Rolling Stones added to Sandy benefit concert

NEW YORK (AP) — The Rolling Stones have been added to the list of artists performing at the Superstorm Sandy benefit concert next week in New York City.

Next Wednesday's bill had already included Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, The Who, Alicia Keys, Kanye West and others.

Producers of the show said Friday they had already raised $30 million that will be distributed to storm victims in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut through the Robin Hood Foundation.

The show is sold out.

Producers also said they had no estimate of how many tickets had been bought by ticket brokers. They urged fans not to buy scalped tickets because the money won't go to storm relief.

The concert is dubbed "12-12-12." It will be held at Madison Square Garden.

Read More..

Dodgers meet with Time Warner Cable

The Dodgers are talking with Fox Sports and Time Warner Cable. Pictured, pitcher Joe Blanton. (Associated Press)

It looks like the Dodgers are checking out another pitcher.

After negotiating exclusively with Fox Sports on a new TV deal to keep the team on its Prime Ticket network, the Dodgers have taken a meeting with Time Warner Cable, which wants the team on its SportsNet and Deportes channels. The news was first reported Thursday night by Los Angeles Times Dodger beat writer Bill Shaikin.

Fox Sports is still seen as the likely favorite to land the team. Not only does it already have a long relationship with the Dodgers, it is offering more than $6 billion for a 25-year deal. Fox Sports' current contract is up at the end of next season and will cost about $40 million. That would more than double in 2014 under the contract being discussed.

But Time Warner Cable, which shelled out more than $3 billion to snag the Lakers away from Fox Sports, also has a big bank account for sports rights. The Dodgers are at least curious to hear what Time Warner Cable has to say.

Fox Sports had an exclusive window with the Dodgers, but that expired at the end of November. Now it up to the Dodgers to make an offer to Fox by today (Friday). Fox Sports then has a month to make up its mind.

If the Dodgers go with Fox Sports, a stake in Prime Ticket is likely to be part of the agreement. That may not be something Time Warner Cable can provide since the Lakers do not have an ownership stake in SportsNet. If the Dodgers did go with Time Warner Cable and receive a piece of the channel, the Lakers may want a stake as well.

The Dodgers could also decide to launch their own regional sports network.

News Corp.'s Fox Sports and Time Warner Cable's sports turf war is not limited to Los Angeles. In New York, Fox Sports bought a big stake in the Yes Network, the regional sports channel owned by the Yankees. In Cleveland, Fox is expected to buy a network owned by the Indians baseball team.

ALSO:

Dodgers talk TV with Time Warner Cable

Rising sports rights means bigger cable TV bills

NFL is friend and enemy to its television partners

Follow Joe Flint on Twitter @JBFlint.

Read More..

One toke over the line in Washington state, where pot is now legal

SEATTLE -- More than 100 hard-core tokers gathered under the Space Needle at the stroke of midnight Wednesday night to light one up in celebration of Washington state’s new marijuana law, which makes it legal for those 21 and older to possess an ounce or less of pot.

Voters in Washington and Colorado approved the nation’s first recreational marijuana laws in November, and though Colorado’s doesn’t take effect until January, the Washington initiative allows pot possession as of Thursday — though it’s still illegal for the moment to buy, sell or grow marijuana.

And smoking publicly remains against the law. That didn't stop the bandanna-clad crew puffing on pipes and joints under a chilly night sky early Thursday, and it appeared  the Seattle Police Department was not in the mood to arrest anyone on a night most seemed to take as celebratory.

"The Dude abides, and says, 'Take it inside!' " the SPD posted on its police blotter, under a photo of Jeff Bridges as "The Big Lebowski."

The department issued a bulletin to officers directing them "until further notice" to take no enforcement action, other than a verbal warning, against those violating the new law, known as Initiative 502.

"We had a city ordinance prior to this that said marijuana enforcement was our lowest enforcement priority," police department spokesman Jeff Kappel told the Los Angeles Times.

The state’s Liquor Control Board, tasked with setting up regulations to carry out the law, will over the next year draft a framework for licensing growers, handlers and retailers that initiative supporters hope will put black market drug dealers out of business.

The state's existing medical marijuana law remains unchanged.

"I think we have some ability to use our experience in regulating liquor, which is to me a similar public safety kind of product," the control board’s administrative director, Pat Kohler, said in an interview. "You want to ensure it doesn’t get in the hands of minors, and you want to make sure it doesn’t get in the wrong hands, where it can be used improperly."

State officials believe the hefty taxation on state-produced marijuana called for under the law could bring in $2 billion over the next five years.

Still unclear is what move may be next from the federal government, which still considers marijuana possession a felony.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle issued a warning from the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday that said it was taking its enforcement responsibility seriously.

"The department’s responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," the statement said. "Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that will go into effect on Dec. 6 in Washington state, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law."

Likewise, it said, bringing pot onto any federal property, including national parks and forests, military installations and courthouses, would continue to be a poor idea.

ALSO:

Outrage over N.Y. Post cover of man in train's path

Man in wheelchair charged in killing at Georgia gas station

James Holmes case: University releases thousands of emails

Read More..

Individuality takes center stage at Grammys

Fun. helped break up the sound of dance and electronic music on Top 40 radio with its edgy pop-rock grooves. Frank Ocean made a bold statement in R&B — with an announcement about his sexuality and with his critically revered, multi-genre album, "channel ORANGE." And Mumford & Sons continued to bring its folk-rock swag and style to the Billboard charts with its sophomore album.

They all were rewarded Wednesday when The Recording Academy announced the nominees for the 2013 Grammy Awards.

Those acts, who scored the most nominations with six each, were joined by typical Grammy contenders like Jay-Z and Kanye West, who also got six nominations. The Black Keys' drummer, Dan Auerbach, is also up for six awards, thanks to his nomination for producer of the year. His band earned five nods, along with R&B singer Miguel and jazz pianist Chick Corea.

"It feels like alternative music is back," said fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff. His band's gold-selling "Some Nights" is up for album of the year, competing with Black Keys' "El Camino," Mumford & Sons' "Babel," Jack White's "Blunderbuss" and "channel ORANGE," the major label debut from Ocean.

Fun. is nominated in all of the major categories, including best new artist, and record and song of the year for its breakthrough anthem "We Are Young."

Ocean, whose mother attended the nominations special, scored nods in three of the top four categories. His song "Thinkin Bout You" — which he originally wrote for another singer — will compete for record of the year with Black Keys' "Lonely Boy" and four No. 1 hits: Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," ''Somebody I Used to Know" by Gotye and Kimbra, Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" and "We Are Young" by fun.

Song of the year, too, features some No. 1 hits, including fun. and Clarkson's jams, as well as Carly Rae Jepsen's viral smash "Call Me Maybe." But then there's Ed Sheeran's "The A Team," a slow groove about a homeless prostitute, and Miguel's "Adorn," the R&B singer-songwriter's crossover hit.

"It's like one of those songs that wrote itself and I was the vessel," the 26-year-old said in an phone interview from New York City late Wednesday, where he performed with Trey Songz and Elle Varner.

While Miguel's excited to compete for song of the year, he's more thrilled about his sophomore album's nomination for best urban contemporary album, a new category that recognizes R&B albums with edge and multiple sounds.

"That's a huge complement to say that your entire body of work was the best of the year," he said of "Kaleidoscope Dream." ''That's the one that means the most to me. I'm really hoping maybe, just maybe."

Miguel, along with Gotye, Alabama Shakes and the Lumineers, is part of the pack of nominees who have showcased individuality and have marched to the beat of their own drum in today's music industry.

Though nominated albums by The Black Keys and Mumford & Sons are platinum-sellers, their songs are not regularly heard on Top 40 radio. Electronic and dance music, which has dominated radio airplay for a few years, were left out of the top awards this year. Also, One Direction — the boy band that released two top-selling albums this years and sold-out many arenas — was snubbed for best new artist.

Lionel Richie has one of the year's top-selling albums with his country collaboration collection, "Tuskegee," but he didn't earn any nominations. And Nicki Minaj, who released a gold-selling album this year and had a hit with "Starships," wasn't nominated for a single award.

Jay-Z and West dominated the rap categories, a familiar refrain at the Grammys. Nas scored four nominations, including best rap album for "Life Is Good." Jeff Bhasker, the producer behind fun.'s breakthrough album, also scored four nods.

Swift, who released her latest album, "Red," after the Grammy eligibility date, still scored three nominations, including two for "Safe & Sound" with The Civil Wars. Country acts were mainly left out of the major categories this year, though the genre usually has success at the Grammys. Aside from Swift's pop song competing for record of the year, there is 21-year-old Hunter Hayes, who is up for best new artist against fun., Ocean, Alabama Shakes and the Lumineers.

"I'm so proud to be, as you say, representing country music in the new artist category," said Hayes, who is also nominated for best country album and country solo performance. "I don't even feel worthy of saying that, but it's so cool for me to be able to say that."

Swift hosted the CBS special with LL Cool J and it featured performances by The Who and Maroon 5, who received multiple nominations.

The five-year-old nominations show spent its first year outside Los Angeles, making its debut in Nashville, Tenn., at the Bridgestone Arena. It marked the largest venue the show has been held in.

The 55th annual Grammy Awards take place Feb. 10 in Los Angeles.

___

Online:

http://www.grammys.com

___

AP Music Writer Chris Talbott and AP Writer Caitlin R. King in Nashville contributed to this report.

Read More..

Well: Running in Reverse

This column appears in the Dec. 9 issue of The New York Times Magazine.

Backward running, also known as reverse or retro running, is not as celebrated as barefoot running and will never be mistaken for the natural way to run. But a small body of science suggests that backward running enables people to avoid or recover from common injuries, burn extra calories, sharpen balance and, not least, mix up their daily routine.

The technique is simple enough. Most of us have done it, at least in a modified, abbreviated form, and probably recently, perhaps hopping back from a curb as a bus went by or pushing away from the oven with a roasting pan in both hands. But training with backward running is different. Biomechanically, it is forward motion’s doppelgänger. In a study published last year, biomechanics researchers at the University of Milan in Italy had a group of runners stride forward and backward at a steady pace along a track equipped with force sensors and cameras.

They found that, as expected, the runners struck the ground near the back of their feet when going forward and rolled onto the front of their feet for takeoff. When they went backward though, they landed near the front of their feet and took off from the heels. They tended to lean slightly forward even when running backward. As a result, their muscles fired differently. In forward running, the muscles and tendons were pulled taut during landing and responded by coiling, a process that creates elastic energy (think rubber bands) that is then released during toe-off. When running backward, muscles and tendons were coiled during landing and stretched at takeoff. The backward runners’ legs didn’t benefit from stored elastic energy. In fact, the researchers found, running backward required nearly 30 percent more energy than running forward at the same speed. But backward running also produced far less hard pounding.

What all of this means, says Giovanni Cavagna, a professor at the University of Milan who led the study, is that reverse running can potentially “improve forward running by allowing greater and safer training.”

It is a particularly attractive option for runners with bad knees. A 2012 study found that backward running causes far less impact to the front of the knees. It also burns more calories at a given pace. In a recent study, active female college students who replaced their exercise with jogging backward for 15 to 45 minutes three times a week for six weeks lost almost 2.5 percent of their body fat.

And it aids in balance training — backward slow walking is sometimes used as a therapy for people with Parkinson’s and is potentially useful for older people, whose balance has grown shaky.

But it has drawbacks, Cavagna says — chiefly that you can’t see where you’re going. “It should be done on a track,” he says, “or by a couple of runners, side by side,” one facing forward.

It should be implemented slowly too, because its unfamiliar motion can cause muscle fatigue. Intersperse a few minutes periodically during your regular routine, Cavagna says. Increase the time you spend backward as it feels comfortable.

The good news for serious runners is that backward does not necessarily mean slow. The best recorded backward five-kilometer race time is 19:31, faster than most of us can hit the finish line with our best foot forward.

Read More..

Small business hiring plans plunge to record low

The job outlook at America’s small businesses is the worst it’s ever been, according to new research.

Last month, 21% of small business owners said they expected to lower head count over the next six months — the highest percentage recorded by the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index since its launch in 2003. In July, the last time the data was compiled, just 10% of bosses said they planned to shrink employee ranks.

More than six in 10 owners said they would keep their workforce steady, while 17% said they intended to boost hiring. That’s down from the 20% of bosses who said the same in July.

On the Gallup index, the difference between the companies that plan to raise headcount and those that will lower it resulted in a score of -4. A score of 0 indicates equal percentages of businesses planning to increase and decrease hiring.

Historically, according to Gallup, the index tends to show a positive figure, even reaching double digits during good economic years. But a number of factors — including the looming "fiscal cliff," the effects of Superstorm Sandy and the recent election results — could be stoking Main Street’s pessimism.

Such a sour forecast suggests “the potential for a serious decline in jobs early next year,” according to Gallup, as well as capital spending reductions down the line.

More than a quarter of small business owners said they have cut back on the number of employees they have in the last 12 months, up from 21% who said the same in July and reaching the highest level in two years.

Just 14% of bosses said they increased head count.

ALSO:

Small businesses hiring and spending less but expecting more

Nearly half of Wall Street expects bigger bonuses, survey finds

More small businesses to give parties, bonuses, time off for holidays

Read More..

Dave Brubeck, jazz legend, dies at 91

Dave Brubeck, the jazz pianist, composer and bandleader behind the legendary Dave Brubeck Quartet, has died at age 91.

The death of Brubeck, whose quartet performed “Take Five,” which became a jazz standard and the bestselling jazz single of all time, was confirmed Wednesday by the Associated Press. Brubeck would have turned 92 Thursday.

According to the AP, Brubeck died of heart failure after being stricken while on the way to a cardiologist's  appointment in Connecticut.

Photos: Dave Brubeck | 1920 - 2012

Brubeck, born Dec. 6, 1920, in Concord, Calif., was the son of a cattle rancher. His mother was a classically trained pianist. Although he studied zoology at the College of the Pacific in Stockton, he came to love the music department. While serving in the Army during World War II, Brubeck formed the band the Wolfpack.  After the war in the Bay Area he experimented with music groups and styles.

In 1951 he and alto saxophonist Paul Desmond created what would become one of the most popular acts of West Coast jazz, the Dave Brubeck Quartet. The quartet's most famous piece was "Take Five," composed by Desmond, from the 1959 release "Time Out.

During his career, Brubeck also created standards such as "The Duke" and "In Your Own Sweet Way."

In a 2010 article on the occasion of Brubeck's 90th birthday, the Los Angeles Times interviewed the jazz legend and noted that although jazz may not occupy the center of the musical universe, even people who know little, if anything, about jazz know of Brubeck:

"Through more than 60 years of recordings and performances at colleges, concert halls, festivals and nightclubs all over the world, Brubeck put forth a body of work — as pianist, composer and bandleader — that is as accessible as it is ingenious, as stress-free as it is rhythmically emphatic, as open-hearted as it is wide-ranging."

Details of Brubeck's death coming soon at the Los Angeles Times.

[For the record 10:42 a.m. Dec. 5: An earlier version of this post credited Dave Brubeck with composing "Take Five." The work was composed by Paul Desmond. Thanks to Lincoln Harrison of CSUN for pointing it out.]

Read More..

Possible Wintour appointment gets London talking

LONDON (AP) — Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams ... and now Anna Wintour?

A report suggesting that the influential editor-in-chief of Vogue is one of the candidates being considered for the top U.S. diplomatic post in France or Britain has sparked spirited debate about her qualifications, exciting Britain's glamour-hungry tabloids but raising hackles at the conservative Daily Telegraph.

"Anna Wintour may be an enticing pick for a celebrity-fixated White House," wrote Nile Gardner in the Telegraph. "But she is eminently unsuitable for America's most prestigious diplomatic posting."

The possibility that the British-born Wintour would move into London's grand ambassadorial residence was raised several years ago by The Guardian newspaper — where her brother Patrick is a prominent journalist — and again this week by Bloomberg News, which based its report on "two people familiar with the matter."

Officials at the U.S. Embassy in London said they would not speculate on President Obama's eventual choice for a successor to Ambassador Louis Susman, who has announced plans to step down. White House officials have also refused to comment.

Officials caution that a decision is months away and would only follow the appointment of a new secretary of state to replace outgoing Hillary Clinton and would also include a thorough vetting process.

Guardian fashion writer Jess Cartner-Morley said the editor — the model for the imperious character played by Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada" movie — would be well-suited for an ambassadorial position.

"Wintour is generally acknowledged as whipsmart and extremely hard-working," she wrote. "She is enormously charismatic, a born networker and a formidable fundraiser."

Cartner-Morley also challenged the dismissive view that Wintour's many years in the fashion industry are not enough, citing recent ambassadorial choices of a retired investment banker and a retired car dealership owner.

"Is a career as one of the biggest global players in an industry estimated to be worth $900 billion to the world economy really so inferior and shallow by comparison?" the writer asked.

Vogue spokeswoman Megan Salt in New York said Wednesday said that Wintour is very happy with her present job.

Wintour raised $40 million for Obama's re-election through a number of campaigns and star-studded dinners she co-hosted with some of the most powerful people in the entertainment and fashion worlds. In August, she teamed up with movie mogul Harvey Weinstein for a fundraising dinner, after a successful party at Sarah Jessica Parker's Manhattan home in July.

The ambassadorial posts in France and Britain — formally known as the Court of St. James's — are among the most coveted in the diplomatic ranks. They also typically go to wealthy individuals willing to use personal funds to buttress the government-provided entertainment budget.

Wintour, 63, is best-known for her trademark glossy bob hairstyle, oversized sunglasses and haughty demeanor. Born in London, she started in fashion journalism at Harper's Bazaar and New York magazine, and after working at the helm of other glossies became editor-in-chief at U.S. Vogue in 1988.

Carne Ross, a former British diplomat who now runs a New York-based diplomatic advisory group, said Wintour's skills — "honed in the vicious world of the fashion industry" — would qualify her for a diplomatic posting.

Ross said a large part of an ambassador's job involves taking part in social gatherings, something Wintour would be comfortable with. Often most of the real political work is done by direct communications between the White House and the prime minister's office at Downing Street, he said.

"That diminishes the political significance of the ambassador's role," he said.

Mary Jo Jacobi, a presidential adviser during two Republican administrations, said Wintour would be an unusual choice but possibly an effective one.

"Vogue is a very successful, very large publication, and she has experience with big budgets and with challenging, difficult people," Jacobi said. "She knows how to marshal resources. And her job has involved a great deal of diplomacy."

Read More..

Willis Whitfield, Clean Room Inventor, Dies at 92

The enemy was very small but it was everywhere. World peace, medical advancement, iTunes — all would eventually be threatened.

Half a century ago, as a rapidly changing world sought increasingly smaller mechanical and electrical components and more sanitary hospital conditions, one of the biggest obstacles to progress was air, and the dust and germs it contains.

Stray particles a few microns wide could compromise the integrity of a circuit board of a nuclear weapon. Unchecked bacteria could quickly infect a patient after a seemingly successful operation. Microprocessors, not yet in existence, would have been destroyed by dust. After all, an average cubic foot of air contained three million microscopic particles, and even the best efforts at vacuuming and wiping down a high-tech work space could only reduce the rate to one million.

Then, in 1962, Willis Whitfield invented the clean room.

“People said he was a fraud,” recalled Gilbert V. Herrera, the director of microsystems science and technology at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque. “But he turned out to be right.”

Mr. Whitfield, who worked at Sandia from 1954 to 1984, died on Nov. 12 in Albuquerque. He was 92. The cause was prostate cancer, his wife, Belva, said.

His clean rooms blew air in from the ceiling and sucked it out from the floor. Filters scrubbed the air before it entered the room. Gravity helped particles exit. It might not seem like a complicated concept, but no one had tried it before. The process could completely replace the air in the room 10 times a minute.

Particle detectors in Mr. Whitfield’s clean rooms started showing numbers so low — a thousand times lower than other methods — that some people did not believe the readings, or Mr. Whitfield. He was questioned so much that he began understating the efficiency of his method to keep from shocking people.

“I think Whitfield’s wrong,” a scientist from Bell Labs finally said at a conference where Mr. Whitfield spoke. “It’s actually 10 times better than he’s saying.”

Willis James Whitfield was born in Rosedale, Okla., on Dec. 6, 1919. In addition to his wife, his survivors include his sons, James and Joe; a sister, Amy Blackburn; and a brother, Lawrence.

Mr. Whitfield became fascinated with electronics as a young man and received a two-year degree in the field after high school. He served in the Navy late in World War II, working with experimental electronic systems for aircraft. In 1952, he received a bachelor’s degree in physics and math from Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Tex.

By 1954 he was working at Sandia, which was involved in making parts for nuclear weapons and at the time was overseen by the Atomic Energy Commission. Mr. Whitfield’s duties soon included contamination control. By 1960, he had established his basic idea for the clean room.

“I thought about dust particles,” Mr. Whitfield told Time magazine in 1962. “Where are these rascals generated? Where do they go?”

The clean room was patented through Sandia, and the government shared it freely among manufacturers, hospitals and other industries.

Mr. Whitfield’s original clean room was only about six feet high, built as a small, self-contained unit. Some modern electronic devices, including the iPhone, are now built in China in huge clean rooms in structures that are more than a million square feet. Workers wear protective clothing, and other anticontamination methods have been added, but they still depend on Mr. Whitfield’s approach to suck up dust.

“Relative to these electronics, the particles are just massive boulders that would short out all of your electronics and make them not work,” Mr. Herrera said. “The core technology, just the cleaning part, hasn’t really changed a lot.”

Mrs. Whitfield said she was often been asked if her husband was a particularly fastidious man, and she always noted that he tended not to put his shoes away. He did live in a tidy house, though, and colleagues say he never tired of getting out a flashlight and shining it sideways across his coffee table to illuminate the prevalence of tiny dust particles that most people never notice.

Read More..

Netflix buys exclusive rights to Disney movies

Netflix Inc. has acquired exclusive U.S. rights to movies from Walt Disney Studios in a deal that catapults the Internet video-on-demand service into direct competition with pay TV giants such as HBO and Showtime.

The three-year agreement takes effect in 2016 and is a blow to the pay channel Starz, which currently has the rights to broadcast Disney movies, including its Pixar animated films and Marvel superhero pictures, about eight months after they are released in theaters.

Starz's sole remaining movie provider is now Sony Pictures. That partnership ends in 2016.

VIDEO: Disney buys Lucasfilm - Mickey meet Darth Maul

Disney has also agreed to give Netflix nonexclusive streaming rights to more of its older titles — including "Dumbo," "Pocahontas" and "Alice in Wonderland" — starting immediately.

Netflix's chief content officer, Ted Sarandos, called the deal "a bold leap forward for Internet television."

"We are incredibly pleased and proud this iconic family brand is teaming with Netflix to make it happen," he said.

Netflix stock soared on the news, rising $10.65, or 14%, to $85.65.

Shares in Starz's parent company, Liberty Media Corp., fell $5.49, or 5%, to $105.56.

Currently, Netflix has nonexclusive rights to movies from Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer via a deal with pay channel Epix, as well as an array of library titles from other studios. Its only exclusive movie rights come from independent studios such as Relativity Media and DreamWorks Animation. It also has a wide variety of television reruns.

Sarandos and Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings have long said the company wanted to get exclusive pay TV rights to films from one of Hollywood's six major studios to boost its online entertainment service.

PHOTOS: Disney without Pixar

However, Hastings has also at times downplayed the importance of new movies. Netflix previously had streaming rights to Disney and Sony movies via a deal with Starz. In January, investors expressed their concerns that the pending disappearance of those movies would hurt the service. Hastings said in a letter to investors that Disney films accounted for only 2% of domestic streaming and the loss would not be felt.

Since then, though, the Disney movie slate has become more attractive. At that time, Netflix did not have access to movies from Disney's Marvel superhero unit or the "Star Wars" titles from its pending acquisition of Lucasfilm Ltd.

The end of the Starz agreement accelerated a trend that has seen Netflix evolve into a television company, with reruns of shows such as "Mad Men" accounting for about two-thirds of the content streamed by users.

With several original programs launching next year, including the Kevin Spacey political drama "House of Cards," and a direct connection to a growing number of Internet-enabled televisions, Netflix is on the verge of standing on par with many TV networks.

Netflix charges $8 a month for its streaming service, while premium cable networks such as HBO cost $13 to $18 a month, and that's on top of a monthly bill for other channels that typically exceeds $50. It remains to be seen whether the addition of Disney products and more original programming could lead Netflix to increase its price.

PHOTOS: Hollywood back lot moments

The Netflix spending spree could continue, with Sarandos telling Bloomberg News on Monday that his company would bid for rights to Sony movies when its Starz deal expires.

Netflix might have a tougher time wresting away the rights to Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox or Universal Pictures releases from their current deals with HBO, which like Warner is part of Time Warner Inc. Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM are almost certain to stick with Epix, of which the trio are co-owners.

Read More..