CBC preps for big tsunami benefit
TORONTO (CP) - Rehearsals and other feverish preparations continued Wednesday at the CBC broadcasting centre for Thursday night's live telecast of Canada For Asia, a three-hour national benefit special to support relief efforts for the South Asian tsunami victims.
"It's a madhouse and it's wonderful," said CBC spokeswoman Ruth-Ellen Soles. "It's been political mayhem getting it together but we got it together," added singer Tom Cochrane. "It's precedent-setting, so this is history in the making."
The CBC has assembled a who's who of Canadian talent and a vast radio and TV network, having invited any interested private broadcasters to simulcast free of charge the program that will air from 7 to 10 p.m. local times.
In addition to CBC radio and TV, Newsworld, Country Canada and online at CBC.ca, the show will be carried on MuchMoreMusic, MTV Canada, CMT, the I Channel, Rogers Television's 30 cable access outlets in Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, Canadian Forces radio and television serving troops in Kabul, Bosnia, the Golan Heights and the Sinai, as well as some ethnic TV channels and private radio networks and stations. CTV and Global Television have turned down the CBC offer, however, citing their own benefit efforts, including CTV's concert telecast set for Jan. 29.
"It's too bad," said Cochrane, noting that the three major networks in Australia are co-operating on a similar undertaking. "But I understand. They have their own brand and this is a CBC-branded show and that's a reality."
Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, who will also be part of the on-air talent, said "there are a lot of things going on," but declined to suggest there's any rivalry amongst the networks, noting he had also been interviewed on CTV.
"It's just an example of the kind of unity that everybody's felt in doing whatever they can," he said.
Lifeson and Cochrane conceded that donor fatigue will set in eventually.
"It's only natural that it will, there's some other thing that will come along that will take our attention away from this," said Lifeson.
But, he added, it will take a long time to reinstate stability in the disaster region and vast sums of money will still be needed.
CBC has devoted two of its large studios to the ambitious special and final rehearsals were under way Wednesday afternoon and were to continue Thursday morning. Lifeson said because of logistical problems, Rush and several of the other bands that will be seen Thursday night have had to pre-tape their musical segments.
Other scheduled musical guests include Celine Dion, The Tragically Hip, Anne Murray and Bryan Adams (who will perform a duo together), Blue Rodeo, Barenaked Ladies, Sam Roberts, Bruce Cockburn, David Usher and Chad Kroeger from Nickelback.
Cochrane said Shania Twain was in New Zealand and expressed her regrets but would be making a "sizeable" donation.
Non-musical celebrities to make appearances include Mike Myers, Wayne Gretzky, Eric McCormack, David Suzuki, Dave Thomas, Alex Trebek, members of the Kids in the Hall and Royal Canadian Air Farce comedy troupes and hurdler Perdita Felicien.
Suanne Kelman, acting chair of the school of journalism at Toronto's Ryerson University, admitted to being a little uncomfortable with the way broadcasters and pop entertainers are rushing to get competing benefit concerts on the air and wondered if some of them aren't just grandstanding.
"It's like a charity ball. I don't understand what you need the ball for."
She said the public has already been very good about responding to the disaster with generous donations and no one should be surprised if old media rivalries haven't been swept away by the common cause.
"Egos don't get parked at the door."
Kelman said there are two reasons why the public has been so taken with the tsunami disaster, apart from the obvious one that the TV news footage of the killer waves, garnered mostly from tourist camcorders, has been so dramatic. For one thing, she said, it is a natural event, with no one to blame, and secondly, unlike the Sudan, for example, a lot of Canadians have relatives in places like Sri Lanka and Somalia and many others have vacationed in the region's hard-hit tourist zones.
Also, she added, the event seems ready-made for an overall sense of unease and even doom that people feel today about the shape of their planet, as reflected in such Hollywood disaster-themed entertainment as The Day After Tomorrow.
"People are deeply worried about our relationship with the natural world," she said. "There's the global warming issue, there's fear of pandemics. This is the kind of thing we're already sort of geared up for."
She said many people seem poised almost fatalistically, waiting for for the great disaster that will punish us all.
"I'm not even sure for what, but there is this kind of fear that it's out to get us."
Proceeds collected from Canada For Asia will go to World Vision, the Canadian Red Cross, UNICEF, Oxfam Canada, Care Canada, Save the Children Canada and various community groups recognized by CIDA as bona fide recipients. Donors can call 1-866-334-ASIA or contribute online at www.Canadaforasia.ca.
Boo Who?
This time it wasn't the acid reflux. Reality TV star Ashlee Simpson says technical difficulties hindered her live performance at last week's Orange Bowl halftime show, leading to a chorus of boos from the crowd of more than 70,000.
''There were no ear monitors when we went onstage. No floor monitors,'' Simpson told MTV.com. ''And trying to sing in a stadium where you can't hear yourself is kinda hard.'' Still, she apologized to those in the audience that didn't enjoy her singing.
Of course, in Simpson's mind, her actual performance — a rendition of the single ''La La'' that devolved into an off-key screech in its closing moments — might not have been the real problem anyway.
''Maybe they were booing at me, maybe they were booing at the halftime show 'cause the whole thing sucked,'' she said. ''I was facing [the Oklahoma Sooners], and I was rooting for USC, and they played a clip of it, so maybe it was that those people didn't like me. You never know.''
Or perhaps the Orange Bowl audience had some leftover bad will toward Simpson dating back to last October, when the singer was caught using a pre-recorded vocal track during a Saturday Night Live gig. After she fled the stage, Simpson blamed her band, then switched stories and explained that a bout of acid reflux had left her without a singing voice that evening.
Still, if you’re holding your breath for a new and improved Simpson as 2005 progresses, it might be time to let out a cleansing sigh. ''I'm not perfect and I'm not going to be perfect,'' Simpson offered. ''And I look forward to continuing to not listen to what one person says and making good music.''
Baseball Players, Owners OK Steroid Tests
NEW YORK - Baseball players and owners have reached an agreement on a tougher steroid-testing program and plan to announce it Thursday, The Associated Press has learned.
The agreement will include penalties for first-time offenders, an AL player said on condition of anonymity. Other details, such as the frequency of tests, were not immediately available.
Commissioner Bud Selig, asked about a steroid agreement at the owners meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz., declined comment but did say: "We'll have announcements to make tomorrow." Gene Orza, the union's chief operating officer, also declined comment.
"I'm glad we could come to an agreement," said Chicago Cubs pitcher Mike Remlinger, who was briefed on the deal Wednesday. "It was the right thing to do. I think it was something that needed to be done, and I think players understand it needed to be addressed."
The sides spent the past month negotiating the deal after the union's executive board gave its staff approval to pursue an agreement on a more rigorous testing program. Some in Congress threatened to take action unless baseball reached an agreement on its own.
"I think it's going to entail more testing, some out-season testing, yes, more in-season random testing and stiffer penalties," said New York Mets pitcher Tom Glavine, a senior member of the union.
Bob DuPuy, baseball's chief operating officer, said he anticipated confirmation of a deal by the end of the owners' meeting.
"It will be wonderful once it's done, but I don't want to pre-empt any announcement, and I certainly don't want to pre-empt all the work the commissioner has done on this, so I'll reserve my comments until after it's announced," he said.
Tony Clark, another senior union leader, said public questions about steroid use had caused players to think about a tougher agreement.
"The integrity of our game was beginning to come under fire, and there are too many great players, past and present, that deserve to be celebrated for their ability to play this game at a very high level," the free-agent first baseman said in an e-mail to the AP. "If a stricter drug policy brings that level of appreciation back, we felt that it was worth pursuing."
Players and owners agreed to a drug-testing plan in 2002 that called for survey-testing for steroids the following year. Because more than 5 percent of tests were positive, random testing with penalties began last year. Each player was tested for steroids twice over a single five- to seven-day period.
A first positive test resulted in treatment. If a player tested positive again, he would have been subject to a 15-day suspension.
No player was suspended for steroid use in 2004.
Since the 2002 agreement, baseball has come under increased scrutiny for steroid use. Barry Bonds, Jason Giambi and Gary Sheffield testified before a federal grand jury in December 2003. Giambi and Sheffield admitted using steroids, according to reports by the San Francisco Chronicle. Sheffield said he wasn't aware when he used the substances that they contained steroids.
Bonds, according to the paper, admitted using substances prosecutors say contained steroids.
"Everybody believed that the program we had in place was having an effect and definitely it was doing what it designed to do," Glavine said, "but having said that, with the stuff that was going on and whatnot, it forced us to take a look at revising it or making it a little tougher. It was not a question anymore if that agreement was going to be enough. It was a question to address some of the new issues that came to light and get our fans to believe we were doing everything we could to make the problem go away 100 percent."
Apple Enters Value Market with Cheap iPod, Mac
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. on Tuesday moved to make its products more affordable for the masses, unveiling its cheapest Macintosh computer ever and a version of its iPod digital music player for under $100.
Apple co-founder and Chief Executive Steve Jobs, announcing the new products at the Macworld show in San Francisco, also said Apple had sold 4.5 million units of the various models of its blockbuster iPod in the 2004 holiday quarter.
Apple has traditionally aimed for high-end markets both for its Mac computers and the iPod, eschewing discount models. But the company reversed that course in one fell swoop Tuesday with the $99 "iPod shuffle" and the $499 "Mac mini."
The new products expand Apple's four-year-old "digital hub" and could broaden Apple's market considerably, analysts said.
But rumor sites had anticipated the new products, and Apple shares fell nearly 4 percent.
"I think that the expectations were about as high as they could get for it," said Marc Pado, U.S. market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald & Co.
The iPod sales were also in the range of Wall Street expectations.
SMALLER THAN A PACK OF GUM
The "iPod shuffle," is shaped like a pack of gum with no display screen. The smaller one, with 512 megabyte of memory, holds about 120 songs and costs $99. The larger one holds 1 gigabyte, or about 240 songs, and costs $149.
The lack of a screen may discourage some consumers, but it is too soon to tell, said Tim Bajarin, an analyst with Creative Strategies. "It's designed for use with the PC and the assumption that people will use their personal computer to manage their music anyway."
The new iPod falls into a category of music players that use "flash memory," chips like those found in digital cameras and some portable media players, rather than the hard drives used in current iPods.
Jobs said the iPod holds a 65 percent share of the entire market for portable digital music players, up from only 31 percent a year earlier.
Given that sort of consumer support, Jobs said a number of car companies like Mercedes-Benz USA, Volvo and Ferrari would integrate the iPod line into their car stereo systems.
DISCOUNT COMPUTER
The "Mac mini" will come in $499 and $599 models, depending on processor speed and hard-drive size. Weighing less than 3 pounds and under 2 inches tall, the mini connects to televisions as well as PC monitors.
Financial analysts, alerted to the mini by rumor sites now being sued by Apple, have said it would appeal to iPod users on the Windows operating system.
"It's very clear that these were designed to make the Mac platform more accessible to a broader audience," Bajarin said. "They want to entice more people either to switch, or, which is even more intriguing, to convince traditional PC users to make the Mac the center of their creative, digital work."
Some had doubted Apple, which has less than 5 percent of the worldwide PC market, would go the lower-end route.
"What we are doing is adding a product that reaches even more people," said Phil Schiller, Apple's head of worldwide marketing. "Consideration of the Mac is a lot higher than it has been in some time."
Apple also unveiled iLife 05, its suite of software to manage music, create movies, DVDs and manage and edit digital photographs; and iWork, which contains an updated version of its Keynote presentation software; and a new word processing software program called Pages.
The news appeared to have gone over well, as Apple's online store was briefly unavailable after the news broke.
Shares of Apple fell $4.40, or 6.4 percent, to close at $64.56 on Nasdaq. The stock more than tripled in 2004.
Apple Profit Quadruples on iPods
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. on Wednesday posted a quarterly profit that blew past even the highest Wall Street forecasts on skyrocketing sales of its iPod digital music players and the highest number of Macintosh computers sold in more than four years.
Shares of Apple, which issued a forecast for the current quarter that was above consensus analyst expectations, jumped 13 percent in after-hours trading.
The rising iPod sales are now clearly translating into higher sales of the company's signature Macintosh computers, a trend that's been dubbed the "halo effect," analysts and Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said.
"In selling more than 1 million Macs, we're clearly seeing it," Jobs said in a telephone interview. "We're thrilled."
Apple, based in Cupertino, California, said net income for its fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 25 nearly quintupled to $295 million, or 70 cents a share, from $63 million, or 17 cents a share, a year ago.
That sailed beyond the high end of analysts' expectations, 55 cents, by a wide margin, according to Reuters Estimates, and both net income and revenue set records.
"Apple is a name in technology that at least for the next couple of quarters will have the wind at its back," said Owen Fitzpatrick, head of the U.S. Equity Group for Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management.
Shares of Apple, which on Tuesday unveiled a smaller, cheaper iPod that starts at $99 and a slim Mac without a display starting at $499, more than tripled last year.
Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said the company sold 337,000 of its all-in-one iMac G5 computers in the quarter. Barry Jaruzelski, lead partner in Booz Allen Hamilton's global technology and electronics practice, said that the iMac's average selling price rose to $1,359 from $1,105 a year ago.
"The halo effect is real," Jaruzelski said.
Revenue rose 74 percent to $3.49 billion from $2.01 billion. Analysts had forecast revenue of $3.14 billion.
Apple said it shipped 4.58 million iPods in the holiday-sales-fueled quarter, compared with 2 million in the previous quarter.
Sales of iPod, songs from Apple's online music store and iPod accessories accounted for 40 percent of overall revenue.
Since their introduction in October 2001, Apple has sold more than 10 million iPods. "It took Sony six years to sell 6 million Walkmans," Jaruzelski said.
Apple's shares climbed to $74 in after-hours trade on the Inet electronic brokerage from their close of $65.46 on Nasdaq.
"There's no question that this was a positive report -- it shows the interest in the iPod -- in particular before the Christmas holiday season -- but going into 2005 and the latter half of '05 I don't know if that interest level will be sustained," said Kevin Beadles, managing director of institutional equity trading at Wedbush Morgan.
For its fiscal second quarter, the company forecast revenue of about $2.9 billion and earnings of about 40 cents a share. Analysts on average have expected earnings of 33 cents.
Oppenheimer said Apple retail stores had a good quarter and that the company plans to end 2005 with a total of 125 stores, up from 101 currently.
Analysts said that Apple is selling computers at twice the industry growth rate, countering long-held skepticism that Apple could gain market share.
"Between the announcements at Macworld yesterday and the results today, it's really about much more than just the iPod," said Darcy Travlos, an analyst with Caris & Co.