, won her wide acclaim and appreciation, Della Casa left the opera world in 1974, apparently weary of the music business.

The Vienna State Opera said Della Casa died Monday at the age of 93 in the northern Swiss town of Muensterlingen, along the lakeshore.

Salzburg Festival President Helga Rabl-Stadler recalled Della Casa's performances as "sublime moments for which she was celebrated by audiences and critics alike." To mark her death, Rabl-Stadler added in a statement, the festival hung a black flag that waved as "a tiny sign of our sorrow and gratitude."

Della Casa was born near the Swiss capital Bern in 1919 and later trained in Zurich. Her first performance, during World War II, came as Giacomo Puccini's "Madame Butterfly" at the Solothurn-Biel Municipal Theater. She would go on to perform on many of the world's great opera stages including the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House and La Scala.

In her performances of Richard Strauss's "Arabella," including as Zdenka at the Salzburg Festival in 1947 and as Arabella at the Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden in 1953, she wowed crowds and became identified with the opera because of what critics celebrated as a natural grace in her singing and her beauty. In 1953, she also debuted at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York as Countess Almaviva in Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro."

She became known as a specialist in Mozart and Strauss, singing regularly in Europe and the United States.

Della Casa retired to her castle along Lake Constance in northern Switzerland, where she lived with her husband, journalist and violinist Dragan Debeljevic, and their daughter, Vesna. They couple were married in 1949.

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