UPDATE 1-Live Nation Chairman Azoff resigns; Liberty buys shares

n" readability="52">Dec 31 (Reuters) - Irving Azoff, a legendary music manager who helped make stars out of The Eagles and Christina Aguilera, resigned as chairman of Live Nation Entertainment and sold some of his stake in the concert promotion giant to John Malone's Liberty Media Corp.

Azoff is expected to start a new talent management agency, and is expected to take some of his former clients with him, according to a person familiar with his exit. Those acts haven't been identified.

Liberty Media said in a statement that its acquisition of some of Azoff's shares increased the company's stake to 26.4 percent.

Azoff sold 1.7 million shares Live Nation to Liberty. He owned 7.6 million shares, or 3.9 percent of the company in June, according to the company's proxy statement.

Live Nation's shares closed up 0.4 percent at $9.31 a share on Monday.

Azoff's contract ends in 2014, according to the company's proxy statement. Last week, Live Nation said it renewed Chief Executive Michael Rapino's contract for five years.

Azoff was chief executive of Ticketmaster in 2010 when the ticketing company merged with Live Nation. He was named executive chairman at the time of the merger, and chairman of the board the following year.

He retained his position as chief executive of Front Line, his management company, which was part of the merger.

"After successfully overseeing the integration of Live Nation and Ticketmaster over the past two years, my job is done," the 65-year-old music executive said in a statement.

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Zynga carries out planned games shutdown, including "Petville"

The corporate logo of Zynga Inc, the social network game development company, is shown at its headquarters in San Francisco, California April 26, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith

By Malathi Nayak

SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Dec 31, 2012 3:09pm EST

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Social games publisher Zynga Inc confirmed on Monday that it has carried out 11 of the planned shutdowns of 13 game titles, with "Petville" being the latest game on which it pulled the plug.

Zynga in October said it would shut down 13 underperforming titles after warning that its revenues were slowing as gamers fled from its once-popular titles published on the Facebook platform in large numbers and sharply revised its full-year outlook.

The San Francisco-based company announced the "Petville" shutdown two weeks ago on its Facebook page. All the 11 shutdowns occurred in December.

The 11 titles shut down or closed to new players include role-playing game "Mafia Wars 2," "Vampire Wars," "ForestVille" and "FishVille."

"In place of 'PetVille,' we encourage you to play other Zynga games like 'Castleville,' 'Chefville,' 'Farmville 2,' 'Mafia Wars' and 'Yoville,'" the company told players on its 'PetVille' Facebook page. "PetVille" players were offered a one-time, complimentary bonus package for virtual goods in those games.

"Petville," which lets users adopt virtual pets, has 7.5 million likes on Facebook but only 60,000 daily active users, according to AppData. About 1,260 users commented on the game's Facebook page, some lamenting the game's shutdown.

Zynga has said it is shifting focus to capture growth in mobile games. It also applied this month for a preliminary application to run real-money gambling games in Nevada.

Zynga is hoping that a lucrative real-money market could make up for declining revenue from games like "FarmVille" and other fading titles that still generate the bulk of its sales.

Zynga shares were up 1 percent at $2.36 in afternoon trade on Monday on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting By Malathi Nayak; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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Gun groups seek boycott of newspaper that named permit-holders

By Noreen O'Donnell

NEW YORK | Mon Dec 31, 2012 4:28pm EST

NEW YORK Dec 31 (Reuters) - Gun-owner groups called on Monday for an advertising boycott of a suburban New York newspaper that is under fire for publishing the names and addresses of pistol permit-holders in New York City suburbs.

A map published in the White Plains, New York-based Journal News last week listed thousands of permit-holders in Westchester and Rockland counties, just north of New York City.

The newspaper has said it is compiling yet more names of pistol permit-holders in suburban Putnam County that it intends to publish as well.

"This wanton act by the Journal News has put in harm's way tens of thousands of lawful license-holders," the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association said in a statement on Monday.

"This action can only be viewed as an attempt to intimidate and bully lawful, gun-owning citizens," it said.

The Rifle & Pistol Association, joined by the Westchester County Firearm Owners Association, said it was urging its members to ask companies to stop advertising in The Journal News and its parent company, Gannett Co. Inc, until the map is removed from the newspaper's website.

The gun owners say they will boycott companies that continue to advertise in the suburban newspaper.

"The Journal News has decided to blame the pistol license-holders in the counties that it serves for violent crime in the area and they refuse to take down the list with the searchable map," said Jacob Rieper, vice president of legislative and political affairs for the Rifle & Pistol Association. "We have had people complaining about it almost non-stop."

The Rifle & Pistol Association said it represents about 40,000 members statewide, including the Westchester group, and it listed 52 local and national companies that advertise with the newspaper.

"I don't think I'm doing anything wrong by simply advertising in a local newspaper," said Eros Corpus, owner of Batteries Plus in Greenburgh, New York, a business on the boycott list.

"I'm definitely caught in the middle. I don't want to be caught in politics," Corpus said.

The call for a boycott follows a week of complaints from outraged gun owners who besieged the newspaper's website and social media sites with critical responses to the map, first published on Dec. 24.

The map was published in response to the Dec. 14 shooting deaths of 26 children and adults at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, the newspaper's editors said.

Critics said it endangered law-abiding gun enthusiasts, law enforcement officials, battered women and others. Some have retaliated by posting reporters' and editors' addresses and other personal information online.

The Journal News "exposed us and our families to possible harm," said Scott Sommavilla, president of the Firearm Owners Association. "Some gun owners are showing them how the shoe fits on the other foot and how it feels."

Some business owners on a list circulated by the gun enthusiast groups said they were upset.

At Croton Auto Park, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, owner Louis Giordano said he already got an email from a longtime customer threatening to stop buying cars from him.

Giordano said he has advertised in the newspaper for 20 years and disagreed strongly with publication of the map.

"I'm conflicted with that," he said. "This is going on in my mind today as we speak."

Janet Hasson, president and publisher of The Journal News Media Group, said in a statement last week the newspaper had expected publication of the permit-holders' identities would be controversial.

"But we felt sharing information about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings," she said.

No editors at the newspaper could be reached for comment on Monday.

Some 44,000 people were licensed to own pistols in the three counties, the newspaper said. Owners of rifles and shotguns do not need permits, the newspaper said.

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Award buoys U.S. novelist Elmore Leonard to write again

By Kurt Anthony Krug

DETROIT | Mon Dec 31, 2012 12:25pm EST

DETROIT Dec 31 (Reuters) - As he struggled writing his forthcoming book, "Blue Dreams," best-selling American author Elmore Leonard thought his 47th novel would probably be his last.

Then, inspiration came in the form of a medallion.

Leonard won the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in November, joining such U.S. literary luminaries as Toni Morrison, John Updike, Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer.

Now, the award has given Leonard, 87, the vigor and motivation to write at least two more books, he told Reuters in an interview at his home in Bloomfield Village, Michigan, in suburban Detroit.

"I don't have any reason to quit," he said. "I still enjoy writing."

Leonard is best known for dry, witty dialogue in his crime novels and Westerns, which include 1990's "Get Shorty" and 1996's "Out of Sight" - both of which were adapted into successful and critically acclaimed films.

He also served as an executive producer on FX's Emmy-winning TV crime drama "Justified," which is based on Leonard's novels "Pronto," "Riding the Rap" and a short story "Fire in the Hole."

After six decades of writing successful stories, novels and screenplays, Leonard now has earned respect in the same breath as America's most heralded writers of his time.

"I recognized all the names of the previous winners," Leonard said showing off the award's medallion while puffing on a cigarette. "I was very happy about it. ... The prestige, to me, is worth the most ... It's the biggest."

'I'll HAVE HIM SHOT'

Leonard's crime novels will be published in a multi-volume set by the Library of America in 2014. The publisher keeps important American literature in print permanently.

"Blue Dreams," which is scheduled for a 2013 release, is about bull rider Kyle McCoy who is looking for an Indian bull rider who has been unlawfully detained by border police. Along the way, he falls in love with a young movie star.

Like the majority of Leonard's novels, the first half of "Blue Dreams" establishes unrelated characters and then Leonard has them interact in the end with unpredictable consequences.

Leonard, who is praised for his crisp realism, never sketches a plot for his novels and always writes them longhand on custom-made, unlined yellow writing pads. His daughter Jane types up his books.

"The characters come to life and start doing things," Leonard said. "I don't think about the ending until page 300. It's the middle part that's the tough part."

Even after 62 years of writing fiction, Leonard says he does not have a favorite character.

"I like 'em all," he said. "If one doesn't work, I'll have him shot." (Editing by Eric Kelsey and Bill Trott)

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Stern Advice: Financial to do list for 2013

By Linda Stern

WASHINGTON | Mon Dec 31, 2012 8:29am EST

WASHINGTON Dec 31 (Reuters) - Make resolutions if you must: When you vow to track every dollar and never waste money again, you feel all clean and shiny for at least a few hours into the new year.

But that doesn't usually last. Resolutions get broken because they are too lofty and too ill-defined. It is better to break your resolutions down into a specific to do list: here are the money moves to make now and in the coming weeks that will insure you're in a better financial place before 2013 ends.

-- Analyze your entertainment budget. Television service used to be free, except for the electricity to run it. Now you have to choose cable versus satellite dish and then add on movies from a host of services (like Amazon, Hulu and Netflix)via a host of devices (like Roku, Apple TV and internet-enabled Blu-ray players). Monthly budgets for a family run well over $100, just for television, so it's worth figuring out what you watch and how you watch it and comparison shop for the cheapest way to do that. Often, cable and satellite providers will cut you a better deal if you say you're ready to quit their service. In today's fast-shifting environment, re-do this analysis once a year at contract renewal time.

-- Put one savings on auto-pilot. There is nothing new or revolutionary about this particular exercise, but it works. Choose a low-cost stock mutual fund from a direct-seller like Vanguard, Fidelity Investments or T. Rowe Price. Authorize the fund to sweep a set amount out of your checking account every month. Even $100 will make a difference over time. Just ignore this fund, except to watch it build over time.

-- Max out your credit cards -- not with borrowing, but with rewards. After five years of tight credit, card issuers are coming back at consumers with a new waves of rewards. Look at all of the cards you already have -- if you haven't paid them off, send all of your available money to the highest rate card until you kill the balances, one at a time, as quickly as possible. Then compare the rewards they pay for travel, groceries, gas and any other categories that are important to you. Check the best offers out there now at Nerd Wallet ().

-- Refinance your mortgage. Make your move now if you expect to be in your home for at least five years. Rates hover near historic lows, and bankers are still willing to lend money for 30 years at 3.25 percent and for 15 years at 2.5 percent. Nobody can predict when rates will rise, but they aren't likely to go down. At some point over the next 10 years, those rates are likely to look excellent. Furthermore, many people who were unable to refinance before because they didn't have enough equity in their homes may get relief from recent increases in home prices. To shop for a good rate, check the listings at MortgageMarvel.com and Bankrate.com, and compare with a couple of local mortgage lenders and your own credit union.

-- Buy life insurance. If you have a family that depends on you, and you don't already have six times your income in term coverage, it's time to buy. Rates have been falling for more than a decade, but now that's over and some are heading back up, says Byron Udell of Accuquote.com. Furthermore, some life insurance companies are giving up on some product lines that they believe are unprofitable in today's low interest rate environment. Shop for term life at Accuquote.com, Intelliquote.com and term4sale.com, and compare rates with independent firms like Geico and -- if you have a military connection -- USAA.

-- Adjust your 401(k) settings. If you just let your company auto-enroll you in the program, there's a good chance you aren't saving enough. Bump up your regular contributions at least to the level your company will match, and higher if you can afford it. Authorize the company that manages your 401(k) to rebalance your assets once a year, to keep your mix of stocks and bonds where you want it to be. That will automatically have you buying lower and selling higher.

-- Update your resume. Many workers have been stalled at work for five years or more. But the economy is improving, so it's a good time to brush up on needed skills, rewrite your resume and start networking via LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and your own personal connections. Even if you want to stay where you are, it's a good career move to stay abreast of what's going on all around.

-- Organize your info and look at your money. All good financial planning starts here. If you have balances on your credit cards, make a list of all of your cards, with their effective interest rates and balances. Your debt-payoff strategy will become clear. If you don't know how you spend your money, embrace a program like Quicken or an online aggregator like Mvelopes or Mint. Investing for retirement or otherwise? Find a program or system that allows you to track your investment mix and your returns on a quarterly basis. Set it up now, and your investment decisions will be made easier all year long.

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UPDATE 2-Publisher Tribune emerges from bankruptcy

* Former Fox Ent. Chairman Liguori may be CEO

* New board includes former execs of Yahoo, Disney

* Co includes 23 TV stations, 8 dailies

Dec 31 (Reuters) - U.S. media giant Tribune Co, owner of the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, emerged from bankruptcy on Monday, ending four years of Chapter 11 reorganization.

Chicago-based Tribune's said on Sunday that its portfolio would include eight major daily newspapers and 23 TV stations.

As part of the Chapter 11 exit, the company closed on a new $1.1 billion senior secured term loan and a new $300 million asset-based revolving credit facility.

The term loan will be used to fund certain payments under the plan of reorganization and the revolving credit facility will be used to fund ongoing operations, the company said.

Upon exiting bankruptcy, Tribune will have issued to former creditors a mix of about 100 million shares of new class A common stock and new class B common stock and new warrants to purchase shares of new class A or class B common stock.

Chief executive Eddy Hartenstein will remain in his role until the new board ratifies the company's executive officers.

The company announced a seven-person board that includes Hartenstein, former Fox Entertainment chairman Peter Liguori, former Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn and Peter Murphy, Walt Disney's former top strategic planning executive.

Liguori is expected to be named Tribune's new CEO.

In November, Tribune received regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to transfer its broadcast licenses to the owners who would take it over after emerging from bankruptcy.

The company's reorganization plan was confirmed by the Delaware bankruptcy court in July.

The case is In re: Tribune Co et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 08-13141.

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UPDATE 4-Publisher Tribune emerges from 4-year bankruptcy

* Former Discovery Comms COO Liguori expected to be CEO

* New board includes former execs of Yahoo, Disney

* LA Times could fetch $130 mln in auction-analyst

* Company includes 23 TV stations, 8 dailies

By Liana B. Baker and Ashutosh Pandey

Dec 31 (Reuters) - U.S. media giant Tribune Co emerged from bankruptcy on Monday, ending four years of Chapter 11 reorganization and potentially setting itself up for a future without newspapers.

Tribune's controlling owners, which include hedge funds Oaktree Capital and Angelo, Gordon & Co, and JPMorgan Chase & Co intend to sell most, if not all, of its newspapers and already have expressions of interest for The Los Angeles Times, The Orlando Sentinel and others, Reuters has reported.

For now at least, the Chicago-based company said its portfolio would include eight major daily newspapers and 23 TV stations.

Tribune's newspapers remain profitable despite the falloff in readers and advertising. Veteran newspaper analyst John Morton, President of Morton Research, estimated the Los Angeles Times could fetch $130 million at an auction, while the Chicago Tribune could garner $86 million in a sale.

Oaktree is the biggest Tribune shareholder, owning about 23 percent of the company while Angelo Gordon and JP Morgan each hold a 9 percent stake.

"Tribune will emerge as a dynamic multi-media company with a great mix of profitable assets, powerful brands in major markets, sufficient liquidity for operations and investments and significantly less debt," Chief Executive Eddy Hartenstein said in a statement.

As part of the Chapter 11 exit, the company closed on a new $1.1 billion senior secured term loan and a new $300 million asset-based revolving credit facility.

The term loan will be used to fund certain payments under the plan of reorganization and the revolving credit facility will be used to fund ongoing operations, the company said.

Tribune's most actively traded debt, a $5.5 billion loan due in May 2014, was most recently trading at 83 cents on the dollar, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Upon exiting bankruptcy, Tribune will have issued to former creditors a mix of about 100 million shares of new class A common stock and new class B common stock, and new warrants to purchase shares of new class A or class B common stock.

Hartenstein will remain CEO until the new Tribune board names a new management team. Peter Liguori, a former Discovery Communications chief operating officer, is expected to be named CEO.

The company announced a seven-person board that includes Hartenstein, Liguori, former Yahoo CEO Ross Levinsohn and Peter Murphy, Walt Disney's former top strategic planning executive.

Tribune is expected to focus on building its TV operations. In its portfolio, it owns WGN America, a national feed of Tribune's Chicago TV stations that it distributes through cable and satellite to more than 76 million U.S. homes.

Horizon Media analyst Brad Adgate said WGN could expand its base by 20 million to 25 million homes if it adds original programming to its lineup.

Tribune's TV operations are estimated to account for $2.85 billion of the company's $7 billion valuation, while its publishing assets are estimated to represent $623 million, according to a report by its financial advisor, Lazard. The rest of its value resides in assets including its 30 percent stake in the Food Network and its cash balance.

In November, Tribune received regulatory approval from the Federal Communications Commission to transfer its broadcast licenses to the owners who would take it over after emerging from bankruptcy.

Real estate magnate Sam Zell stunned the media industry when he took the company private in 2007 in an $8.2 billion leveraged buyout that burdened the company with debt and that many observers warned would be disastrous. Tribune was forced into bankruptcy in 2008.

The company's reorganization plan was confirmed by the Delaware bankruptcy court in July.

The case is In re: Tribune Co et al, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No. 08-13141.

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