newsmakers

newsmakers

Globes viewership highest in a decade

NEW YORK

The Nielsen ratings company says the Golden Globes awards ceremony hit a 10-year high in viewership.

According to national figures released Monday, the NBC telecast, with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler co-hosting for a second year, was seen Sunday by 20.9 million viewers. That’s an audience growth of 1.2 million viewers (or 6 percent) over last year’s show.

NBC said the telecast currently is the season’s most-watched awards program, topping the CMA Awards, Emmy Awards, American Music Awards and People’s Choice Awards.

Fey and Poehler are set to return to the Globes in 2015.

For the fifth year, the Globes were televised live to all time zones, and some Western markets also carried an encore telecast after the live coverage, which began at 5 p.m. Pacific time.

Prince to appear on ‘New Girl’ after game

PASADENA, Calif.

Fox’s post-Super Bowl party will include Prince making a guest appearance on the comedy “New Girl.”

In an episode of the show that will air directly after the big game next month, Zooey Deschanel’s character is invited to a mansion party hosted by Prince — a party her friends are determined to crash.

Fox also will air an episode of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” that night after “New Girl,” with the show fresh off its Golden Globe award for best comedy.

The Super Bowl traditionally is the most-watched TV event of the year, so the time slots after it are considered prime real estate.

Renovations begin on Tina Turner’s school

BROWNSVILLE, Tenn.

Renovations are beginning on a schoolhouse in West Tennessee that once was attended by singer Tina Turner.

The school building was moved in 2012 from Turner’s hometown of Nutbush to the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville.

The Jackson Sun reports the Delta Heritage Center is overseeing the restoration process for Flag Grove School.

The group says it will use $150,000 in donations to restore the school, which was built in 1889 and originally was an African-American subscription school. It closed in the 1960s.

When the restoration is completed, the school will house memorabilia from Turner’s career as well as historical information about her education provided by the school.

White expelled from NY Film Critics Circle

NEW YORK

Film critic Armond White has been expelled from the New York Film Critics Circle after reportedly heckling “12 Years a Slave” director Steve McQueen at the group’s annual awards banquet.

The critics convened Monday and voted the CityArts critic out of the group. Entertainment Weekly’s Owen Gleiberman is a member of the group. He confirmed White’s expulsion in an online post.

White reportedly yelled expletives at McQueen when he accepted the award for best director at last week’s New York Film Critics Awards.

He was quoted as loudly calling McQueen an “embarrassing doorman and garbage man.”

White disputed that in an email to the Associated Press last week, calling the charges a “barrage of lies.” Known for his contrarian reviews, White lambasted “12 Years a Slave” as “torture porn.”

Associated Press