Pickler On TV, JMC Plays Nashville

kpicklerKellie Pickler will guest on today’s (10/30) Halloween episode of Ellen. Fans can also tune in to see her lend a hand to build a new home for the Terpenning family on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, airing Nov. 8 on ABC. As the celebrity volunteer, Pickler swaps her stilettos for a hard hat and hammer, and then performs at the final reveal.

Her latest single, “Didn’t You Know How Much I Loved You,” from her self-titled sophomore album is gaining momentum on the Country Breakout chart. And she was named Country Weekly’s Most Beautiful Woman for the second year in a row in the Nov. 2 issue.
——————————–

Jason Michael Carroll will perform at Nashville’s Exit/In on Thurs., Dec. 10, at 8 PM. Tickets, $15, go on sale today at www.ExitIn.com or www.aeglive.com.

Urban To Visit Verizon In Franklin

keith urban

Keith Urban will be at the Verizon Wireless store in Franklin, TN, at 2 PM today (10/30). He will perform an acoustic set and participate in a brief Q&A session.

Through the partnership between Urban and the wireless carrier, fans with certain Verizon phones can download three free tracks from his popular summer tour. The participating devices are the Samsung Rogue, Alias 2, Sway and Intensity phones.

Brad, Reba Head To NYC For TV

rebaReba McEntire and Brad Paisley will be making media rounds in New York City on Tuesday (11/3). The redhead’s itinerary includes a morning visit to Live with Regis & Kelly for a chat and full band performance, airing on ABC at 9 AM/CT. Later that evening, she will perform “I Want A Cowboy” during her debut appearance on NBC’s Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at 11:30 PM/CT.

Reba, nominated for two CMA awards, will host Premiere Radio Networks’ 2009 CMA Awards Preview Special. The radio network is also planning a live broadcast of the Awards telecast, red carpet interviews, and a live post-Awards broadcast to be hosted by Craig Morgan and Premiere’s Larry Morgan.

Meanwhile, Paisely will be in New York for a Tuesday appearance on the Late Show With David Letterman to perform “American Saturday Night.” Then he and Carrie Underwood, co-hosts of the CMA Awards, will be performing on ABC’s Good Morning America on Tues., Nov. 10 live from Nashville, the day before the Awards. Paisley leads the nominations with seven.

Paisley just finished the 2009 leg of his American Saturday Night tour, after playing to more than 1.2 million fans. Following the run with Dierks Bentley and Jimmy Wayne, Paisley and crew made this thank-you video and posted it on Twitter and YouTube. The tour’s 2010 leg kicks off Jan. 7 in San Antonio with Miranda Lambert and Justin Moore.

ABC to Air Nashville Special With Robin Roberts

rroberts93009As part of the CMA Awards excitement, ABC will present the hour long special In The Spotlight with Robin Roberts: Bright Lights. Big Stars. All Access Nashville Tues., Nov. 10 at 9pm CT. The Good Morning America co-anchor will spotlight some of Nashville’s biggest stars, giving viewers all-access looks into their homes and private lives.

In The Spotlight will feature visits and interviews with Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw, Martina McBride, Loretta Lynn, Rosanne Cash, and Vince Gill. The special will also pose the question “What’s the greatest Country song of all time?” to fans and stars alike, including Taylor Swift and Rascal Flatts, and even President Barack Obama. Nashville-based, Stealing Angels (Tayla Lynn, Jennifer Wayne and Caroline Cutbirth), who will be releasing their debut CD in 2010, will also be among those featured in the upcoming country music profile.

Roberts will also be a presenter at the 43rd annual CMA Awards, which will be broadcast live on ABC Wed., Nov. 11 at 7pm CT from Nashville’s Sommet Center.

New CMT Specials: McGraw, Larry The Cable Guy

cmt

CMT is debuting specials this month from Tim McGraw and Larry The Cable Guy.

Invitation Only: Tim McGraw premieres Fri., Nov. 13 at 8 p.m. CT on CMT. Taped earlier this year in Nashville, the show features McGraw performing before a small studio audience, and taking questions from fans. Produced by High-Five Entertainment, the one-hour special includes McGraw’s hits such as “Something Like That,” “My Best Friend,” and “Cowboy In Me,” as well as new songs from his latest release Southern Voice.

Larry The Cable Guy’s Hula-Palooza Christmas Luau holiday special premieres Fri., Nov. 20 at 8 p.m. CT on CMT. The 90-minute variety show features musical performers Billy Currington and the Zac Brown Band. Other guests include Kenan Thompson (Saturday Night Live), Caroline Rhea, George Lindsey (The Andy Griffith Show), comedians Reno Collier and Jon Reep, Peter Oldring, Sara Erikson, the MuzikMafia’s Two Foot Fred, and returning favorites Tony Orlando and Angela Little MacKenzie (Reno 911). The DVD of the Hula-Palooza will be available from Jack Records/Warner Bros. Records beginning Tues., Nov. 24. It was produced by Parallel Entertainment and Taillight TV.

McGraw Debut Tops Country Chart

Tim

Ghosts and goblins will no doubt be out in force this weekend, but hopefully they’ll also drive consumers into their favorite stores to add Halloween music to their trick or treat treasure bags. Country sales gained momentum for the week ended 10/25/09 with debuts from Tim McGraw and Lyle Lovett who perhaps helped several other Top 10 titles to show some gains as well. According to Nielsen SoundScan a division of The Nielsen Company, McGraw topped country sales with over 136k units (12% digital), enough scans to also earn the Curb superstar a No. 2 position on the Top Current Albums all genre list. (McGraw’s last studio release generated first week sales of 325k in April 2007.) Other Current Country debuts included the irrepressible Lyle Lovett at No. 8 with almost 16k units (45% digital) and duo Bomshel which turned about 6,000 units (18% digital), enough to score No. 24.

2009 Country sales continue to keep pace with 2008, however the remaining nine weeks will pose challenges, for sure. Last year during Nov. we saw debuts from Toby Keith (91k), Rascal Flatts (89k), Brad Paisley (53k), Zac Brown Band (43k) and Trace Adkins (37k). Plus a sophmore debut from Taylor Swift that debuted with 592k units and passed the million unit mark as Nov. ended. That’s some stiff competition for this year’s Nov. debuts which will include an updated Fearless package from Swift and new releases from Carrie Underwood and Josh Turner.

The current year’s top selling country albums include Swift (1.9 million), Hannah Montana (1.6 million), Rascal Flatts (1 million) and Zac Brown Band (918k). Rascal Flatts’ Unstoppable holds the 2009 record for the largest first week country sales with 351k units sold. Of that 351k, 58k were digital—another record!

The big picture continues to show overall all-genre album sales down about 14% and country music sales YTD down a trim 1.5%. Unfortunately, based upon the release discussion above, it seems reasonable to expect the country stat will fall a bit deeper into negative territory by year end.

Big Kenny Solo Debut Coming Nov. 10

  Big Kenny met U2's Bono at a concert stop in Norman, Oklahoma, on October 18.  The two were introduced by a mutual friend due to their similar philanthropic passions.

Big Kenny met U2's Bono at a concert stop in Norman, Oklahoma on Oct. 18.

Big Kenny is prepping for the Nov. 10 release of his first solo album, The Quiet Times of a Rock and Roll Farm Boy. He visited the Today show on Monday and was set for Fox And Friends today (10/28) and Imus In The Morning tomorrow (10/29).

The lead single, “Long After I’m Gone,” can be downloaded for free at his Web site. Those who download it will be entered to win his personal iPhone and an 8GB custom flash drive. Winners will be announced during street week.

album

Fans who pre-order the Glotown/Love Everybody/Bigger Picture release will receive an instant download of the track “One More Time,” the “Long After I’m Gone” video, and more.

The project has ten songs written or co-written by Kenny and will be packaged in bio-degradable materials embedded with wildflower seeds suitable for planting. The album’s physical packaging is made of 100% compostable materials.

WB Artists Secure NASCAR Connection

wbWarner Music Nashville has entered a marketing partnership with the NASCAR Sprint Cup racing team, BAM Racing. Through the agreement, WMN artists will be promoted at NASCAR events, through artist tie-ins, sponsorships and promotional appearances covering racetrack video screens and event stages. Warner artists including Blake Shelton, Whitney Duncan, James Otto and Michelle Branch will also receive special positioning of their images and branding on BAM’s No. 49 racecar, show cars, transporter and pit equipment.

The first BAM promotional event with WMN artists is scheduled to take place on Feb. 6, 2010 at the Daytona International Speedway.

In other news from the Warner Bros. camp, the Nashville staff has new e-mail addresses. They can be reached at first.lastname@wmg.com.

CNet: Big Champagne’s Eric Garland; Media Meltdown

Eric Garland

Eric Garland

Big Champagne has been collecting data on file sharing for over 10 years and enjoyed a front row seat as the music and entertainment industry has grappled with the changes mandated by an evolving digital world. In this CNet.com interview by Greg Sandoval, CEO/co-founder Eric Garland turns his attention from music to movies to highlight some key differences between the two entertainment formats. One area specifically addressed is consumer expectations of ownership vs. renting for music and film and the challenges that represents for various business models.

Here’s some edited quotes: Click HERE for the complete story

Garland: The cute answer, which is probably the truest answer, is that growing a sector is a privilege and not a right. There is no right size. There is no correct or God-given size for any sector. Why do we get to make movies that cost $300 million to make? Because we have found venues where people will spend more than $300 million on the result. If people spend only $50 million then the price of a movie must be $49 million or less.

Garland: But I want to be clear that I was far more bearish on music than I am about Hollywood’s prospects… Customers would say “I want MP3s” and the music industry would say “We can’t do MP3s because we have to have (digital rights management).” The customer would say “deal breaker!” The customer said “I want to eat all I want at one low price that feels like free.” The music industry said “No my friend, it’s a dollar a track.” There was no point of agreement. Hollywood conversely, is very different.

Hollywood says we like DRM, we would like to extend to you this content but on terms that we control and the customer says “Yeah, that’s cool. I’ve always been good with that. I like renting.”… The music industry says “How come we can’t we do that?” The customer says “No, because it’s not my expectation. It’s not the contract that we’ve had all along.”

To visit BigChampagne’s MusicRow country format charts click here.

Twitter Usage Hits 19%

PewResearch has released new findings pertaining to Twitter usage. According to the research, 19% of Internet users are using Twitter or another similar service to “share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others.” Previous April 2009 surveys showed only 11%. The growth was fueled mostly by three distinct groups—social network website users, those connecting via mobile devices and users under age 44.

The report also concludes that owning a wireless internet device makes users “significantly more likely to Tweet” and is a factor in predicting whether someone uses Twitter or another status update service. “As of September 2009, 54% of internet users have a wireless connection to the internet via a laptop, cell phone, game console or other mobile device. Of those, 25% use Twitter or another similar service, up from 14% of wireless users in December 2008.”

According to a Harvard Business School report referenced in the research, “the top 10% of prolific Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets.”

For more details regarding age, other demo info, mobile access and more visit pewresearch.org.

1385-7

1385-3