NEWSMAKERS

NEWSMAKERS

Prince’s sister says musician had no will

MINNEAPOLIS

Prince’s sister says the superstar musician had no known will and filed paperwork Tuesday asking a Minneapolis court to appoint a special administrator to oversee his estate.

Tyka Nelson, Prince’s only surviving full sibling, said in the court filing that immediate action was necessary to manage Prince’s business interests after his death last week. The size of Prince’s fortune is unclear, though he made hundreds of millions of dollars for record companies, concert venues and others during his career, and his estate included about $27 million in property.

Nelson asked that Bremer Trust, a corporate trust company, be named administrator of the estate. The court documents say Bremer Bank provided financial services to Prince for many years. The court didn’t immediately rule.

Prince owned a dozen properties in Minnesota, most of it undeveloped land and some houses for relatives, worth about $27 million, according to public records. He also sold more than 100 million albums, according to Warner Music Group. And Pollstar, a concert-industry magazine, said that in the years that his tours topped the charts – 10 years over four decades of performing – the tours raked in $225 million in ticket sales.

But what remained in Prince’s hands is less than the sum of ticket and album sales, given payments to record labels, staff and to cover other expenses.

If he left no will or trust, divvying up his fortune could get complicated, said Susan Link, a top Minnesota probate lawyer. Link said attorneys will need to get Prince’s siblings to agree on asset distribution, and that it could get extremely complicated if they don’t.

‘Game of Thrones’ opens with bang

NEW YORK

The fantasy favorite “Game of Thrones,” the most-popular series in HBO’s history, returned for its sixth season with what may or may not be the show’s most-watched episode ever.

It all depends on which Nielsen company measurement you look at.

Nielsen estimated that 7.94 million people watched “Game of Thrones” at 9 p.m. Sunday, when the episode first aired. That would make it the third most-popular episode of the series, behind the season five finale (8.11 million) and the first episode of last season (8 million).

Add in people who watched the show’s first two repeats, along with those who streamed the episode within 24 hours, and viewership jumps to 10.7 million, HBO said.

CBS easily won the week in prime time, averaging 7.8 million viewers. NBC had 5.3 million viewers, ABC had 4.7 million, Fox had 3 million, Univision had 2 million, the CW had 1.31 million, Telemundo had 1.27 million and ION Television had 1.25 million.

Associated Press