Associations — Award and showcase submissions for 2011 East Coast Music Week being held in Charlottetown, PEI April 13-17, are now open. Full details and submissions can be made through www.ecma.com
Digital Media — News Corp is merging its digital ad platform Fox Audience Network with social media site MySpace. The Digital Media Group, the division that houses MySpace, has seen losses for the quarter increase, from $136m in 2009, to $174m–a drop in the bucket for the global media Corp which earlier in the month announced a year-end profit of $2.5bn (compared with a $3.4bn loss in ’09) …
Apple Inc. is in discussions with major TV companies to offer 99-cent rentals of TV shows. An agreement is close with Disney to rent some ABC programs but resistance to the deal is comng from CBS Corp., General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal, News Corp., and Viacom Inc. [WSJ]
Bounce Mobile UK has launched Fireplayer, a music apps for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch that lets fans interact, remix and share music with friends on Facebook …
Mobile Media – WS Journal reports half of the Fortune 100 companies are testing or deploying iPads. Advantages include mobility and a lower cost over many laptops …
Has Pandora beaten terrestrial radio at its own game on the Internet? The personalized internet radio service rolls out a new feature today that allows listeners to create niche-genre radio channels, such as Today’s Country, Today’s Hip Hop and Classic Rock. Pandora is unavailable in Canada due to copyright restrictions …
Online ads are making their way onto game consoles and digital books, with the possibility of changing the way these products are sponsored and consumed. The ads, which can either open up to full-screen video or link to a destination page, are structured around a daily rate rather than on a cost-per-click [Marketing Vox] …
HarperCollins Children’s Books kids books division has launched two 99-cent apps for the iPhone and iPad, available through its app store Curious Puppy and iTunes
Apple is applying for a spyware patent that among other things will allow it to decommission gadgets and hardware that have their proprietary DRM locks tinkered with [EFF]
Biz -- Playlist.com has filed for bankruptcy protection following a dispute with UMG over copyright clearances. The digital music service reported that it has $2.2m in assets, $203k in cash and owes the four largest record companies a combined $25m with UMGÂ the largest creditor owed $16m [WMJ]
Music – Columbia releases 2 deluxe Dylan retrospectives on Oct. 19. The Witmark Demos features 47 previously unreleased acoustic demos recorded by the troubadour before he had turned 24 …
Warner/Chappell Music has extended its worldwide publishing deal with founding Roger Waters. The admin deal includes songs he wrote or co-wrote with Pink Floyd and his subsequent solo output …
Sailors and Songs, a musical celebration of the Canadian Naval Centennial, premieres Aug. 28 on CBC. Maritimes. New Scotland Pictures produced, Moya Walsh directed with musical direction by Declan O’Doherty …
Halifax Pop Explosion has announced the complete festival line-up over 135 bands performing at 18+ venues, Oct. 19-23 … The Rural Albera Advantage will be embarking on a 9-city tour of Canada’s West Coast, Oct. 27-Nov. 6 with a new Paper Bag Records’ album due early in the new year …
Monday’s Black Eyed Peas show at Edmonton’s Rexall Place– a near sellout and the last stop on their Canadian tour — was a boombastic celebration of funk, hip-hop, sassy pop, golden oldies, high-tech gadgets and intergalactic costumes, with inspiration drawn from RoboCop, Transformers, sci-fimovies and France’s robot duo, Daft Punk, Sandra Sperounes writes in the Edmonton Journal …And in Vancouver, Lady Gaga earned raves [The Province, CTV]  for her 2 SRO shows at the Rogers Arena, Aug. 23/24
In the early 1950s, when a music-loving teenager from Kenner, LA was tuning in to radio station WBOK and he heard the excitable deejay, Okey Dokey Smith exclaim over and over, “Lawdy Miss Clawdy!†he knew he was onto something. The teen was Lloyd Price and now, nearly 60 years after Lawdy Miss Clawdy became a smash hit for Price the song is the to be re-born as the centrepiece for a musical to be staged in New Orleans in 2011
Obit – Longtime CFUN Vancouver GM Ronald Carabine, aged 86
Obit – Former president of the Songwriters Guild of America and a successful songwriter in his own right, George David Weiss, who wrote The Lion Sleeps Tonight and What A Wonderful World, aged 89
