ONE DIRECTION’S FILM LIKELY TO GO DIRECT TO NO. 1

It’s a rare occurrence when a documentary winds up as the No. 1 film at the box office, but that’s what is likely to occur this Labor Day weekend with the debut of Morgan Spurlock’s (Supersize Me) 3D documentary One Direction: This Is Us. Tracking studies indicate that the Sony/TriStar movie, which features interviews and […]

SNUBBED AT GRAMMYS, ONE DIRECTION NAMED MTV’S ARTIST OF YEAR

Earlier this week the British boyband One Direction was completely shut out of nominations for next year’s Grammy awards. But on Thursday MTV made up for that snub by selecting them as the network’s 2012 Artist of the Year. The network pointed out that they were “the clear choice” given their two No. 1 CDs, […]

GRAMMY VOTERS SNUB TOP POP STARS, RATINGS FALL

Wednesday night’s fifth annual Grammy Nominations Concert Special on CBS again produced lackluster ratings, drawing just 5.4 million viewers, down 4 percent from 5.6 million last year. But the nominations themselves may foreshadow deeper ratings drops for the Grammy Awards telecast itself on Feb. 10. Completely ignored were some of the year’s biggest recording sensations, […]

HUNGER GAMES SOUNDTRACK LANDS AT NO. 1

According to conventional industry wisdom, nobody’s interested in soundtrack albums anymore. What people want are single records that can quickly be download onto their iPods from Apple’s iTunes store. Tell that to the producers of The Hunger Games CD, which sold 175,000 copies last week, according to Nielsen Soundscan. And Taylor Swift’s “Safe and Sound,” […]

HAS ONE DIRECTION SIGNED WITH NICKELODEON? YES, SAYS NICK; NO SAYS ONE

A member of the hot new British boy band One Direction has denied rumors that Nickelodeon channel has signed the group to a development deal days after the its first CD debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. “There’s no sign of a TV show in the pipeline,” said 20-year-old Niall Horan. The […]

BRITISH X FACTOR BAND DEBUTS IN U.S. AT NO. 1

A five-member “boy band” that was a third-place finisher on the British version of The X Factor has accomplished what no other British pop group has — not the Beatles, not the Rolling Stones, not Led Zeppelin, not Queen. One Direction has become the first British group to debut at No. 1 on Billboard‘s album […]